Looted Florentine Art in The Last Masterpiece by Laura Morelli

Join me as chat with Laura  Morelli, author of six novels listed on Art In FIction: The Gondola Maker in the Other category, and five novels in the Visual Arts category, including The Painter's Apprentice, The Giant, The Night Portrait, The Stolen Lady, and The Last Masterpiece, that we will be chatting about in this episode.

View the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/K1Zru2kCdtQ

• Genesis for The Last Masterpiece
• A tale of two heroines--one American and one Austrian on opposite sides of the war
• Fascination with how different stories were constructed around a series of historical events related to works of art
• Why Florence? Its role as a mecca for art historians and the WWII experience
• How the blowing up of Florence's bridges in WWII forms the lynchpin in the novel
• The remains of medieval houses in Florence--what we can still see today
• How Laura discovered a real person very much like her fictional Ava, a German photographer named Hilda Lotz Bauer
• The experiences of a WAC in Italy in WWII and the role they played in the war effort
• Shades of grey in how art was handled both by the Allied and the Axis sides in WWII
• Media and misinformation in WWII
• What is the appeal of Art In Fiction? Laura answers!
• Reading from The Last Masterpiece
• One thing Laura learned from writing her novels that she didn't know before

Press Play now & be sure to check out Laura Morelli's novels on Art In Fiction: https://www.artinfiction.com/novels?q=laura+morelli

Laura Morelli's website: https://lauramorelli.com/

Music Credit
Paganology, performed by The Paul Plimley Trio; composed by Gregg Simpson

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Transcript

Carol Cram

Hello and welcome. I'm Carol Cram, host of The Art in Fiction podcast. This episode features Laura Morelli, author of six novels listed on Art in Fiction: The Gondola Maker in the Other category, and five novels in the Visual Arts category, including The Painter's Apprentice, The Giant, The Night Portrait, The Stolen Lady, and The Last Masterpiece, which we will be chatting about in this episode. 

Laura Morelli is a Yale educated art historian and USA TODAY best-selling author. Laura has taught college students in the U.S. and in Italy, and has covered art and authentic travel for TED Ed, National Geographic Traveler, and Italy Magazine. Laura is the author of the Authentic Arts Guidebook series that includes Made in Italy. She lives in Georgia with her husband and four children. 

Welcome to the Art In Fiction Podcast, Laura. 

Laura Morelli

Hi, Carol. Nice to see you. 

Carol Cram

I'm just thrilled to have you back on The Art In Fiction Podcast. As I just mentioned, you were my second interview way back in 2020. And you are also the first author who's been on twice. 

Laura Morelli

Is that right? Wow. I'm so flattered. Thank you. 

Carol Cram

Yes. So, when I first interviewed you back in 2020, you had three novels published, and now you have six. So, your last two novels have been set in World War II, and today we're going to talk about The Last Masterpiece. Do you want to start off by telling us a little bit about the genesis of that novel?

Laura Morelli

Yes. The Last Masterpiece is set primarily in Florence during World War II, and we follow two main characters, one American woman and one German woman, who are sent to Italy to work with art. I wanted to look at the war in Florence specifically from these different perspectives, from these outside perspectives, the perspective of someone on the Allied side, and the perspective of someone on the Axis side.

As I've researched the period of World War II in Italy, one of the things that's always struck me is how different the points of view were about what was happening, specifically in Italy. If you remember your World War II history, you know that Italy began the war on the side of Adolf Hitler, and then in 1943 they did an about face and allied themselves with the Anglo Americans, and it was a very complicated period in history with lots of different interpretations about what was actually going on there, depending on where you were in the world, what newspapers you were reading, what news you were getting on the radio.

And that fascinated me, to see all of these different stories that were constructed around this series of historical events, particularly when it came to works of art. And that is really my main focus in historical fiction. I love writing about the visual arts. I'm an art historian by training, and so that was kind of the lens through which I wanted to approach this novel.

Carol Cram

I just loved reading about all of the masterpieces all the way through the novel. You mentioned all these fabulous pieces of work - I've seen a lot of them - ones that were in the Uffizi and all over the place. It's a real love letter to Florence, isn't it? So why Florence? What is so wonderful about Florence? 

Laura Morelli

Well, anybody who loves art history as I do is enamored with Florence. It's really kind of like the Mecca for an art historian. It's the birthplace of the Renaissance. There are hundreds of museums and historical monuments and so many things to see, so many important things to see.

