Download or read book The Kingdom of Sicily 1130 1860 written by Louis Mendola and published by Trinacria Editions LLC. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This lively narrative traces the history of Sicily from the foundation of its multicultural kingdom under the Normans in the twelfth century to the end of its baroque monarchy in the nineteenth, with framing chapters covering the periods before and afterward. Here, in a captivating text, a leading historian tells the complex yet fascinating story of the world's most conquered, most contested island. Accompanied by numerous maps, pedigree charts and a lengthy chronology, this is a rare journey into understanding, and a solid reference.
Download or read book Kingdom of Sicily 1130 1266 written by Louis Mendola and published by Sicilian Medieval Studies. This book was released on 2022-09-18 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A defining reference work whose engaging narrative brings southern Italy's Middle Ages to life. This is the first major history written in English about the Kingdom of Sicily under its Hauteville and Hohenstaufen dynasties in the High Middle Ages. Encompassing the island of Sicily and most of the Italian peninsula south of Rome, this multicultural society of Muslims, Jews, and Christians East and West, was a nexus where the civilizations of feudal Europe, Byzantine Asia, and Fatimid Africa flourished in synergy into the 13th century. Unlike most histories of the kingdom, this one brings the reader much information about social culture, such as the language and cuisine that emerged from this eclectic era to influence southern Italy and its people in ways still seen today. There are revealing chapters on the language popularized before Italian, and the culinary milieu that gave us spaghetti and lasagne. Women are never overlooked. Among them are Margaret of Navarre, regent for five years, Trota of Salerno, author of a medical treatise, Nina of Messina, the first woman known to compose poetry in an Italian tongue, and the unnamed Bint Muhammad ibn Abbad, who led a rebellion alongside her father. This long-awaited book presents an essential chronological history supplemented by concise sections on topics such as phylogeography, coinage, and heraldry, with dozens of maps and genealogical tables. It has hundreds of endnotes, a lengthy bibliography, a timeline, and appendices on regalia, the kingdom's first legal code, the coronation rite, the longest poem of the Sicilian School, and historiography. A long introduction explores sources, ethnic identity, historical views, and research methods, candidly dispelling a few myths. This hefty volume has something for everybody. It's a fine addition to library collections and a useful reference for students, while its lively narrative makes it an engaging read for anybody curious about this time and place. Those having roots in southern Italy will discover the origins of their ancestral culture, the ethnogenesis that led to what exists today. This long glimpse of a singular society was worth the wait.
Download or read book Kingdom of Sicily written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies 1734 1861 written by Louis Mendola and published by Trinacria Editions LLC. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major work in English on the political and social history of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a state that flourished under five kings of the House of Bourbon from 1734 until its annexation to the newly-unified Italy in 1861. Formally constituted in 1816, the Two Sicilies united the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to form the largest and most prosperous of the pre-unitary Italian states. At its demise in 1860, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies boasted a treasury of gold reserves exceeding those of all the other Italian states combined, and the largest royal palace in Europe, at Caserta outside Naples. It was the most industrialized state in the Italian peninsula, home to Italy's first railroad, first public pension plan, first unemployment benefit plan, and first recycling system. The Two Sicilies has left its mark on what the world perceives as Italian culture. Spaghetti, pizza and one of Europe's first chocolate recipes were born in this region, along with the first vernacular Italian literary language. It was from this part of Italy that most Italians migrated to the United States, Canada, Argentina and elsewhere at the beginning of the twentieth century, and this book complements studies of family history by those having roots in this region. In this volume, a leading historian brings us the true story of a semi-forgotten kingdom and its people. This long-awaited book will be of interest to Italophiles, travelers, armchair historians, researchers, Italian descendants around the world, and to anybody curious about the history of a unique region that traces its origins from ancient Magna Graecia and the medieval, multicultural kingdom founded by Norman adventurers during the twelfth century. It is a useful reference for libraries and an excellent introduction for students. In these pages is the untold story of the other Italy, the most typically Mediterranean region of a diverse country. While many histories of modern Italy focus on Rome and the cities to its north, the stars of this book are Naples and Palermo. Even readers familiar with Italy may find a few surprises here. This is an accurate, candid, unvarnished history that transcends clichés, stereotypes and clouded misperceptions. It includes a timeline, photographs, several maps, genealogical tables, seven informative appendices on such topics as coinage and heraldry, and a bibliography. Until now, books written in English about the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies have tended to focus on the ruling dynasty or arcane topics such as its orders of chivalry. There have also been specialized studies of the Italian unification movement and books about Italian history broadly. This is the first book in English that considers the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in a general way. Much of the information was drawn from original sources such as royal decrees and eyewitness accounts of events. The story of the Two Sicilies is the story of every family of southern Italy. It is an epic to be cherished for all time. Here is the identity of a people and a culture.
