Download or read book The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance written by Paul Robert Walker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Walker here pairs off proto-architect Filippo Brunelleschi and doormaker Lorenzo Ghiberti in an often engaging version of Quattrocento Smackdown.” —Library Journal Joining the bestsellers Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, this is a lively and intriguing tale of two artists whose competitive spirit brought to life one of the world’s most magnificent structures and ignited the Renaissance. The dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the great cathedral of Florence, is among the most enduring symbols of the Renaissance, an equal to the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Its designer was Filippo Brunelleschi, a temperamental architect and inventor who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. Yet the completion of the dome was not Brunelleschi’s glory alone. He was forced to share the commission with his archrival, the canny and gifted sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti. In this lush, imaginative history—a fascinating true story of artistic genius and personal triumph—Paul Robert Walker breathes life into these two talented, passionate artists and the competitive drive that united and dived them. As it illuminates fascinating individuals from Donatello and Masaccio to Cosimo de’Medici and Leon Battista Alberti, The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance offers a glorious tour of 15th-century Florence, a bustling city on the verge of greatness in a time of flourishing creativity, rivalry, and genius. “A convincing account of one of the defining moments in art and history . . . He presents the two key figures in this drama in true human proportions . . . a skillful and engrossing story.” —Kirkus Reviews “A monstrously detailed account of a fascinating period in art and architecture.” —AudioFile

Download or read book Brunelleschi written by Frank D. Prager and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive book describes how Filippo Brunelleschi built the dome of Florence's famed cathedral: masonry techniques, construction concepts, and more. 28 halftones. 18 line illustrations.

Download or read book Brunelleschi s Dome written by Ross King and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling, award winning story of the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Renaissance genius who reinvented architecture to build it. On August 19, 1418, a competition concerning Florence's magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore was announced: "Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome....shall do so before the end of the month of September." The proposed dome was regarded far and wide as all but impossible to build: not only would it be enormous, but its original and sacrosanct design shunned the flying buttresses that supported cathedrals all over Europe. The dome would literally need to be erected over thin air. Of the many plans submitted, one stood out--a daring and unorthodox solution to vaulting what is still the largest dome in the world. It was offered not by a master mason or carpenter, but by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi, then forty-one, who would dedicate the next twenty-eight years to solving the puzzles of the dome's construction. In the process, he reinvented the field of architecture. Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Award-winning, bestselling author Ross King weaves this drama amid a background of the plagues, wars, political feuds, and the intellectual ferments of Renaissance Florence to bring the dome's creation to life in a fifteenth-century chronicle with twenty-first-century resonance.

Download or read book Brunelleschi s Cupola written by Giovanni Fanelli and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few icons of the Renaissance are as recognizable as Brunelleschi's cupola rising over the city of Florence. This book offers a two-part innovative analysis and interpretation of Brunelleschi's masterpiece which was completed in 1434.

Download or read book Il Gigante written by Anton Gill and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the 16th century, Italy was a turbulent territory made up of independent states, each at war with or intriguing against its neighbor. There were the proud, cultivated, and degenerate Sforzas in Milan, and in Rome, the corrupt Spanish family of the Borgia whose head, Rodrigo, ascended to St Peter's throne as Pope Alexander VI. In Florence, a golden age of culture and sophistication ended with the death of the greatest of the Medici family, Lorenzo the Magnificent, giving way to an era of uncertainty, cruelty, and religious fundamentalism. In the midst of this turmoil, there existed the greatest concentration of artists that Europe has ever known. Influenced by the rediscovery of the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, artists and thinkers such as Botticelli and da Vinci threw off the shackles of the Middle Ages to produce one of the most creative periods in history - the Renaissance. This is the story of twelve years when war, plague, famine, and chaos made their mark on a volatile Italy, and when a young, erratic genius, Michelangelo Buonarroti, made his first great statue - the David. It was to become a symbol not only of the independence and defiance of the city of Florence but also of the tortured soul who created it. Anton Gill's Il Gigante is a wonderful history of the artist, his times, and one of his most magnificent works.

Download or read book Influences written by Mary Quinlan-McGrath and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-02-20 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today few would think of astronomy and astrology as fields related to theology. Fewer still would know that physically absorbing planetary rays was once considered to have medical and psychological effects. But this was the understanding of light radiation held by certain natural philosophers of early modern Europe, and that, argues Mary Quinlan-McGrath, was why educated people of the Renaissance commissioned artworks centered on astrological themes and practices. Influences is the first book to reveal how important Renaissance artworks were designed to be not only beautiful but also—perhaps even primarily—functional. From the fresco cycles at Caprarola, to the Vatican’s Sala dei Pontefici, to the Villa Farnesina, these great works were commissioned to selectively capture and then transmit celestial radiation, influencing the bodies and minds of their audiences. Quinlan-McGrath examines the sophisticated logic behind these theories and practices and, along the way, sheds light on early creation theory; the relationship between astrology and natural theology; and the protochemistry, physics, and mathematics of rays. An original and intellectually stimulating study, Influences adds a new dimension to the understanding of aesthetics among Renaissance patrons and a new meaning to the seductive powers of art.