And for World War II, it's such a dramatic and terrifying time in history for the city. I mean, who would be responsible for protecting all of those hundreds of museums and churches and works of art, priceless works of art, everything from Michelangelo's David to Botticelli's Primavera to all of the other treasures of the Uffizi Galleries, of the Pitti Palace.

Just think about being a curator or museum director or someone working for the Ministry of Culture whose job it would have been to protect those priceless works of just human heritage, protect the cradle of Western civilization from warfare coming from the sky. And so that was really something that I thought about a lot.

Many people don't realize that all of the historic bridges spanning the Arno River were exploded by the retreating Germans, all except for the Ponte Vecchio, this beautiful medieval bridge that most visitors to Florence flock to at some point during their visit to the city. But it was such a pivotal night when those bridges were blown and I knew from the beginning that the blowing of the bridges would be the middle of the story, it would be the lynchpin, the kind of turning point.

For both of our characters, it's that blowing of the bridges that separated the two banks of the Arno, separated people as if they were separated by the Atlantic Ocean. For months, they couldn't really travel across the river very easily. And that was such a pivotal moment for me, both just in terms of historical events, but also in the story arcs of our two main characters.

Carol Cram

That scene when they blew up the bridges just literally blew me away because I actually did not know that. I didn't know that they had blown up all the bridges. Have they rebuilt them the way they were? 

Laura Morelli

So, yes, to a certain degree. The bridge that is just one over from the Ponte Vecchio was in part designed by Michelangelo and some later artists as well.

And eventually the Florentines were able to fish some sculptures out of the Arno and put them back together. They were able to kind of reconstruct the bridges, the way that they looked at that time. So, I think it's interesting, but many people don't really know this history.

You know Tuscany very well and you've written about the towers of Tuscany and you know that Tuscan towns in the Middle Ages were characterized by these kind of medieval skyscrapers, these tall skinny towers, and prior to World War II, the banks of the Arno on either side were lined by these tower houses, these multi-story-tall skinny houses that were so characteristic of the cityscape and the skyline.

We all look at Florence today and we think about Brunelleschi's famous octagonal dome or the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and these monuments that we know so well and not in the Florentine cityscape. But, you know, it hasn't been that long ago that these tower houses were also a feature of the Florentine landscape.

And when the bridges were bombed, unfortunately, we lost many of those tower houses and those medieval structures that were on either side of the Arno River. 

Carol Cram

That was really news to me because I was in Florence not very long ago, and stayed right on the Arno, and I didn't remember any towers, so that's so tragic. I did not know that it had been lined with medieval houses like San Gimignano where my novel is set. That's fascinating. 

Laura Morelli

So next time you're in Florence, look when you walk close to the river in the historic center, there are some of these medieval tower houses left several blocks back from the water. And so, if you kind of keep your eyes open, you can see it, maybe some of them are no longer there at eight stories high, but maybe you can see one that's four or five stories high. And then right next door, there is a building from the 1960s. And then on the other side, there's a building from the ’50s. And once you start to see that, then you can say, okay, now I see that there are these little vestiges here and there.

These tower houses or whatever was next door to it were destroyed during the war and then rebuilt in a modern style. So, Florence really is a pastiche and as you walk those blocks toward the river and you're consciously looking for that, you'll begin to see it and recognize it.

Carol Cram

I wanted to talk a little bit about your two main characters. Let's start with Ava, I really liked Ava. She's a fascinating character. She's the young Austrian woman who's involved in preserving the artwork from the German side.

And I read in your author's notes that you actually discovered a real Ava, even though your Ava is fictional. So, tell us a little bit about that. 

Laura Morelli

I did. Yes. It was a moment in my research that really made me gasp out loud. I couldn't believe it, but I had been working on this book for a while before I had the opportunity to go to Florence in person and check some of my research.

It was during COVID lockdown. There was a period when I was working on the book when it wasn't possible to travel. And as soon as they lifted some of the more severe COVID restrictions in Italy, I got on the first plane and I went to the German Art History Institute, which is a scholarly organization institute.

It's been in Florence since the 19th century. And, you know, we in America have similar things. We have the American Academy in Rome and these other scholarly institutions and other places in the world. And the Germans are really well known for this. They have the Goethe Institute and these scholarly institutions around the world.

And they very kindly agreed to talk to me about this project, host me there for a while, let me talk with some of the scholars that have been working on various projects about Germans in Florence. And I met with the photography curator there who said to me “Have you ever heard of Hilda Lotz Bauer?”

