Download or read book The Medici Lover written by Anne Mather and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2014-09-15 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suzanne's decision to visit Villa Falcone was an impulse. Suddenly she was thrust into a family whose passions and jealousies pervaded their ancestral Italian home. Perhaps she had been meant to go, Suzanne thought later; otherwise she would never have met Mazzaro di Falcone, the brooding keeper of his ancient family's treasures. Mazzaro burst into her complacent life like a bomb—and Suzanne knew she would never be the same again!
Download or read book Medici Women written by Gabrielle Langdon and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ducal court of Cosimo I de' Medici in sixteenth-century Florence was one of absolutist, rule-bound order. Portraiture especially served the dynastic pretensions of the absolutist ruler, Duke Cosimo and his consort, Eleonora di Toledo, and was part of a Herculean programme of propaganda to establish legitimacy and prestige for the new sixteenth-century Florentine court. In this engaging and original study, Gabrielle Langdon analyses selected portraits of women by Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, Alessandro Allori, and other masters. She defines their function as works of art, as dynastic declarations, and as encoded documents of court culture and propaganda, illuminating Cosimo's conscious fashioning of his court portraiture in imitation of the great courts of Europe. Langdon explores the use of portraiture as a vehicle to express Medici political policy, such as with Cosimo's Hapsburg and Papal alliances in his bid to be made Grand Duke with hegemony over rival Italian princes. Stories from archives, letters, diaries, chronicles, and secret ambassadorial briefs, open up a world of fascinating, personalities, personal triumphs, human frailty, rumour, intrigue, and appalling tragedies. Lavishly illustrated, Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love and Betrayal in the Court of Duke Cosimo I is an indispensable work for anyone with a passion for Italian renaissance history, art, and court culture.
Download or read book The Blood Covenant written by Emily Bex and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Art Lover s Guide to Florence written by Judith Testa and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No city but Florence contains such an intense concentration of art produced in such a short span of time. The sheer number and proximity of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Florence can be so overwhelming that Florentine hospitals treat hundreds of visitors each year for symptoms brought on by trying to see them all, an illness famously identified with the French author Stendhal. While most guidebooks offer only brief descriptions of a large number of works, with little discussion of the historical background, Judith Testa gives a fresh perspective on the rich and brilliant art of the Florentine Renaissance in An Art Lover's Guide to Florence. Concentrating on a number of the greatest works, by such masters as Botticelli and Michelangelo, Testa explains each piece in terms of what it meant to the people who produced it and for whom they made it, deftly treating the complex interplay of politics, sex, and religion that were involved in the creation of those works. With Testa as a guide, armchair travelers and tourists alike will delight in the fascinating world of Florentine art and history.
Download or read book The renaissance written by Joseph Arthur Gobineau and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Renaissance written by Arthur comte de Gobineau and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Architecture Lover s Guide to Rome written by Elizabeth F. Heath and published by White Owl. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An informed, photo-filled guide to “all of the essential stopping places [with] terrifically detailed information on the architectural joys of Rome.” —Books Monthly Rome’s architectural remains date as far back as the city’s founding in the 8th century BCE. The primitive settlement that began on the Palatine Hill grew over the next thousand years to the caput mundi—the capital of the world—the largest, most powerful presence in the ancient Western world. Along the way, Rome’s architectural styles, whether developed organically or appropriated from the cultures it subjugated and absorbed, were physical evidence of the politics, propaganda, and pragmatism of the times. Written for readers passionate about Rome and how its architecture is inimitably linked to its history, The Architecture Lover’s Guide to Rome is the armchair architect’s tour of the Eternal City. It provides a timeline that begins with the founding of Rome and documents its significant architectural monuments and styles through the millennia, with photos, maps and practical information for visiting.
