Download or read book Virtues for the People written by Geert Roskam and published by Universitaire Pers Leuven. This book was released on 2011 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays addresses Plutarch's writings on practical ethics from different perspectives, including regarding their overall structure, content, purpose, and underlying philosophical and social presuppositions.

Download or read book Between Occultism and Nazism written by Peter Staudenmaier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between Nazism and occultism has been an object of fascination and speculation for decades. Peter Staudenmaier’s Between Occultism and Nazism provides a detailed historical examination centered on the anthroposophist movement founded by Rudolf Steiner. Its surprising findings reveal a remarkable level of Nazi support for Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming, and other anthroposophist initiatives, even as Nazi officials attempted to suppress occult tendencies. The book also includes an analysis of anthroposophist involvement in the racial policies of Fascist Italy. Based on extensive archival research, this study offers rich material on controversial questions about the nature of esoteric spirituality and alternative cultural ideals and their political resonance.

Download or read book Botticelli Past and Present written by Ana Debenedetti and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The recent exhibitions dedicated to Botticelli around the world show, more than ever, the significant and continued debate about the artist. Botticelli Past and Present engages with this debate. The book comprises four thematic parts, spanning four centuries of Botticelli’s artistic fame and reception from the fifteenth century. Each part comprises a number of essays and includes a short introduction which positions them within the wider scholarly literature on Botticelli. The parts are organised chronologically beginning with discussion of the artist and his working practice in his own time, moving onto the progressive rediscovery of his work from the late eighteenth to the turn of the twentieth century, through to his enduring impact on contemporary art and design. Expertly written by researchers and eminent art historians and richly illustrated throughout, the broad range of essays in this book make a valuable contribution to Botticelli studies.

Download or read book The Shapes of Knowledge from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment written by D.R. Kelley and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The original idea for a conference on the "shapes of knowledge" dates back over ten years to conversations with the late Charles Schmitt of the Warburg Institute. What happened to the classifications of the sciences between the time of the medieval Studium and that of the French Encyclopedie is a complex and highly abstract question; but posing it is an effective way of mapping and evaluating long term intellectual changes, especially those arising from the impact of humanist scholarship, the new science of the seventeenth century, and attempts to evaluate, to apply, to reconcile, and to institutionalize these rival and interacting traditions. Yet such patterns and transformations cannot be well understood from the heights of the general history of ideas. Within the ~eneral framework of the organization of knowledge the map must be filled in by particular explorations and soundings, and our project called for a conference that would combine some encyclopedic (as well as interdisciplinary and inter national) breadth with scholarly and technical depth.

Download or read book Divination on stage written by Folke Gernert and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magicians, necromancers and astrologers are assiduous characters in the European golden age theatre. This book deals with dramatic characters who act as physiognomists or palm readers in the fictional world and analyses the fictionalisation of physiognomic lore as a practice of divination in early modern Romance theatre from Pietro Aretino and Giordano Bruno to Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Thomas Corneille.

Download or read book Painting in Stone written by Fabio Barry and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stone Spanning almost five millennia, Painting in Stone tells a new history of premodern architecture through the material of precious stone. Lavishly illustrated examples include the synthetic gems used to simulate Sumerian and Egyptian heavens; the marble temples and mansions of Greece and Rome; the painted palaces and polychrome marble chapels of early modern Italy; and the multimedia revival in 19th-century England. Poetry, the lens for understanding costly marbles as an artistic medium, summoned a spectrum of imaginative associations and responses, from princes and patriarchs to the populace. Three salient themes sustained this “lithic imagination”: marbles as images of their own elemental substance according to premodern concepts of matter and geology; the perceived indwelling of astral light in earthly stones; and the enduring belief that colored marbles exhibited a form of natural—or divine—painting, thanks to their vivacious veining, rainbow palette, and chance images.

Download or read book The Red Jews written by Andrew Colin Gow and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1995 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German legend of the Red Jews, a medieval conflation of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel with the biblical destroyers Gog and Magog, articulated throughout the Middle Ages and well into the sixteenth century a fundamentally antisemitic strain of popular apocalypticism. This undigested piece of medievalia disappeared as more strictly biblical narratives of the End replaced medieval myth. As a result, the Red Jews have not been noticed by modern historians though they were a universally-known feature of German apocalyptic belief for over three centuries.