And I said “No, I haven't heard of her”. And she brought me into the archive and started to show me these photographs that were taken by a female photographer during World War II who came to Florence specifically to document allied damage to monuments during the first part of the war. So, this would have been British warplanes that were dropping bombs on Florence at the time that it was occupied by German soldiers.

Well, I found so many incredible parallels between this real-life German female photographer who had been called to Florence to take these documentary photographs and my own made-up character of Ava. And I was just amazed to see how many parallels there were between this fictional and this real-life character.

So, it was one of the coolest moments in the work that I did on this book was. to discover her, and I was so grateful to this researcher at the German Art History Institute for introducing me to her. She's a fascinating woman, and there's been some recent exhibitions of her photography in Italy and in Germany as well.

Carol Cram

Oh wow, so she became quite well known then. 

Laura Morelli

I don't know that I would go that far, but recently people have rediscovered her work and started to, rightfully so, exhibit some of her photographs. So, really cool. 

Carol Cram

What a great thing when you have created a character and then you discover that there was a character or a person, a real person, that was pretty similar. And Ava, of course, plays a very important role in the novel.  

Laura Morelli

One of the things I wanted to do was show how the characters, opinions and perspectives of what's happening around them sort of change over the course of the novel.

Carol Cram

Yes, they do. And they both do. Let's talk a little bit about Josie, who is our American character, and her experience as a WAC is absolutely fascinating. So, tell us a little bit about the role that women played at that period in the war. 

Laura Morelli

So, I really enjoyed researching Josie's background. She is a WAC, a member of the Women's Army Corps, and during World War II, this was the first time that American women were embedded with American troops on the ground as kind of full-fledged members of the Army. Certainly, women have played very important roles in the military. Before World War II, if you think about all of the nurses, for example, who have done so much work over the course of many conflicts, but during World War II, it was really the first time, it was kind of an experiment for the army to bring women in and give them jobs like telephone operators, stenographers, logistics personnel, cooks, all of these things that could be done just behind the front lines. So, they were a little bit behind the scenes, but not too far behind the very front lines. And they were following the soldiers up the boot of Italy from Sicily all the way to the Alps.

And so, what a fascinating phenomenon to research. I spent some time in the archives of the Women's Army Museum at Fort Lee, Virginia, reading a lot of the firsthand letters and diaries and looking at photographs of these women. And so, the character of Josie Evans is based on not one particular WAC, but she's inspired by all of these amazing women's stories.

And what I really loved about researching the Fifth Army WACs was that I kept waiting to read about these epic stories of bravery and heroism and all of these things that you expect to read from a World War II soldier. And yet their diaries and their letters and everything they wrote home and wrote to each other and about their experiences was so real.

And so, some of them were funny and just pointed out humorous anecdotes. They were very focused on daily life. There were so many stories that for a historical novelist, so many details when we research a historical novel, we're always looking for these details. Before we started recording, you were talking to me about going to England to hear the sound of a loom in Northern England.

And those are the things, the details, we live for, and these accounts had things like making apple pies and throwing one in the back of a jeep to go to Pompeii for the day, or decorating a room of the palace at Caserta for a Christmas dance, or hanging things on the line outside the tents, or opening mail and just these very small little kind of mundane details of daily living as a first female soldier and or not a soldier, but a first female army personnel, following these guys right behind the front lines.

And that was really so much fun to research. 

Carol Cram

Oh, it would be because there's so many stories. Yeah, so there's still so much scope. I mean, World War II, it's kind of endless, isn't it? With the number of stories that we could comb from. And I love that you've taken in your novels, your World War II novels, it's all about the art.

And what I enjoyed about The Last Masterpiece is that both sides, the Germans and the Allies, really did genuinely care about the art. It didn't end so well on the German side and, you know, Hitler was actually willing to blow it all up. And that was true, wasn't it? 

Laura Morelli

Yes, absolutely. You know, we tend to look back at history sometimes and see things in black and white, but when you look at this situation of art preservation during World War II and Italy, even with all of these sides, it's every shade of gray. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to make Ava a photographer because it gave me an opportunity to explore how we see things and how they're not always black and white, but you have all of this range of gray.

And certainly, there were many Germans who were helping and collaborating with their Italian colleagues to remove works of art, and hide them so that they wouldn't be bombed, wrap them, crate them, protect them. There were some German scholars on the ground working with their Italian colleagues to help catalog and hide things and preserve things.