Download or read book Secret of a Medici Mistress written by Donna Gillotte and published by Tate Publishing & Enterprises. This book was released on 2012-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Maddalena di Pagni embarks on a quest to become a great sculptor like her father, she finds herself tangled in the web of wealth and power woven by the illustrious Medici family. While still a teenager, she meets and falls helplessly in love with the charismatic Lorenzo de Medici, giving her body, mind, and soul to him. Her father, Giovanni, attempts to protect his daughter from a life of shame, but ultimately, his efforts cost him his life. Duty, honor and responsibility eventually wrench the lovers apart. Disheartened and overcome by sadness more painful than the fires of Dante's hell, Maddalena and Lorenzo continue on in a parallel existence, intersecting briefly at pivotal moments in history over the next decade and a half. Knowing he and Maddalena can never be wed because of their class differences, he eventually marries Clarice, a woman his mother chose for him and one for whom he has no romantic feelings. Upon her death, Lorenzo casts aside politics and opinions of others and confesses to Maddalena that he has never stopped loving her. Maddalena soon finds herself swept into the artistic and intellectual orbit of the Medici's inner circle, where she remains until Lorenzo's death in 1492. Before Lorenzo takes his final breath Maddalena shares with him a secret that will change the course of history then vows to take the Secret of a Medici Mistress to her grave.
Download or read book Friendship Love and Trust in Renaissance Florence written by Dale Kent and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-31 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of whether true friendship could exist in an era of patronage occupied Renaissance Florentines as it had the ancient Greeks and Romans whose culture they admired and emulated. Rather than attempting to measure Renaissance friendship against a universal ideal defined by essentially modern notions of disinterestedness, intimacy, and sincerity, in this book Dale Kent explores the meaning of love and friendship as they were represented in the fifteenth century, particularly the relationship between heavenly and human friendship. She documents the elements of shared experience in friendships between Florentines of various occupations and ranks, observing how these were shaped and played out in the physical spaces of the city: the streets, street corners, outdoor benches and loggias, family palaces, churches, confraternal meeting places, workshops of artisans and artists, taverns, dinner tables, and the baptismal font. Finally, Kent examines the betrayal of trust, focusing on friends at moments of crisis or trial in which friendships were tested, and failed or endured. The exile of Cosimo de’ Medici in 1433 and his recall in 1434, the attempt in 1466 of the Medici family’s closest friends to take over their patronage network, and the Pazzi conspiracy to assassinate Lorenzo and Giuliano de’ Medici in 1478 expose the complexity and ambivalence of Florentine friendship, a combination of patronage with mutual intellectual passion and love—erotic, platonic, and Christian—sublimely expressed in the poetry and art of Michelangelo.
Download or read book The Book lover written by and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Lorenzo De Medici at Home written by Richard Stapleford and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An inventory of the private possessions of Lorenzo il Magnifico de' Medici, head of the ruling Medici family during the apogee of the Florentine Renaissance"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Garden Lover s Guide to Italy written by Penelope Hobhouse and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative new series of guidebooks to the gardens of Europe is the perfect companion for any garden enthusiast, whether tourist or armchair traveler. Each title is a richly illustrated in-depth guide to over 100 gardens, from the famous to little-known hidden treasures, and features colorful photography and easy-to-read illustrations commissioned especially for this series. Also included are maps, directions, complete visitor information, special features, and neighboring sites of interest. Each guide, written by a gardening expert, begins with a comprehensive background on the country's garden history and local climate. The most significant gardens in each volume are featured in even greater detail, accompanied by illustrated plans of the gardens and close-up views of particular features. The numerous color photographs and maps show travelers what awaits at each garden. The Garden Lover's Guides are indispensible aids for those planning European travel itineraries. The Garden Lover's Guide to Britain, written by Patrick Taylor, ranges from the sweeping views of Stourhead to the jungle-like ambiance of Inverewe on the Scottish coast. The Garden Lover's Guide to Italy includes the Villa del Balbianello at Lake Como, Roman villa gardens, and the exotic, sub-tropical parks of Sicily.