Download or read book Imaging Aristotle written by Claire Richter Sherman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A truly outstanding and distinguished work. . . . Sherman breaks important new ground in her exploration of the illustrated manuscripts as cultural artifacts and cognitive structures."--Suzanne Lewis, author of "The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora" "A superior analysis of little-known material. . . . Sherman's analysis of text and image is one of the most sophisticated that I have read in recent years."--Anne D. Hedeman, author of "The Royal Image"

Download or read book The Role of Magic in the Past written by Blanka Szeghyová and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book To Each His Own written by Leonardo Sciascia and published by Black and White Series. This book was released on 1992 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a short, powerful novel dealing with the complicities and accomodations of power within Italian politics.

Download or read book Discourse on the State of the Jews written by Simone Luzzatto and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-07-08 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1638, a small book of no more than 92 pages in octavo was published “appresso Gioanne Calleoni” under the title “Discourse on the State of the Jews and in particular those dwelling in the illustrious city of Venice.” It was dedicated to the Doge of Venice and his counsellors, who are labelled “lovers of Truth.” The author of the book was a certain Simone (Simḥa) Luzzatto, a native of Venice, where he lived and died, serving as rabbi for over fifty years during the course of the seventeenth century. Luzzatto’s political thesis is simple and, at the same time, temerarious, if not revolutionary: Venice can put an end to its political decline, he argues, by offering the Jews a monopoly on overseas commercial activity. This plan is highly recommendable because the Jews are “wellsuited for trade,” much more so than others (such as “foreigners,” for example). The rabbi opens his argument by recalling that trade and usury are the only occupations permitted to Jews. Within the confines of their historical situation, the Venetian Jews became particularly skilled at trade with partners from the Eastern Mediterranean countries. Luzzatto’s argument is that this talent could be put at the service of the Venetian government in order to maintain – or, more accurately, recover – its political importance as an intermediary between East and West. He was the first to define the role of the Jews on the basis of their economic and social functions, disregarding the classic categorisation of Judaism’s alleged privileged religious status in world history. Nonetheless, going beyond the socio-economic arguments of the book, it is essential to point out Luzzatto’s resort to sceptical strategies in order to plead in defence of the Venetian Jews. It is precisely his philosophical and political scepticism that makes Luzzatto’s texts so unique. This edition aims to grant access to his works and thought to English-speaking readers and scholars. By approaching his texts from this point of view, the editors hope to open a new path in research into Jewish culture and philosophy that will enable other scholars to develop new directions and new perspectives, stressing the interpenetration between Jews and the surrounding Christian and secular cultures.

Download or read book The Baptized Muse written by Karla Pollmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-02 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. With the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire increasing numbers of educated people converted to this new belief. As Christianity did not have its own educational institutions the issue of how to harmonize pagan education and Christian convictions became increasingly pressing. Especially classical poetry, the staple diet of pagan education, was considered to be morally corrupting (due to its deceitful mythological content) and damaging for the salvation of the soul (because of the false gods it advocated). But Christianity recoiled from an unqualified anti-intellectual attitude, while at the same time the experiment of creating an idiosyncratic form of genuinely Christian poetry failed (the sole exception being the poet Commodianus). In The Baptized Muse: Early Christian Poetry as Cultural Authority, Karla Pollmann argues that, instead, Christian poets made creative use of the classical literary tradition, and—in addition to blending it with Judaeo-Christian biblical exegesis—exploited poetry's special ability of enhancing communicative effectiveness and impact through aesthetic means. Pollman explores these strategies through a close analysis of a wide range of Christian, and for comparison partly also pagan, writers mainly from the fourth to sixth centuries. She reveals that early Christianity was not a hermetically sealed uniform body, but displays a rich spectrum of possibilities in dealing with the past and a willingness to engage with and adapt the surrounding culture(s), thereby developing diverse and changing responses to historical challenges. By demonstrating throughout that authority is a key in understanding the long denigrated and misunderstood early Christian poets, this book reaches the ground-breaking conclusion that early Christian poetry is an art form that gains its justification by adding cultural authority to Christianity. Thus, in a wider sense it engages with the recently developed interdisciplinary scholarly interest in aspects of religion as cultural phenomena.

