Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.
Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.
Download or read book The Montefeltro Conspiracy written by Marcello Simonetta and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brutal murder, a nefarious plot, a coded letter. After five hundred years, the most notorious mystery of the Renaissance is finally solved. The Italian Renaissance is remembered as much for intrigue as it is for art, with papal politics and infighting among Italy’s many city-states providing the grist for Machiavelli’s classic work on take-no-prisoners politics, The Prince. The attempted assassination of the Medici brothers in the Duomo in Florence in 1478 is one of the best-known examples of the machinations endemic to the age. While the assailants were the Medici’s rivals, the Pazzi family, questions have always lingered about who really orchestrated the attack, which has come to be known as the Pazzi Conspiracy. More than five hundred years later, Marcello Simonetta, working in a private archive in Italy, stumbled upon a coded letter written by Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, to Pope Sixtus IV. Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence. Montefeltro, long believed to be a close friend of Lorenzo de Medici, was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place. In The Montefeltro Conspiracy, Simonetta unravels this plot, showing not only how the plot came together but how its failure (only one of the Medici brothers, Giuliano, was killed; Lorenzo survived) changed the course of Italian and papal history for generations. In the course of his gripping narrative, we encounter the period’s most colorful characters, relive its tumultuous politics, and discover that two famous paintings, including one in the Sistine Chapel, contain the Medici’s astounding revenge.
Download or read book April Blood written by Lauro Martines and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading historians of Renaissance Italy brings to life here the vibrant--and violent--society of fifteenth-century Florence. His disturbing narrative opens up an entire culture, revealing the dark side of Renaissance man and politician Lorenzo de' Medici. On a Sunday in April 1478, assassins attacked Lorenzo and his brother as they attended Mass in the cathedral of Florence. Lorenzo scrambled to safety as Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor. April Blood moves outward in time and space from that murderous event, unfolding a story of tangled passions, ambition, treachery, and revenge. The conspiracy was led by one of the city's most noble clans, the Pazzi, financiers who feared and resented the Medici's swaggering new role as political bosses--but the web of intrigue spread through all of Italy. Bankers, mercenaries, the Duke of Urbino, the King of Naples, and Pope Sixtus IV entered secretly into the plot. Florence was plunged into a peninsular war, and Lorenzo was soon fighting for his own and his family's survival. The failed assassination doomed the Pazzi. Medici revenge was swift and brutal--plotters were hanged or beheaded, innocents were hacked to pieces, and bodies were put out to dangle from the windows of the government palace. All remaining members of the larger Pazzi clan were forced to change their surname, and every public sign or symbol of the family was expunged or destroyed. April Blood offers us a fresh portrait of Renaissance Florence, where dazzling artistic achievements went side by side with violence, craft, and bare-knuckle politics. At the center of the canvas is the figure of Lorenzo the Magnificent--poet, statesman, connoisseur, patron of the arts, and ruthless "boss of bosses." This extraordinarily vivid account of a turning point in the Italian Renaissance is bound to become a lasting work of history.
Download or read book Magnifico written by Miles Unger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miles Unger's biography of this complex figure draws on primary research in Italian sources and on his intimate knowledge of Florence, where he lived for several years."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Portrait Of A Conspiracy written by Donna Russo Morin and published by Next Chapter. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 15th century Florence, five women and a legendary artist weave together a dangerous plot that could bring peace - or get them all killed. Seeking to wrest power from the Medici, members of the Pazzi family slay the beloved Giuliano. But Lorenzo de' Medici survives the attack and seeks revenge on everyone involved, plunging the city into murderous chaos. Bodies are dragged through the streets, and no one is safe. Five women steal away to a church to ply their craft in secret. Viviana, Fiammetta, Isabetta, Natasia and Mattea are painters, not allowed to be public with their skill but freed from the restrictions in their lives by their art. When a sixth member of their group, Lapaccia, goes missing and is rumored to have stolen a much sought-after painting before she vanished, the women must venture out into the dangerous streets to find their friend. They will have help from one of the most renowned painters of their era: the peaceful and kind Leonardo da Vinci. It is under his tutelage that they flourish as artists and with his access that they infiltrate some of the highest, most secretive places in Florence, unraveling one conspiracy as they build another in its place. Vibrant and absorbing, Portrait Of A Conspiracy is the first novel in Donna Russo Morin's Da Vinci's Disciples series.
