‘The cover of The Genius in The Design compares its two anti-heroes with Mozart and Salieri, but this doesn’t do Jake Morrissey’s thrilling story justice ... Despite the clinical precision wit which it dissects its two subjects politicking and backstabbing, a story that ends with Borromini’s suicide, Jake Morrissey book is at best in its detailed reading of the individual buildings. The three pages he gives over to delineating Borromini’s San Carlo Cloister, for instance is a model of judicious analysis ... The book is studded with such apercus. Visitors wanting to get a handle on Rome’s architecture have hitherto had to pack both Hibbard’s Berninni and Anthony Blunt’s Borromini. Thanks to Morrissey, the need now weigh their suitcase their suitcase down with only one book ’ The Telegraph
‘With thorough scholarship and a novelist’s eye for vivid storytelling, Jake Morrissey expertly recreates a personal rivalry that sparked some of the world’s greatest architectural creations’ ’ Matthew Pearl, author of THE DANTE CLUB
