Reviews

Fra Noi, February 2020  “What an odd yet fascinating book. Allison Levy has produced a daring combination of intimate personal memoir and scholarly detective story ... the book is an accessible and interesting read.”—Judith Testa

Hyperallergic, August 2019 “House of Secrets: The Many Lives of a Florentine Palazzo is about what happens when a staid historian eschews the strictly academic for the adventure of real life. And it’s about the astonishing accretion of significant human history within the walls of a single home … Allison Levy’s account of a family home is also a tour and tutorial on Renaissance history, another way of relaying Western art history itself. For that alone, House of Secrets is revelatory. But there’s so much more, a whole memory palace embodied by the Palazzo Rucellai for which Levy — author, art historian, inhabitant — is the ideal guide.“—Bridget Quinn

Times Literary Supplement, July 2019 "As a taster volume on what must be one of the most consistently interesting cities on the planet, House of Secrets has much to recommend it. Levy's writing is pacy … witty, and she deploys a wide range of materials well."—Keith Miller

Literary Review, April 2019  “The façade of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence is a hidden Renaissance gem. Embedded in a maze of small streets, it’s hard to get a proper perspective; those who make the effort usually know their architectural history … In essence, the story of the palace is the story of the Renaissance. So imagine her excitement when the young American art historian Allison Levy, on a year away from the academic hamster wheel, managed to rent a tiny apartment behind the palazzo’s closed doors. House of Secrets is the fruit of her academic gap year … with herself as a player in the story, adding her own layer of history to the palimpsest beneath … Most of the heirlooms belonging to families like the Rucellai have long gone, but America’s admiration of and commitment to Florence has continued unstinting. Without the armies of brilliant scholars from America, Renaissance history would be so much poorer.”—Sarah Dunant

Wisconsin Bookwatch, March 2019, Reviewer’s Choice. “A unique and riveting read from cover to cover, House of Secrets is a deftly written extraordinary story that will prove to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to community library collections. This is the kind of extended yet personally resonating history that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf.”