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 Chasing Aphrodite written by Jason Felch and published by HMH. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “thrilling, well-researched” account of years of scandal at the prestigious Getty Museum (Ulrich Boser, author of The Gardner Heist). In recent years, several of America’s leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy and Greece. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity? The answer lies at the Getty, one of the world’s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and candid interviews, these two journalists give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum, and tell a story of outlandish characters and bad behavior that could come straight from the pages of a thriller. “In an authoritative account, two reporters who led a Los Angeles Times investigation reveal the details of the Getty Museum’s illicit purchases, from smugglers and fences, of looted Greek and Roman antiquities. . . . The authors offer an excellent recap of the museum’s misdeeds, brimming with tasty details of the scandal that motivated several of America’s leading art museums to voluntarily return to Italy and Greece some 100 classical antiquities worth more than half a billion dollars.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “An astonishing and penetrating look into a veiled world where beauty and art are in constant competition with greed and hypocrisy. This engaging book will cast a fresh light on many of those gleaming objects you see in art museums.” —Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting
Download or read book Conspiracy written by SJ Parris and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping murder mystery set in 16th-century France, as Giordano Bruno fights against multiple factions manipulating the succession of King Henry III. December 1585: King Henry III of France is the last of his line. He has appointed a Protestant as his successor, which has caused a three-way war in his country. As a result, the king is in mortal fear of a coup being orchestrated by the ultra-conservative Catholic League. Radical philosopher, ex-monk and spy Giordano Bruno, forced to return to Paris, is called upon by King Henry to unearth the motivation behind several mysterious but linked deaths. Each victim is connected to a larger plot to manipulate the royal succession; what they knew and who killed them is a mystery to be solved. Meanwhile, Bruno makes an uneasy alliance with Charles Paget, a key figure in the community of English Catholics who tried to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. When Bruno is implicated in the death of Leonie, a member of the Queen Mother's "Flying Squadron," he is forced to call on Paget and his connections for help—and finds that it comes with a price, involving an old enemy.
Download or read book The Medici Secret written by Michael White and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-10-31 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This breathtaking mystery thriller international bestselling author Michael White expertly meshes past and present, cryptic clues and constant menace. It's absolutely perfect for fans of Dan Brown, James Becker and Chris Kuzneski. READERS ARE LOVING THE MEDICI SECRET! 'If you like historic mysteries where the plot is unravelling the clues, this is the book for you.' -- ***** Reader review 'This is one of those novels which grabs you on page one and doesn't let you go until the final page.' -- ***** Reader review 'Gripping.' -- ***** Reader review 'Could not put the book down.' -- ***** Reader review *********************************************************************************** AN ANCIENT MYSTERY. A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE. A SECRET TO KILL FOR. The crypt of the Medici Chapel, Florence: palaeopathologist, Edie Granger, and her uncle, Carlin Mackenzie, examine the mummified remains of one of the most powerful families in Renaissance Italy. Under the crisp skin, the organs have shrivelled to a fraction of their original size, meaning it is difficult to gather a usable DNA sample. Edie and Mackenzie both have serious doubts about the true identity of at least two of the five-hundred-year-old bodies. And no one can explain the presence of an alien object discovered resting against Cosimo de Medici's spine. For Carlin Mackenzie, this is the most fascinating and the most dangerous discovery of his life. For Edie, it is the beginning of an obsessive, life-threatening quest...
