Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin
I’ve been reading this book for almost two months, and it scared me how long it took for me to finish this book. It certainly not the thickest book I’ve read (the thickest was the Complete Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, which has 10000++ pages, has small letters and took the 12-years-old me more than a year to finish half of it. Then I kinda gave up.). It only has 400++ pages and the letters are quite big, yet I took almost two months. My worst record, I supposed.
Anyway, I love this book to bits. Yes, I love everything about this book. The characters, the events and the plotline. I think that’s the reason why I delayed finishing the book; I just don’t want it to end.
The book, Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin, is about Matteo and the journey about his life. In the early part of the stories, he met with Leornardo da Vinci and became his servant. However, along with him, he brought along a secret that both the Borgia and Medici would kill to have.
Not really the type of book that I usually read, but I got myself immersed in it. It’s started by how Janek (that’s Matteo’s real name, anyway) was running away from Sandrio’s group (he’s the bad guy) after helping them to steal the Medici Seal. The 10-years-old kid was scared to death when Sandrio killed the Father who helped them, without knowing that the group was actually working for the Borgia family instead of the Medici family. That was how he met Leonardo da Vinci, who then took him in into his household.
For the next eight years, Matteo lived along with the Da Vinci household, holding his real name and secret to himself, knowing that everyone around him will be killed if Sandrio’s group find him.
Living with Leonardo, he learned to read and write, and Leonardo noticed his observation eyes, intellectual mind and ways of thinking. He quickly became Leonardo’s favourite servant who he always brings with him when he went out to… er, study human anatomy (by all means, that means cutting up corpses to see what caused that person’s death and how human body functions).
Only by the last part of the book, when Matteo was in a war, and at the same time running away from the Medici family that he found out the truth: the secret treasure that both the Borgia and the Medici families want was not only the Medici Seal, but also Matteo himself. He was the son of Jacopo de’ Medici, sent to live with his grandmother because of the threats he might have from living with his father. His real name is Jacomo de’ Medici (what kind of name is that??)
One part that I loved the most in Matteo (yes, I preferred to call him that) and his father’s conversation was this:
Matteo: I have only just now discovered that we have kinship.
Jacopo: *snapped* I would term it more than mere kinship! I am your father.
Matteo: While you pursued your own life, others fulfilled that role.
That got to hurt, isn’t it, Jacopo?
Matteo really loved Leonardo da Vinci like his own father. When he joined the war without telling the household about it (he was supposed to go studying in a medical school in Parvia, sponsored by Leonardo’s friend), he was worried of the household’s reactions: angry or might just abandon him. When he received a letter telling him about he had made them worried, he was almost in tears.
In the end, Matteo joined his father in the Medici family, married a lady companion of Lucrezia Borgia, Lady Eleanora d’Alciato, and continued his study as a doctor by the age of 18. Leonardo da Vinci still called him Matteo, though.
Following this book and Matteo’s life was interesting, from when he was a gypsy boy, became Leonardo da Vinci’s servant boy, joining the war due to his bond with a friend, falling in love and finding the real him. And his interactions with the da Vinci’s household was interesting: how they taught him to dance, etc. And admittedly, Leonardo’s attention towards him can almost be… ambiguous at times. ^__^;;
Finished with one book, another… *counts* 40 books to go. *sweats*