Download or read book A Thousand Years in Sicily written by Giuseppe Quatriglio and published by Legas / Gaetano Cipolla. This book was released on 1991 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Peoples of Sicily written by Louis Mendola and published by Trinacria Editions Llc. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can the eclectic medieval history of the world's most conquered island be a lesson for our times? Home to Normans, Byzantines, Arabs, Germans and Jews, 12th-century Sicily was a crossroads of cultures and faiths, the epitome of diversity. Here Europe, Asia and Africa met, with magical results. Bilingualism was the norm, women's rights were defended, and the environment was protected. Literacy among Sicilians soared; it was higher during this ephemeral golden age than it was seven centuries later. But this book is about more than Sicily. It is a singular, enduring lesson in the way multicultural diversity can be encouraged, with the result being a prosperous society. While its focus is the civilizations that flourished during the island's multicultural medieval period from 1060 to 1260, most of Sicily's complex history to the end of the Middle Ages is outlined. Idrisi is mentioned, but so is Archimedes. Introductory background chapters begin in the Neolithic, continuing to the history of the contested island under Punics and Greeks. Every civilization that populated the island is covered, including Romans, Goths, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, Angevins, Aragonese and Jews, with profiles of important historical figures and sites. Religion, law, geography and cuisine are also considered. The authors' narrative is interesting but never pedantic, intended for the general reader rather than the expert in anthropology, theology, art or architecture. They are not obsessed with arcane terminology, and they don't advocate a specific agenda or world view. Here two erudite scholars take their case to the people. Yes, this book actually sets forth the entirety of ancient and medieval Sicilian history from the earliest times until around 1500, and it presents a few nuggets of the authors' groundbreaking research in medieval manuscripts. Unlike most authors who write in English about Sicily, perhaps visiting the island for brief research trips, these two are actually based in Sicily, where their work appears on a popular website. Sicily aficionados will be familiar with their writings, which have been read by some ten million during the last five years, far eclipsing the readership of any other historians who write about Sicily. Alio and Mendola are the undisputed, international "rock stars" of Sicilian historical writing, with their own devoted fan base. Every minute of the day somebody is reading their online articles. This is a great book for anybody who is meeting Sicily for the first time, the most significant 'general' history of the island published in fifty years and certainly one of the most eloquent. It has a detailed chronology, a useful reading list, and a brief guide suggesting places to visit. The book's structure facilitates its use as a ready reference. It would have run to around 600 pages, instead of 368 (on archival-quality, acid-free paper), were it not for the slightly smaller print of the appendices, where the chronology, the longest Sicilian timeline ever published, is 20 pages long. Unlike most histories of Sicily, the approach to this one is multifaceted and multidisciplinary. In what may be a milestone in Sicilian historiography, a section dedicated to population genetics explains how Sicily's historic diversity is reflected in its plethora of haplogroups. Here medieval Sicily is viewed as an example of a tolerant, multicultural society and perhaps even a model. It is an unusually inspiring message. One reader was moved to tears as she read the preface. Can a book change our view of cultures and perhaps even the way we look at history? This one just might. Meet the peoples!
Download or read book The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily written by Clifford R. Backman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-22 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1995 book is a detailed study of Sicilian life and economy in the 'transitional' reign of Frederick III (1296-1337).
Download or read book The Invention of Sicily written by Jamie Mackay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you’re vacationing in Italy or simply an armchair traveler, this guide to the Mediterranean island of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the region’s rich 3,000-year history and culture. A rich and fascinating cultural history of the Mediterranean’s enigmatic heart Sicily is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and for over 2000 years has been the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East. It has long been seen as the frontier between Western Civilization and the rest, but never definitively part of either. Despite being conquered by empires—Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hapsburg Spain—it remains uniquely apart. The island’s story maps a mosaic that mixes the story of myth and wars, maritime empires and reckless crusades, and a people who refuse to be ruled. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth but has been reinventing itself across centuries: in conquest and resistance. Inseparable from these political and social developments are the artefacts of the nation’s cultural patrimony—ancient amphitheaters, Arab gardens, Baroque Cathedrals, as well as great literature such as Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard, and the novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicenter of the refugee crisis.