And so it's not at all that these are the bad guys and these are the good guys. It was very convoluted and even our kind of arch enemy in this book, which I won't spoil, is really the best kind of villain, I think, because I think the best kinds of villains aren't 100 percent bad. They have some good qualities, just like a good guy is not always 100 percent good.

I mean, this is how human beings really behave. And so, this was a fun book to write from that perspective, to explore all those different alliances and this very slippery kind of situation that many of them found themselves in as things got really heated and the battle moved toward the city.

Carol Cram

Yeah, it really was very gray, wasn't it? Because even on the Allied side, there was pilfering that took place. People did slip a few paintings and took them away. So, it wasn't just good and bad, was it? There was a lot of variety. I found that that was very interesting in this book, especially to find from the German side just how much they did want to preserve it all until the end. They were making a concerted effort. But the other thing that I also found in this novel that is such a parallel to today is the use of misinformation. Do you want to comment a little about that and also how it relates to today and how we consume our news?

Laura Morelli

Yeah, there was something in researching the media during this time, the news reports on the radio, the newspapers, the way in which Germans were getting information, English Americans were getting information, that felt very relevant and contemporary in today's culture to me, to realize how divisive some of these things were and just the spread of information that was just wrong or was heavily biased from one side or the other.

And I found that really fascinating and that was one of the things that I wanted to explore as I developed these two characters on opposite sides, looking at the same set of historical circumstances and finding themselves in the same place in the same time, but having this experience of looking at them in completely different ways.

Carol Cram

So, both of your characters talk a lot about the importance of art, of preserving art. So why? Why is art so important? I mean, I know the answer to that, but I'm interested to hear what you will say for that. 

Laura Morelli

Yeah, so this always is something that I grapple with and I think about deeply whenever I'm working on a World War II novel because certainly I think anyone who was a professional working with art during this time, whether they were a curator or an artist or really anyone working or experiencing art and historical monuments and history during that time, had to weigh the value of a human life versus the value of an inanimate object, of a work of art.

And, you know, which one is more important to save if you're in a situation where you have to choose one, and there was a lot of rulemaking at the time about what could be bombed, what couldn't be bombed, on both sides.

There were, both at the top echelons of the military, as well as at the government level, all kinds of negotiations about you can bomb the train station, but please don't bomb the cathedral next door. You know, things like that that were going on. We saw the establishment of the Monuments Men and Women. There was a similar organization in Germany called the Kunstschutz, whose aim was to preserve works of art during wartime. And so, we see this preoccupation. And you know, you do ask why. It's a situation that forces you to question the value of works of art and historical monuments when these things are threatened in wartime.

And what helped me think about this, specifically for Italy, was to go back and read the primary sources, which I always do when I research a historical novel, but in this case to really read what the Italians and the Florentines themselves had to say about why they were going to these incredible lengths.

I mean, you can't believe the scale of what they did and how quickly they did it. If you've ever tried to get anything done in Italy, it's amazing how quickly they wrapped up everything in the Uffizi and took it away into hiding. I mean, it happened rapidly. And if you read what the curators, museum directors, custodians of these great treasures said about it, it is very, clear that they saw these works of art as symbols of something much greater than themselves.

You know, they saw them as symbols of themselves as Florentines, as Italians, but also as representative of the best of human creation and Western civilization and the destruction of a historic monument or a work of art was like a death. And I read the accounts of people, the Florentines, seeing the destruction after the night that the bridges were bombed, for example, there's this collective grief that was like reading about someone who lost a loved one. And so certainly there was a lot written in that vein about the importance of preserving works of art and about protecting them from damage, whether it was accidental or  on purpose.

And, you know, the importance of keeping the works of art near their place of origin and, you know, certainly in Italy. So, to steal something and take it far away, even to the Lake District of Northern Italy, was for the Florentines  unacceptable. You know, most of these works that are in the Uffizi galleries today were in the collection of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany.

And, you know, there's a document that states that their collection could never leave the confines of Tuscany. And so, for hundreds of works of art to be taken to the Alps was just a travesty. It really is fascinating to read what people had to say at the time and how they justified, the protection of these works of art and the lengths they went to protect it.

Carol Cram

Yes, because it really makes me want to go back and look at those artworks. I think anybody reading your novel will be going to the art history books and having a look at all of the many, many masterpieces that you talk about. Because you really do underscore just how important they are to human history and to the history of humanity.