Download or read book Equal Danger written by Leonardo Sciascia and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2003-10-31 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: District Attorney Varga is shot dead. Then Judge Sanza is killed. Then Judge Azar. Are these random murders, or part of a conspiracy? Inspector Rogas thinks he might know, but as soon as he makes progress he is transferred and encouraged to pin the crimes on the Left. And yet how committed are the cynical, fashionable, comfortable revolutionaries to revolution—or anything? Who is doing what to whom? Equal Danger is set in an imaginary country, one that seems all too real. It is the most extreme—and gripping—depiction of the politics of paranoia by Leonardo Sciascia, master of the metaphysical detective novel.

Download or read book Emotions and Material Culture written by Gerhard Jaritz and published by Austrian Academy of Sciences Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Material objects must always be seen in context with the humans who created and used them. It is only possible to recognize and evaluate material culture in connection with human thought and behavior. The material world depends on the immaterial one, and vice versa. Neither sphere can exist without the other. In historical research, however, such contexts have not been considered regularly. In particular, the inter-connections between emotions and material culture have not been taken sufficiently into account in research. This was the reason for the "Institut fur Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der fruhen Neuzeit" to organize a round-table-discussion on "Emotions and Material Culture" and to publish its proceedings. The volume contains eleven contributions by specialists from eight countries. They show various possibilities to contextualize the material world and emotional behavior. They may be seen as a first step towards a "material emotionology" of the past. The complex results are intended to serve as a further impetus towards the systematic and comparative research into "emotional communities" and their material life in the Middle Ages and the early modern period.

Download or read book The Monastic Rules written by Saint Augustine (of Hippo) and published by New City Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The four documents that make up the Rule of Saint Augustine, with two introductory essays

Download or read book Machiavelli Islam and the East written by Lucio Biasiori and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-28 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides the first survey of the unexplored connections between Machiavelli’s work and the Islamic world, running from the Arabic roots of The Prince to its first translations into Ottoman Turkish and Arabic. It investigates comparative descriptions of non-European peoples, Renaissance representations of Muḥammad and the Ottoman military discipline, a Jesuit treatise in Persian for a Mughal emperor, peculiar readers from Brazil to India, and the parallel lives of Machiavelli and the bureaucrat Celālzāde Muṣṭafá. Ten distinguished scholars analyse the backgrounds, circulation and reception of Machiavelli’s writings, focusing on many aspects of the mutual exchange of political theories and grammars between East and West. A significant contribution to attempts by current scholarship to challenge any rigid separation within Eurasia, this volume restores a sense of the global spreading of books, ideas and men in the past.

Download or read book The Illuminated Chronicle written by János M. Bak and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Illuminated Chronicle was composed in 1358 in the international artistic style at the royal court of Louis I of Hungary. Its text, presented here in a new edition and translation, is the most complete record of Hungary's medieval historical tradition, going back to the eleventh century and including the mythical past of its people. The pictures in this manuscript—formerly known as the Vienna Chronicle—are not merely occasional illustrations added to some exemplars, but text and image are closely connected and mutually related to each other, to qualify it as a proper “illuminated chronicle”. The artistic value of the miniatures is quite high, and the characters are drawn with detail and with a knowledge of anatomy. Forty-two of the miniatures are included in the present volume. A full color facsimile will be accessible online. The 147 pictures are an invaluable source of information on late medieval cultural history, costume, and court life. In a historiographical context, The Illuminated Chronicle is an attempt at the popularization of the national history and a systematic appeal to circles beyond the old monastic-clerical audience. The Illuminated Chronicle (Chronica de gestis Hungarorum e codice picto saec. xiv.) is the ninth volume in the Central European Medieval Texts, a Latin–English bilingual series.