Download or read book The Fruit of Liberty written by Nicholas Scott Baker and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the middle decades of the sixteenth century, the republican city-state of Florence--birthplace of the Renaissance--failed. In its place the Medici family created a principality, becoming first dukes of Florence and then grand dukes of Tuscany. The Fruit of Liberty examines how this transition occurred from the perspective of the Florentine patricians who had dominated and controlled the republic. The book analyzes the long, slow social and cultural transformations that predated, accompanied, and facilitated the institutional shift from republic to principality, from citizen to subject. More than a chronological narrative, this analysis covers a wide range of contributing factors to this transition, from attitudes toward officeholding, clothing, the patronage of artists and architects to notions of self, family, and gender. Using a wide variety of sources including private letters, diaries, and art works, Nicholas Baker explores how the language, images, and values of the republic were reconceptualized to aid the shift from citizen to subject. He argues that the creation of Medici principality did not occur by a radical break with the past but with the adoption and adaptation of the political culture of Renaissance republicanism.
Download or read book Inglorious Royal Marriages written by Leslie Carroll and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s no secret that the marriages of monarchs are often made in hell. Here are some of the most spectacular mismatches in five hundred years of royal history.... In a world where many kings, queens, and princes lacked nothing but true love, marital mismatches could bring out the baddest, boldest behavior in the bluest of bloodlines. Margaret Tudor, her niece Mary I, and Catherine of Braganza were desperately in love with chronically unfaithful husbands, but at least they weren’t murdered by them, as were two of the Medici princesses were. King Charles II’s beautiful, high-spirited sister “Minette” wed Louis XIV’s younger brother, who wore more makeup and perfume than she did. Forced to wed her boring, jug-eared cousin Ferdinand, Marie of Roumania—a granddaughter of Queen Victoria—proved herself one of the heroines of World War I by using her prodigious personal charm to regain massive amounts of land during the peace talks at Versailles. Brimming with outrageous real-life stories of royal marriages gone wrong, this is an entertaining, unforgettable book of dubious matches doomed from the start.
Download or read book Book lover written by and published by . This book was released on 1888 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Machiavelli in Love written by Guido Ruggiero and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “provocative” study of sex and sexual identity in Renaissance Italy, explored through major literary works and historical archives (Choice). Machiavelli in Love introduces a complex concept of sex and sexual identity and their roles in the culture and politics of the Italian Renaissance. Guido Ruggiero’s study counters the consensus among historians and literary critics that there was little sense of individual identity and almost no sense of sexual identity before the modern period. Drawing from the works of major literary figures such as Boccaccio, Aretino, and Castiglione, and rereading them against archival evidence, Ruggiero examines the concept of identity via consensus realities of family, neighbors, friends, and social peers, as well as broader communities and solidarities. The author contends that Renaissance Italians understood sexual identity as a part of the human life cycle, something that changed throughout stages of youthful experimentation, marriage, adult companionship, and old age. Machiavelli’s letters and literary production reveal a fascinating construction of self that is highly reliant on sexual reputation. Ruggiero’s challenging reinterpretation of this canonical figure, as well as his unique treatment of other major works of the period, offer new approaches for reading Renaissance literature and new understandings of the way life was lived and perceived during this time.
Download or read book Art and Love in Renaissance Italy written by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2008 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Many famous artworks of the Italian Renaissance were made to celebrate love, marriage, and family. They were the pinnacles of a tradition, dating from early in the era, of commemorating betrothals, marriages, and the birth of children by commissioning extraordinary objects - maiolica, glassware, jewels, textiles, paintings - that were often also exchanged as gifts. This volume is the first comprehensive survey of artworks arising from Renaissance rituals of love and marriage and makes a major contribution to our understanding of Renaissance art in its broader cultural context. The impressive range of works gathered in these pages extends from birth trays painted in the early fifteenth century to large canvases on mythological themes that Titian painted in the mid-1500s. Each work of art would have been recognized by contemporary viewers for its prescribed function within the private, domestic domain."--BOOK JACKET.