Download or read book The Lost Battles written by Jonathan Jones and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-10-23 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of Britain’s most respected and acclaimed art historians, art critic of The Guardian—the galvanizing story of a sixteenth-century clash of titans, the two greatest minds of the Renaissance, working side by side in the same room in a fierce competition: the master Leonardo da Vinci, commissioned by the Florentine Republic to paint a narrative fresco depicting a famous military victory on a wall of the newly built Great Council Hall in the Palazzo Vecchio, and his implacable young rival, the thirty-year-old Michelangelo. We see Leonardo, having just completed The Last Supper, and being celebrated by all of Florence for his miraculous portrait of the wife of a textile manufacturer. That painting—the Mona Lisa—being called the most lifelike anyone had ever seen yet, more divine than human, was captivating the entire Florentine Republic. And Michelangelo, completing a commissioned statue of David, the first colossus of the Renaissance, the archetype hero for the Republic epitomizing the triumph of the weak over the strong, helping to reshape the public identity of the city of Florence and conquer its heart. In The Lost Battles, published in England to great acclaim (“Superb”—The Observer; “Beguilingly written”—The Guardian), Jonathan Jones brilliantly sets the scene of the time—the politics; the world of art and artisans; and the shifting, agitated cultural landscape. We see Florence, a city freed from the oppressive reach of the Medicis, lurching from one crisis to another, trying to protect its liberty in an Italy descending into chaos, with the new head of the Republic in search of a metaphor that will make clear the glory that is Florence, and seeing in the commissioned paintings the expression of his vision. Jones reconstructs the paintings that Leonardo and Michelangelo undertook—Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari, a nightmare seen in the eyes of the warrior (it became the first modern depiction of the disenchantment of war) and Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina, a call to arms and the first great transfiguration of the erotic into art. Jones writes about the competition; how it unfolded and became the defining moment in the transformation of “craftsman” to “artist”; why the Florentine government began to fall out of love with one artist in favor of the other; and how—and why—in a competition that had no formal prize to clearly resolve the outcome, the battle became one for the hearts and minds of the Florentine Republic, with Michelangelo setting out to prove that his work, not Leonardo’s, embodied the future of art. Finally, we see how the result of the competition went on to shape a generation of narrative paintings, beginning with those of Raphael. A riveting exploration into one of history’s most resonant exchanges of ideas, a rich, fascinating book that gives us a whole new understanding of an age and those at its center.

Download or read book Brunelleschi written by Filippo Brunelleschi and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ghastly Glass written by Joyce and Jim Lavene and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-09-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At her glass-blowing apprenticeship, Renaissance reveler Jessie Morton?s crabby boss and his creepy nephew are causing her problems. But when the man playing the Grim Reaper is killed, Jess has to find the lady, lord or serf whodunit.

Download or read book Renaissance Rivals written by Rona Goffen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For sixteenth-century Italian masters, the creation of art was a contest. They knew each other's work and patrons, were collegues and rivals. Survey of this artistic rivalry, the emotional and professional circumstances of their creations.

Download or read book Bigfoot and Other Legendary Creatures written by Paul Robert Walker and published by San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. This book was released on 1992 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the myths and scientific inquiries surrounding repeated sightings of such legendary creatures as the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and the Yeti.

Download or read book Big Men Big Country written by Paul Robert Walker and published by HMH Books For Young Readers. This book was released on 2000-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of American tall tales featuring such legendary characters as Davy Crockett, Paul Bunyan, and Pecos Bill.

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 Trail of the Wild West written by Paul Robert Walker and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "There, upon the rock, about six inches beneath the surface of the water, I discovered the gold. I was entirely alone at the time" James Marshall, 1848. Trail of the Wild West re-creates this colorful period in all its vivid variety, from the legendary desperadoes, soldiers, and Indian leaders, whose enduring myths often stray far from the truth, to the "little people" whose diaries and letters record a plainer yet more poignant reality.

Download or read book All About America Gold Rush and Riches written by Paul Robert Walker and published by . This book was released on 2011-06-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the entire period of the boom-and-bust of one of the greatest expansion periods in U.S. history--from the dangers of the journey to the rough and tumble of the mining settlements. Full color.

Download or read book Crime Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy written by Trevor Dean and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-04-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wide body of internationally-renowned scholars, including a core of Italians, this volume focuses on new material and puts crime and disorder in Renaissance Italy firmly in its political and social context. All stages of the judicial process are addressed, from the drafting of new laws to the rounding-up of bandits. Attention is paid both to common crime and to more historically specific crimes, such as sumptuary laws. Attempts to prevent or suppress disorder in private and public life are analysed, and many different types of crime, from the sexual to the political and from the verbal to the physical, are considered. In sum the volume aims to demonstrate the fundamental importance of crime and disorder for the study of the Italian Renaissance. It is the only single-volume treatment available of the subject in English. Other books have studied crime in a single city, or single types of crime, but few have presented a cross-section of articles which deploy diverse methodological approaches in material from many parts of the peninsula.

Download or read book The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books written by Edward Wilson-Lee and published by Scribner. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This impeccably researched and “adventure-packed” (The Washington Post) account of the obsessive quest by Christopher Columbus’s son to create the greatest library in the world is “the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters” (NPR) and offers a vivid picture of Europe on the verge of becoming modern. At the peak of the Age of Exploration, Hernando Colón sailed with his father Christopher Columbus on his final voyage to the New World, a journey that ended in disaster, bloody mutiny, and shipwreck. After Columbus’s death in 1506, eighteen-year-old Hernando sought to continue—and surpass—his father’s campaign to explore the boundaries of the known world by building a library that would collect everything ever printed: a vast holding organized by summaries and catalogues; really, the first ever database for the exploding diversity of written matter as the printing press proliferated across Europe. Hernando traveled extensively and obsessively amassed his collection based on the groundbreaking conviction that a library of universal knowledge should include “all books, in all languages and on all subjects,” even material often dismissed: ballads, erotica, news pamphlets, almanacs, popular images, romances, fables. The loss of part of his collection to another maritime disaster in 1522, set off the final scramble to complete this sublime project, a race against time to realize a vision of near-impossible perfection. “Magnificent…a thrill on almost every page” (The New York Times Book Review), The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books is a window into sixteenth-century Europe’s information revolution, and a reflection of the passion and intrigues that lie beneath our own insatiable desires to bring order to the world today.