Download or read book Jews and Magic in Medici Florence written by Edward L. Goldberg and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the seventeenth century, Florence was the splendid capital of the Medici Grand Dukedom of Tuscany. Meanwhile, the Jews in its tiny Ghetto struggled to earn a living by any possible means, especially loan-sharking, rag-picking and second-hand dealing. They were viewed as an uncanny people with rare supernatural powers, and Benedetto Blanisa businessman and aspiring scholar from a distinguished Ghetto dynastysought to parlay his alleged mastery of astrology, alchemy and Kabbalah into a grand position at the Medici Court. He won the patronage of Don Giovanni dei Medici, a scion of the ruling family, and for six tumultuous years their lives were inextricably linked. Edward Goldberg reveals the dramas of daily life behind the scenes in the Pitti Palace and in the narrow byways of the Florentine Ghetto, using thousands of new documents from the Medici Granducal Archive. He shows that truthespecially historical truthcan be stranger than fiction, when viewed through the eyes of the people most immediately involved.
Download or read book The Florentine History written by Niccolò Machiavelli and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 1478 a Year in Leonardo da Vinci s Career written by Edoardo Villata and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1478 was the year in which Leonardo da Vinci, aged 26, obtained his first official commission and witnessed the Pazzi Conspiracy against the Medici family. In that year, he probably opened his independent workshop, leaving that of his master Andrea del Verrocchio, and, in its final months, he began to paint two paintings representing the Virgin Mary. One of these paintings is very likely the Benois Madonna at the State Hermitage, St. Petersburg; a work that marks a strong change in Leonardo’s style and power of expression and his representation of light and human emotions. This book provides an in-depth analysis of Leonardo’s growth as an artist in this year, detailing his training, his culture, his collaboration with Verrocchio, and his engagement in the artistic and cultural life of 1460s and 1470s Florence.
Download or read book Images of Quattrocento Florence written by Stefano Ugo Baldassarri and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This anthology provides a panoramic view of fifteenth-century Florence in the words of the city's own citizens and visitors. The fifty-one selections offer glimpses into Renaissance thought. Together, the documents demonstrate the social, political, religious, and cultural impact Florence had in shaping the Italian and European Renaissance, and they reveal how Florence created, developed, and diffused the mythology of its own origins and glory. The documents point up the divergences in quattrocento accounts of the origins of Florence, and they reveal the importance of the city's economy, social life, and military success to the formation of its image. The book includes sources that elaborate on the city's accomplishments in literature and the visual arts, others that present major trends in Florentine religious life, and still others that attest to the acclaim and admiration that Florence evoked from foreign visitors. The editors also provide an informative introduction, a detailed chronology of fifteenth-century Italy, maps, photographs, an annotated bibliography, and a biographical sketch of the author of each document.
Download or read book The Tudor Conspiracy written by C. W. Gortner and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-07-16 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Mary Tudor's unpopular betrothal to the Catholic prince of Spain sparks rumors that her half-sister, Princess Elizabeth, is plotting to depose her, Brendan Prescott is thrust into a deadly cat-and-mouse game in London's treacherous underworld.
Download or read book Lorenzo de Medici written by Lee Hancock and published by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc. This book was released on 2004-12-15 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the life and accomplishments of the fifteenth-century ruler of Florence who was renowned for his passion for the arts, and who sponsored Michelangelo.
Download or read book Stealing History written by Roger Atwood and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roger Atwood knows more about the market for ancient objects than almost anyone. He knows where priceless antiquities are buried, who is digging them up, and who is fencing and buying them. In this fascinating book, Atwood takes readers on a journey through Iraq, Peru, Hong Kong, and across America, showing how the worldwide antiquities trade is destroying what's left of the ancient sites before archaeologists can reach them, and thus erasing their historical significance. And it is getting worse. The discovery of the legendary Royal Tombs of Sipan in Peru started an epidemic. Grave robbers scouring the courntryside for tombs--and finding them. Atwood recounts the incredible story of the biggest piece of gold ever found in the Americas, a 2,000-year-old, three-pound masterpiece that cost one looter his life, sent two smugglers to jail, and wrecked lives from Panama to Pennsylvainia. Packed with true stories, this book not only reveals what has been found, but at what cost to both human life and history.
