Download or read book Virgins of Venice written by Mary Laven and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cambridge historian Laven has created a detailed and dramatic tapestry of resourceful, determined, often passionate women who managed to lead fulfilling lives despite their virtual imprisonment in Venice's 16th-century convents.
Download or read book Virgins of Venice written by Mary Laven and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venice in the sixteenth century was home to over fifty convents. But these weren't just spiritual institutions, they were also dumping grounds for the 'unmarriageable' women of Venetian noble families. Thrust into a life for which they had no vocation, many women found it hard to give up the trappings of the outside world. Tales of nuns favouring elegant dress, frivolous entertainment and fine food were rife. Reports of more lascivious behaviour also crept out, and the convents became associated with sexual corruption on a grand scale. Subjected to a series of investigations into immortal behaviour, the nuns' freedoms were viciously curtailed. Combining the reports of the investigations and trials with statements from the nuns themselves, Mary Laven lifts the veil on a world of oppression and enforced chastity, and recounts the nuns' own desperate attempts to fight back.
Download or read book Virgins of Venice written by Mary Laven and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 2002 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rich in intrigue and gossip, this book uncovers the long-hidden stories of the "virgins of Venice"--3,000 nuns, many of them immured against their will, in the city's 50 convents during the late Renaissance. 18 illustrations.
Download or read book Paris In Ruins written by M.K. Tod and published by Heath Street Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paris 1870. Raised for a life of parties and servants, Camille and Mariele have much in common, but it takes the horrors of war to bring them together to fight for the city and people they love. The story of two women whose families were caught up in the defense of Paris is deeply moving and suspenseful ~~ Margaret George, author of Splendor Before the Dark: A Novel of the Emperor Nero Tod is not only a good historian, but also an accomplished writer … a gripping, well-limned picture of a time and a place that provide universal lessons ~~ Kirkus Reviews. A few weeks after the abdication of Napoleon III, the Prussian army lays siege to Paris. Camille Noisette, the daughter of a wealthy family, volunteers to nurse wounded soldiers and agrees to spy on a group of radicals plotting to overthrow the French government. Her future sister-in-law, Mariele de Crécy, is appalled by the gaps between rich and poor. She volunteers to look after destitute children whose families can barely afford to eat. Somehow, Camille and Mariele must find the courage and strength to endure months of devastating siege, bloody civil war, and great personal risk. Through it all, an unexpected friendship grows between the two women, as they face the destruction of Paris and discover that in war women have as much to fight for as men. War has a way of teaching lessons—if only Camille and Mariele can survive long enough to learn them. M.K. Tod's elegant style and uncanny eye for time and place again shine through in her riveting new tale, Paris in Ruins ~~ Jeffrey K. Walker author of No Hero’s Welcome
Download or read book Raphael Painter in Rome written by Stephanie Storey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Another Fabulous Art History Thriller by the Bestselling Author of Oil and Marble, Featuring the Master of Renaissance Perfection: Raphael! Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling is one of the most iconic masterpieces of the Renaissance. Here, in Raphael, Painter in Rome, Storey tells of its creation as never before: through the eyes of Michelangelo’s fiercest rival—the young, beautiful, brilliant painter of perfection, Raphael. Orphaned at age eleven, Raphael is determined to keep the deathbed promise he made to his father: become the greatest artist in history. But to be the best, he must beat the best, the legendary sculptor of the David, Michelangelo Buonarroti. When Pope Julius II calls both artists down to Rome, they are pitted against each other: Michelangelo painting the Sistine Ceiling, while Raphael decorates the pope's private apartments. As Raphael strives toward perfection in paint, he battles internal demons: his desperate ambition, crippling fear of imperfection, and unshakable loneliness. Along the way, he conspires with cardinals, scrambles through the ruins of ancient Rome, and falls in love with a baker’s-daughter-turned-prostitute who becomes his muse. With its gorgeous writing, rich settings, endearing characters, and riveting plot, Raphael, Painter in Rome brings to vivid life these two Renaissance masters going head to head in the deadly halls of the Vatican.