These incredible works of beauty and of faith that people created through the centuries. I think that's one of the best things about this novel, is just that celebration of great art. 

So, you and I, of course, have teamed up to do a presentation on art in fiction for the Historical Novel Society. Why do you think people like to read about art in fiction? 

Laura Morelli

Oh, there's so many reasons. But I think that on the one hand, we're fascinated by people's work. We like to watch TV shows or movies that feature how things are made, for example, I think, and anybody who makes something by hand, it's interesting to watch them.

So, there's part of that, then certainly, the life of an artist is romanticized in our culture. Artists often live interesting and sometimes dramatic or tumultuous lives. And so, we like to read about those characters in fiction. I think that we do like to reach for these things that are aspirational in our culture, to read about something great that was created and why.

And so there's just so many reasons I think why a work of art or an artist or a group of works of art or a historical building might make a great topic for a historical novel, and I love to read novels that center around works of art or artists lives. 

Carol Cram

Fortunately, lots of other authors like to write them as well, because at the moment we've got over 2, 200 novels on Art In Fiction. So yeah, it's an amazing area for an historical novelist to look at. 

Laura Morelli

Yes, and artinfiction.com is the first place I go when I'm looking for my next thing to read because there's so many great books there and often I go there and I think, Oh, I don't know this one, or that sounds so interesting.

So, kudos to you for putting that together because there's so many hidden treasures there. 

Carol Cram

I'm always amazed what we come up with. There's new novels coming out all the time.

So, would you like to do a reading from The Last Masterpiece?

Laura Morelli

Sure, I'll just read a brief, passage, and this is from about a quarter way through the novel. I'm going to read a section of Ava's part. She's just spent a little bit of time in Rome, where, without spoiling it, I'll say that she's seen something shocking that has to do with art, and now she has returned to her work in Florence.

It's a relief to return to Florence to leave behind the oppressive heavy air of Rome and return to the now familiar warren of streets in the Oltrarno, to the sound of clinking spoons and expresso machines in the Piazza Santo Spirito. But since our return to Florence, the city lies enshrouded in fog, its buildings shuttered, its streets empty of all but the occasional lone figure on an inevitable errand.

At all the city's monuments, laborers are throwing heavy sandbags into fresh stacks. They pile up before the portals of the cathedral, sending up dusty clouds along the pink and green marble slabs of its flanks. The octagonal baptistry with its matching medieval marble patchwork is surrounded by sacks of sand.

Sheets of plywood cover the gaping holes where Lorenzo Ghiberti's famous bronze doors should be. Professor Heidenreich tells me the bronze doors have been removed to a railroad tunnel in the countryside for safety from the Allied bombs. I lift my Leica and frame one of the Italian laborers in the viewfinder.

The skinny young man lifts the sandbag and tosses it into the stack, the muscles of his forearms twitching. Snap, snap, snap. I capture several frames, the fluid movement of the man's body and the black and white pillows of the sandbags in motion. I lower my camera and check the aperture settings, watching my breath make puffs of vapor in the cold air.

Ever since I arrived in Florence months ago, I've assumed what everyone has told me to be true, that we're on a noble quest, that our efforts will protect, safeguard the masterpieces in our care, that if we, if it were not for the efforts of the Germans and Austrian art officials, the entire artistic patrimony of the Italian nation would be in peril.

That I myself signed up to join this cause, a minor, an unsung cog in a giant wheel. Was I wrong to assume such a thing? Is it true that a regiment of German soldiers might steal a truckload of paintings right out from under the noses of these Italian custodians whose job it is to protect them? Outside Rudolf Levy's room at the Pensione Bandini, I find the sisters removing his belongings to the hallway.

I put my cameras away in the armoire on the stair landing and watch the sisters bring out a battered suitcase, a leather waist belt full of stained paintbrushes, and a few white rolled canvases to the hallway, like a pile of refuse to be gathered and discarded. It was a trap. The Gestapo lured Levy down the street.

Where they could arrest and deport him. We all thought he was part of our group, just an organization of Germans working together for the greater good for art. Before I assumed so many things, but I don't know what I believe anymore. 

Carol Cram

So, there's the central dilemma that Ava had. Thank you so much. I love that passage that you read, because it also shows your incredible eye for detail in your writing.

I, as a novelist myself, really admire how you just get these little details that you sprinkle all the way through. Is that something you really enjoy doing? 

