I enjoyed this; I would consider it as lightweight easy-reading fluff, slightly redeemed by name-dropping Italian painters in a way that made me more interested in seeing their works. Or as the first of the blurbs on the cover truthfully says, "a racy and enjoyable detective story". But I wouldn't call it "funny".It is written as a succession of letters amongst the various persona; this keeps things moving, and breaks things up into easy-to-read chunks; and indeed it is very readable. But after a while it becomes a little wearing; one longs for some variety.
It looks like from this that the Pontormo frescos, and their controversial nature, were a real thing. But I'm not sure that is terribly important. It was fun reading, but I realise that it hasn't really helped my understanding of any of the painting, or of the history, since I don't know which bits are faked and which not.
Now for the downsides. On the surface, the language is relentlessly modern, which detracts from any immersion into the world; and all the characters write in much the same voice; compare to say Patrick O'Brien who provides convincing conversations. This surface of language extends to ideas; for example Our Investigator starts talking about means, motive and opportunity as though it were an Agatha Chistie.
The Wild Ride of Michelangelo is not believeable; neither that an old man could do such a thing, nor that he would find his long-disused secret entrance, nor that he could do all this unobserved. Using post-horses at the very least would have left a trail of notice in his wake. Nor do I believe that someone like him would have shaken off all his servants. Come to that, that he was the killer isn't very believable either. So rather than - as Our Ag so often manages - to have the final unmasking be a satisfying conclusion, it is more like "ho hum, I suppose the book is over then, that will have to do as an ending". Also disappointing is the Klew of the Repainted Fresco. I kinda wanted it to be someone hiding something in the wall, or something of that nature. It was distinctly unsubtle how often the book hammered home that the repainting needed to be explained. OTOH, killing with a chisel is odd - especially in a city where every gentleman and many others carry daggers - so the complete lack of interest in "why use that as a murder weapon" grates. Of course the answer is that Our Author knows it isn't an interesting clue, but Our Investigators shouldn't know it.
The sub-plot - which isn't really sub; it is more a co-plot - about the Naughty Picture is, at the end, seen to be entirely separable from the main plot; and this I think is a weakness; in a better book they would have been inseparably connected in some way. And in the end, the title is irrelevant too. It is a word related to painting, yes. And a sequence of letters gives us different perspectives, yes. But I expected more; and the out-of-place interpolations about perspective in the book make it feel like the author realised this too and needed to stuff something in.
And lastly: the wrapper for all this is Our Author finding a collection of old letters; but it seems entirely implausible that all the letters described would end up in one collection.