Download or read book Vivaldi s Virgins LP written by Barbara Quick and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2007-07-03 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this enthralling new novel, Barbara Quick re-creates eighteenth-century Venice at the height of its splendor and decadence. A story of longing and intrigue, half-told truths and toxic lies, Vivaldi's Virgins unfolds through the eyes of Anna Maria dal Violin, one of the elite musicians cloistered in the foundling home where Antonio Vivaldi—known as the Red Priest of Venice—is maestro and composer. Fourteen-year-old Anna Maria, abandoned at the Ospedale della Pietà as an infant, is determined to find out who she is and where she came from. Her quest takes her beyond the cloister walls into the complex tapestry of Venetian society; from the impoverished alleyways of the Jewish Ghetto to a masked ball in the company of a king; from the passionate communal life of adolescent girls competing for their maestro's favor to the larger-than-life world of music and spectacle that kept the citizens of a dying republic in thrall. In this world, where for fully half the year the entire city is masked and cloaked in the anonymity of Carnival, nothing is as it appears to be. A virtuoso performance in the tradition of Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vivaldi's Virgins is a fascinating glimpse inside the source of Vivaldi's musical legacy, interwoven with the gripping story of a remarkable young woman's coming-of-age in a deliciously evocative time and place.
Download or read book Stone Virgin written by Barry Unsworth and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1995 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Simon Raikes restores a fifteenth-century Venetian masterpiece, he becomes obsessed with the sculpture, becoming involved in a crime as he reconstructs the past and is drawn into the mysteries of love, betrayal, and violence.
Download or read book The Orphan s Song written by Lauren Kate and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical adult debut novel by # 1 New York Times bestselling author Lauren Kate, The Orphan's Song is a breathtaking story of passion, heartbreak, and betrayal, and a celebration of the enduring nature and transformative power of love. "A tangled knot of betrayal and love, lies and redemption. Marvelous." --Fiona Davis, author of The Address A song brought them together. A secret will tear them apart. When Violetta and Mino meet, one finds true love and the other denies it. Both orphans at the Hospital of the Incurables in Venice, an orphanage and music conservatory, they meet and make music together clandestinely until Violetta is selected for the Incurables' renowned chorus. In order to join she signs an oath never to sing beyond the church doors, effectively sequestering herself for life. Mino flees, heartbroken. Too late, Violetta realizes what she has lost. In rebellion she begins a dangerous and forbidden nightlife, unknowingly drawing closer to Mino as he searches Venice for his long-lost mother. Mino and Violetta must each journey through passion, heartache, and betrayal before a dangerous secret reunites them, leading to a shocking and final confrontation.
Download or read book Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence written by Sharon T. Strocchia and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2009-10-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis of Renaissance Florentine convents and their influence on the city’s social, economic, and political history. The 15th century was a time of dramatic and decisive change for nuns and nunneries in Florence. That century saw the city’s convents evolve from small, semiautonomous communities to large civic institutions. By 1552, roughly one in eight Florentine women lived in a religious community. Historian Sharon T. Strocchia analyzes this stunning growth of female monasticism, revealing the important roles these women and institutions played in the social, economic, and political history of Renaissance Florence. It became common practice during this time for unmarried women in elite society to enter convents. This unprecedented concentration of highly educated and well-connected women transformed convents into sites of great patronage and social and political influence. As their economic influence also grew, convents found new ways of supporting themselves; they established schools, produced manuscripts, and manufactured textiles. Using previously untapped archival materials, Strocchia shows how convents shaped one of the principal cities of Renaissance Europe. She demonstrates the importance of nuns and nunneries to the booming Florentine textile industry and shows the contributions that ordinary nuns made to Florentine life in their roles as scribes, stewards, artisans, teachers, and community leaders. In doing so, Strocchia argues that the ideals and institutions that defined Florence were influenced in great part by the city’s powerful female monastics. Winner, Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize, American Catholic Historical Association “Strocchia examines the complex interrelationships between Florentine nuns and the laity, the secular government, and the religious hierarchy. The author skillfully analyzes extensive archival and printed sources.” —Choice
Download or read book The Wolves Of St Peters written by Gina Buonaguro and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1508. When Francesco Angeli, houseboy to Michelangelo, sees the body of a golden-haired woman being pulled from the Tiber on a rainy morning, he is shocked to realize that he knows her. As Francesco follows a deepening mystery from Rome’s back streets to the pope’s inner sanctum, he begins to realize that danger and corruption may lurk behind the most beautiful of facades.
Download or read book Ciao Bella written by Gina Buonaguro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For Graziella, the quiet, cultured life she lived in Venice with her musician husband, Ugo, was everything she could have hoped for. But when Italy allied itself with Nazi Germany in 1940, her world changed forever. Ugo, trading in his violin for a gun, joined the Resistance, while Graziella was forced to seek refuge at his family's farm in the nearby Euganean Hills. "Just until the war is over," Ugo had promised, but it has been months now since the Nazis retreated, and no one has seen him since. With Ugo gone, it seems as if she will be trapped forever on this remote farm with her lost husband's difficult family. So when an American soldier named Frank is stranded on the mountain, Graziella embraces this unexpected chance at being happy again. But as tempting as it is to leave behind this war-torn country and her painful memories for a new life in America, can she go without learning her husband's fate? With quiet grace and humor, Ciao Bella explores the possibilities of love and redemption in the wake of war, showing that some of the hardest decisions come only after the fighting has stopped.
Download or read book The Virgins of Venice written by Gina Buonaguro and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In sixteenth-century Venice, one young noblewoman dares to resist the choices made for her Venice in 1509 is on the brink of war. The displeasure of Pope Julius II is a continuing threat to the republic, as is the barely contained fighting in the countryside. Amid this turmoil, noblewoman Justina Soranzo, just sixteen, hopes to make a rare love marriage with her sweetheart, Luca Cicogna. Her hopes are dashed when her father decides her younger sister, Rosa, will marry in a strategic alliance and Justina will be sent to the San Zaccaria convent, in the tradition of aristocratic daughters. Lord Soranzo is not acting only to protect his family. It’s well known that he is in debt to both his trading partners and the most infamous courtesan in the city, La Diamante, and the pressure is closing in. After arriving at the convent, Justina takes solace in her aunt Livia, one of the nuns, and in the growing knowledge that all is not strictly devout at San Zaccaria. Justina is shocked to discover how the women of the convent find their own freedom in what seems to her like a prison. But secrets and scandals breach the convent walls, and Justina learns there may be even worse fates for her than the veil, if La Diamante makes good on her threats. Desperate to protect herself and the ones she loves, Justina turns to Luca for help. She finds she must trust her own heart to make the impossible decisions that may save or ruin them all.
Download or read book The Sidewalk Artist written by Gina Buonaguro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-04 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Europe to research her next novel, Tulia Rose, a young American woman, falls in love with a handsome sidewalk artist who introduces her to Europe's great artistic treasures and inspires her to write the story of the painter Raphael and his secret lover.
Download or read book Midnight In Venice written by Meadow Taylor and published by HarperCollins Canada. This book was released on 2014-08-19 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Billionaire’s Secrets and Falling for Rain, Midnight in Venice is a captivating new contemporary tale of romance and suspense set in the magical city of Venice, Italy Readers met and fell in love with Olivia Moretti in Meadow Taylor’s hugely popular holiday story Christmas in Venice, where Olivia is rescued by a gorgeous Italian cop, Alessandro Rossi, during an airport bomb scare. Now, as the new year begins, her joy at having landed her dream job in Venice’s thriving art world is surpassed only by the realization that she and Alessandro are falling in love—and her surprise that he turns out to be not just the son of a tycoon, but a gifted pianist and former racecar driver who is equally at home in the city’s bejewelled palazzos as patrolling its streets. Olivia can’t believe that her life now includes masked balls, exquisite music, romantic trips to Paris—and true love. But all this is put in jeopardy when a business trip to New York City finds her accused of a crime she didn’t commit—and not even Alessandro believes she’s innocent. Can her new love uncover the truth and keep Olivia’s Italian dream from becoming a nightmare? A thrilling, passion-filled story set among the dazzling palaces, canals, and piazzas of one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Midnight in Venice is perfect for fans of Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, and lovers of contemporary romance everywhere.
Download or read book Venice Observed written by Mary McCarthy and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1963 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating work of reportage on Venice. "Searching observations and astonishing comprehension of the Venetian taste and character" (New York Herald Tribune).
Download or read book The Merchant of Venice written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ciao Carpaccio An Infatuation written by Jan Morris and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-11-03 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jan Morris returns to Venice in this loving tribute to one of the great Renaissance masters. In the course of writing Venice, her 1961 classic, Jan Morris became fascinated by the historical presence of a sometimes-overlooked Venetian painter. Nowadays the name of Vittore Carpaccio (1460–1520) suggests raw beef, but to Morris it conveyed far more profound meanings. Thus began a lifelong infatuation, reaching across the centuries, between a renowned Welsh writer and a great and delightfully entertaining artist of the early Renaissance. Handsomely designed with more than seventy photographs throughout, Ciao,Carpaccio! is a happy caprice of affection. In illuminating the life of the artist and his paintings, Morris throws in digressions about Venetian animals, courtesans, babies, ships, architecture, and history, and caps it all with thoughtful analyses of Carpaccio’s spiritual convictions. Part biography, part art interpretation, part personal odyssey, and all lots of fun, Ciao, Carpaccio! will no doubt help to rescue the name of a noble artist from its popular interpretation as an item of cuisine.