Download or read book Chinese Global Exploration In The Pre columbian Era Evidence From An Ancient World Map written by Sheng-wei Wang and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2023-10-16 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How early did the Chinese explore the world? Did the Treasure Fleets, led by Admiral Zheng He, discover many parts of the world before Christopher Columbus? While it is known that Christopher Columbus discovered America and Europe ushered in the Age of Discovery, there is an ongoing debate on the 'unknown' areas depicted in Western maps from the period and earlier. There is agreement among scholars that certain areas seem to have been mapped out prior to the arrival of Western explorers.Chinese Global Exploration in the Pre-Columbian Era: Evidence from an Ancient World Map analyses the world's first modern map — known as Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (KWQ) 《坤輿萬國全圖》 in Chinese, translated as the 'Complete Geographical Map of All Kingdoms of the World' to demonstrate evidence of Chinese global exploration in the Pre-Columbian era. The map of concern was first printed by Italian missionary, Matteo Ricci in 1602, and has been purported to be of entirely European origin, based on Ricci's former maps which he had brought to China in 1582.This book, thus, seeks to be transformational in presenting essential new insights on Pre-Columbian world history and Chinese global exploration, moving away from the norm of the studies of geography and cartography by:
Download or read book The Society of Norman Italy written by Graham A. Loud and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Betrifft die Handschrift Cod. 120.II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. - Abb. auf Umschlag: f. 101r.
Download or read book Acta Historiae Sancti Lazari Ordinis Proceedings Sancti Lazari Ordinis Academia Internationalis Volume 2 written by Charles Savona-Ventura and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2017-12-20 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The publication includes several academic articles presented during the second International meeting of the Sancti Lazari Ordinis Academia Internationalis whose objective is to promote the historical knowledge related to the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, and other Crusader and related orders of chivalry as this relates to the hierarchy, their components, their glorious traditions and ancient history, as well as their relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with other churches that profess the faith of Christ.
Download or read book Yolande of Aragon 1381 1442 Family and Power written by Zita Eva Rohr and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-06-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yolande of Aragon is one of the most intriguing of late medieval queens who contrived to be everywhere and nowhere, operating seamlessly from backstage and center stage. She is acknowledged as having been shrewd and intelligent - an éminence grise whose political and diplomatic agency secured the throne of France for her son-in-law, Charles VII.
Download or read book The Invention of Sicily written by Jamie Mackay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you’re vacationing in Italy or simply an armchair traveler, this guide to the Mediterranean island of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the region’s rich 3,000-year history and culture. A rich and fascinating cultural history of the Mediterranean’s enigmatic heart Sicily is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and for over 2000 years has been the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East. It has long been seen as the frontier between Western Civilization and the rest, but never definitively part of either. Despite being conquered by empires—Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hapsburg Spain—it remains uniquely apart. The island’s story maps a mosaic that mixes the story of myth and wars, maritime empires and reckless crusades, and a people who refuse to be ruled. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth but has been reinventing itself across centuries: in conquest and resistance. Inseparable from these political and social developments are the artefacts of the nation’s cultural patrimony—ancient amphitheaters, Arab gardens, Baroque Cathedrals, as well as great literature such as Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard, and the novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicenter of the refugee crisis.
Download or read book Sicily written by John Julius Norwich and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history. “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily’s strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world’s most powerful dynasties. Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich’s engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history—the Romans’ fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily—and tells the story of one of the world’s most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way. This volume has been a long time coming—Norwich began to explore Sicily’s colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world’s most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again. Praise for Sicily “Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, [Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.”—The Wall Street Journal “Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, ‘some dark, brooding quality,’ just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.”—The Sunday Times “Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.”—The Daily Beast “Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.”—Kirkus Reviews “A brisk and always-lively tour.”—Open Letters Monthly “Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. [His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.”—The Times “Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.”—The Sunday Telegraph “Norwich tells [Sicily’s] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.”—Literary Review
Download or read book Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Italy in a Wineglass written by Marc Millon and published by Hurst Publishers. This book was released on 2024-04-18 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is enamoured with Italy: its culture, art, food and fashion, the beauty of its landscapes, its famous cities—and, of course, its wine. From the ancient Greeks to Garibaldi, from Christianity to feminism, and from the Medici to Napoleon, travel writer and oenophile Marc Millon reveals how the story of Italy has always been entwined with the story of wine. Through the millennia, wine has been a celebratory libation at great events. It has lubricated moments of joy and offered solace in times of despair. It has brought courage to warriors before battle and been drunk in ecstatic quantity by the victors. Whether it be Possessioni Rosso, still made today by descendants of Dante; Casa E. di Mirafiore, from a wine estate founded by the son of Italy’s first king; or Terre Rosse di Giabbascio, pressed from grapes grown on ex-Mafia land, these wines, and many more, provide an intoxicating insight into the ideas, events and personalities that made Italy. If history can sometimes be throat-achingly dry, Italy in a Wineglass offers an enjoyably fresh take on this country’s past, present and future, through the story of one of the world’s most popular drinks.
Download or read book Sicilian Genealogy and Heraldry written by Louis Mendola and published by Trinacria Editions LLC. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to Sicilian family history research. Mendola covers everything from parochial, civil and tax records to genetic haplotyping. Social context--folk customs, government, religion, law, rural life--is considered at length.
