Download or read book Medici Money written by Tim Parks and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2013-08-22 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Medici are famous as the rulers of Florence at the high point of the Renaissance. Their power derived from the family bank, and this book tells the fascinating, frequently bloody story of the family and the dramatic development and collapse of their bank (from Cosimo who took it over in 1419 to his grandson Lorenzo the Magnificent who presided over its precipitous decline). The Medici faced two apparently insuperable problems: how did a banker deal with the fact that the Church regarded interest as a sin and had made it illegal? How in a small republic like Florence could he avoid having his wealth taken away by taxation? But the bank became indispensable to the Church. And the family completely subverted Florence's claims to being democratic. They ran the city. Medici Money explores a crucial moment in the passage from the Middle Ages to the Modern world, a moment when our own attitudes to money and morals were being formed. To read this book is to understand how much the Renaissance has to tell us about our own world. Medici Money is one of the launch titles in a new series, Atlas Books, edited by James Atlas. Atlas Books pairs fine writers with stories of the economic forces that have shaped the world, in a new genre - the business book as literature.
Download or read book With and Without the Medici written by Eckart Marchand and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1998 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medici dominance in the political and cultural life of Italy, and of Florence in particular has been well explored. Previous patronage studies have shown how the Medici invested great wealth in both private and public art and how the skills of Florentine artists and their products were an important part of the self-representation of Florence and the Medici in Italy and abroad. The six studies in this volume investigate the evidence for patronal interests expressed in a variety of commissions by different social groups and consider how far Medici activity as patrons can be considered paradigmatic. In examining the language in which the work was commissioned and received, the scholars explore the way the work of art reflects the patron's needs, interests or allegiance. New evidence is presented of aspects of the relationship between the patron and artists. Topics covered include commissions for the religious and secular decoration of Florentine villas, the activities and aspirations of Florentine nuns, the early practice of collecting, and the artist's response to the patron's needs through the formal qualities of the works of art. The volume is introduced by Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright who provide an invaluable historical overview of the present state of studies in Italian and especially Tuscan Renaissance art patronage.
Download or read book Lorenzo De Medici and the Art of Magnificence written by F. W. Kent and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Historian F.W. Kent offers a new look at Lorenzo's relationship to the arts, aesthetics, collecting, and building - especially in the context of his role as the political boss (maestro della bottega) of republican Florence and a leading player in Renaissance Italian diplomacy. Kent's approach reveals Lorenzo's activities as an art patron as far more extensive and creative than previously thought. Known as "the Magnificent," Lorenzo was broadly interested in the arts and supported efforts to beautify Florence and the many Medici lands and palaces. His expertise was well regarded by guildsmen and artists, who often turned to him for advice as well as for patronage.
Download or read book The Medici Boy written by John L'Heureux and published by House of Stratus. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While creating his famous bronze of David and Goliath, Donatello’s passion for his beautiful model and part time rent boy, Agnolo, ignites a dangerous jealousy that ultimately leads to murder. Luca, the complex and conflicted assistant, will sacrifice all to save Donatello, even his master’s friend--the great patron of art, Cosimo de’ Medici.
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 Medici Legacy written by Matteo Strukul and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third instalment in a prize-winning series charting the rise of the House of Medici as they become Masters of Florence and progenitors of the Renaissance. Fontainebleau, 1536. Francis II, Dauphin and heir to the French throne, is dead. Poisoned. And the royal court believe Catherine de' Medici to be the murderer. Catherine's husband Henry will now be the next King of France – and the Medici are known to stop at nothing in the pursuit of power. But not yet queen and without an heir of her own, seventeen-year-old Catherine cannot be sure of securing her family's legacy. To ensure the conception of an heir, she will need to seek help from an unexpected ally: Nostradamus, the reclusive astronomer and purported seer. Dismissed by most as a charlatan and a heretic, Catherine knows he will be her only hope in becoming a mother to the future king. Amid court intrigues, betrayals, and humiliations, Catherine waits. She awaits the death of her father-in-law, King Francis, and the birth of a son to carry her name. For once she is queen, Catherine de' Medici's power will only grow. But that power comes at a heavy cost, one she might ever regret. 'Strukul has a brilliant style and a rare imagination' Tim Willocks 'Matteo Strukul has arrived with a bang. His historical saga, Medici, is a worldwide success' Il Venerdì
Download or read book Death in Florence written by Paul Strathern and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-08-15 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances. In Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations and intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events—invasions, trials by fire, the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions and mysterious deaths—featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.In an exhilaratingly rich and deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts, and political compromises that made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex and important moments in Western history.
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 The Golden Age of Marie De Medici written by Susan Saward and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 The Medici Effect written by Frans Johansson and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published as: The Medici effect: breakthrough insights at the intersection of ideas, concepts, and cultures. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press, A2004.
Download or read book The Family Medici written by Mary Hollingsworth and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 637 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained massive political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. Their influence brought about an explosion of Florentine art and architecture. Michelangelo, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo were among the artists with whom they were socialized and patronized.Thus runs the "accepted view” of the Medici. However, Mary Hollingsworth argues that this is a fiction that has now acquired the status of historical fact. In truth, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias. In this dynamic new history, Hollingsworth argues that past narratives have focused on a sanitized view of the Medici—wise rulers, enlightened patrons of the arts, and fathers of the Renaissance—and their story was reinvented in the sixteenth century, mythologized by later generations of Medici who used this as a central prop for their legacy.Hollingsworth's revelatory re-telling of the story of the family Medici brings a fresh and exhilarating new perspective to the story behind the most powerful family of the Italian Renaissance.
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 de Medici Family With and Without Crowns written by Mary O'Hanley-Carew and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2022-11-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When we think of the Renaissance period, we are usually reminded of the glorious artworks done by Michelangelo, Donatello, and Botticelli. However, what most do not realize was that there was more to the Renaissance period that involved so many other interdisciplinary subjects. Playing a part in this period was, of course, the theological, but the humanistic, sociological, political, geographical, cultural, economical, and more recently, the anthropological, ancestral, and genealogical disciplines are playing an equally important role. It is still a period being uncovered and no better place to start than with the de Medici family of Florence, Italy where it all began. They not only became the richest family in the world but they took the thrones of St. Peter's Chair in the Vatican, while others became infamous Queens and Kings The author, a descendant of the de Medici family on her paternal great-grandmother's side, has been researching this period for almost twenty years. Fascinated with their history, she provides a summary of her research over several disciplines. The plots of wealth, power, murder, popes, queens, and kings are stories like no other. It begins in Florence, Italy, then into France, and then into the new world. There has never been a more powerful family in history in so many areas at the same time.
Download or read book Florence and the Medici written by J. R. Hale and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2001 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The enduring fascination of the Medici emanates from their ability as individuals and as a family to control the government of Florence - first, within a quasi-democratic system, and finally through dynastic inheritance.Based on the latest research, Professor Hale's masterly study thus presents an account of the Medici that serves as a history of Florence from the early fifteenth to the early eighteenth century.
Download or read book The Black Prince of Florence written by Catherine Fletcher and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Family tree -- Glossary of names -- Timeline -- Map -- A note on money -- Prologue -- Book one: The bastard son -- Book two: The obedient nephew -- Book three: The prince alone -- Afterword: Alessandro's ethnicity.
Download or read book Catherine de Medici written by Leonie Frieda and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen, premiering September 11. “A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine’s own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine’s story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children’s royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure.