Laura Morelli

Thank you. Yes, I love sensory detail especially, and as a reader of historical fiction, I really love it. So, I love to read anything that helps me hear, smell, taste what it's like to be on a street, whether it's in Kenya or Japan or somewhere in Europe or the wild west. I really appreciate it when a historical novelist has provided a lot of sensory detail because I do think it helps pull us down into the story and immerses us in the past.

Carol Cram

Yes, I found it very inspiring myself as I'm working away on one of my books, and I kind of put more details in just like Laura does. 

What would you say is the theme of The Last Masterpiece? 

Laura Morelli

Oh, it's a good question. I think about the price and the cost associated with protecting precious objects. And I think about that a lot. I think it's a theme that comes up often when we think about art preservation during wartime. And so art and World War II are, obviously, there's so many things there. 

Carol Cram

Are there more stories to come? 

Laura Morelli

So, I have a new book coming out in the spring of 2025 called The Keeper of Lost Art. It's also a World War II book and it sort of came out of the same research that I did for The Last Masterpiece. One of the amazing parts of this story is that outside of Florence in the Tuscan countryside, there were several dozen hiding places for these works that were these museum treasures, some of them were privately owned or state owned villas, and they were places that maybe no one would have imagined that it that it might hold several hundred works of art from the Uffizi.

And, you know, the other books that I've written that are set during World War II tend to be more sweeping in terms of the geography, but I wanted to write a book that was a little bit of a palate cleanser. So, the new book takes place, the entire story takes place, inside the walls of one villa, and it's a villa where Botticelli's Primavera was hidden for the length of the war.

And it's based on a true story, an amazing true story, about a villa that hid several hundred works of art that came out of the Uffizi's collection and was also requisitioned by not one but more than one German regiment of soldiers during the time. So, it's really an amazing true story. I really enjoyed writing it and, I have just enjoyed the change of scenery, to move to a very small setting from these larger sweeping settings.

Carol Cram

And that one's coming out in the spring. 

Laura Morelli

April 2025. 

Carol Cram

So, are you working on one right now? Because I gather that one's already written. 

Laura Morelli

Yes, I have a new project that I'm working on that is not a World War II book. And I'm in the research phase right now, which I must admit is one of my very favorite parts of working on a book.

So, I'm having a good time with that and getting ready to go off on another research jaunt here pretty soon. 

Carol Cram

And that one is to also to do with visual art? 

Laura Morelli

Oh, yes. Yes. I don't write anything else. That's true. 

Carol Cram

You're  one of the poster girls for Art in Fiction. As I said, we've got six of yours now on the website.

So, one of my goals with The Art In Fiction podcast is to inspire other authors. What's one thing you've learned from writing your historical novels that you didn't know before? 

Laura Morelli

Oh, it's such a good question. I guess I always knew as a reader and a fan of historical fiction that a novel is such a cool way to experience history.

And, you know, especially coming from an academic background, I appreciate how differently a novel can help us experience history, but I've also found that to be true as a writer of historical fiction, that it is such an enriching experience to do the research and to really grapple with some of these questions and themes that we've talked about and to learn things that, you know, you made up and then you found out were true.

Like I mentioned, or, you know, you make these amazing discoveries. And so fiction, even though it's made up, allows us to experience history in such an enriching way. And I really feel very fortunate to be able to write historical fiction because it is really an amazing project.

Every book is an amazing project to work on. 

Carol Cram

Yes. So, because you went from being an academic to becoming a historical novelist, didn't you? 

Laura Morelli

That's right. Yes. 

Carol Cram

I love it too for that ability to tell stories and to bring history alive. It's quite amazing. Thanks so much, Laura, for chatting with me today. It's just been so great to get caught up. 

Laura Morelli

It was my pleasure, Carol. Anytime. Thank you so much. 

Carol Cram

I've been speaking with Laura Morelli, author of six novels listed on Art In Fiction, including The Last Masterpiece, The Stolen Lady, The Night Portrait, The Giant, and The Painter's Apprentice, listed in the Visual Arts category, and The Gondola Maker, listed in the Other category, at www.artinfiction.com.

Be sure to check the show notes for a link to Laura's website at www.lauramarelli.com. You'll also find a 20 percent discount on a subscription to ProWritingAid, a fantastic editing tool for writers. 

If you are enjoying The Art In Fiction Podcast, please help us keep the lights on by making a donation to the Ko-Fi websiteThe link is in the show notes. Also, please follow Art In Fiction on Facebook and X. And don't forget to give The Art In Fiction Podcast a positive review or rating wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening.