Download or read book The Medici Giraffe written by Marina Belozerskaya and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2009-06-27 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration, spanning two thousand years, of the central role exotic animals have played in war, diplomacy, and the pomp of rulers and luminaries.
Download or read book Exotic Animals in the Art and Culture of the Medici Court in Florence written by Angelica Groom and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-10-22 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the diverse roles exotic animals, both living species and depicted as motifs in art, played in the fashioning of the Medici’s courtly identity.
Download or read book Animals and Society written by Margo DeMello and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook provides a full overview of human-animal studies. It focuses on the conceptual construction of animals in American culture and the way in which it reinforces and perpetuates hierarchical human relationships rooted in racism, sexism, and class privilege.
Download or read book The Medici Popes written by Herbert Millingchamp Vaughan and published by . This book was released on 1908 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Breathless Zoo written by Rachel Poliquin and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012-08-22 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.
Download or read book Medusa s Gaze written by Marina Belozerskaya and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tazza Farnese is one of the most admired objects from classical antiquity. A libation bowl carved from banded agate, it features Medusa's head on its outside and, inside, an assembly of Egyptian gods. For more than two millennia, these radiant figures have mesmerized emperors and artists, popes and thieves, merchants and museum goers. In this, the first book-length account of this renowned masterpiece, Marina Belozerskaya traces its fascinating journey through history. That it has survived at all is a miracle. The Tazza's origins date back to Ptolemaic Egypt where it likely enhanced the power and prestige of Cleopatra. After her defeat by Emperor Augustus, the bowl began an amazing itinerary along many flashpoints in world history. It likely traveled from Rome to Constantinople. After that city's sack by crusaders in 1204, it returned west to inspire the classical revival at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II at Palermo. The Tazza next graced Tamerlane's court at Samarqand, before becoming an obsession of Renaissance popes and princes. It witnessed the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the turbulent aftermath of the French Revolution, and the birth of the modern Italian state. Throughout its journey, the Tazza aroused the lust of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Mongol rulers, consoled a heart-broken duchess, inspired artists including Botticelli and Raphael, tempted spies and thieves, and drew the ire of a deranged museum guard who nearly destroyed it. More than a biography of the world's most cherished bowl, Medusa's Gaze is a vivid and delightful voyage through history.
Download or read book Giraffe Reflections written by Dale Peterson and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a cultural, historical, and pictorial history of giraffes, describing their biology and behavior and demonstrating their grace and elegance through over one hundred photographs.
Download or read book Zeraffa Giraffa written by Dianne Hofmeyr and published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books. This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the astonishing true story of Zeraffa, a giraffe who was sent as a gift from Egypt to France in 1826. A young boy, Atir, takes care of Zeraffa on her epic journey and the sailors sing songs as she gazes down at them. In France, Atir leads her through the countryside, and thousands of people marvel at Zeraffa. Paris falls in love with Zeraffa. The King builds her a special house in the Jardin des Plantes. On warm nights, the young princess visits, while Atir whispers stories to Zeraffa of a hot land far away. The amazing story by an award-winning author of a giraffe's extraordinary voyage from Africa to Paris.
Download or read book Lives of the Early Medici written by Janet Ross and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Beautiful Fall written by Alicia Drake and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive biography of the late designer, Karl Lagerfeld, and his infamous rivalry with Yves Saint Laurent. In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition. At the center of it all were fashion's most beloved luminaries - Yves Saint Laurent, the reclusive enfant terrible, and Karl Lagerfeld, the flamboyant freelancer with a talent for reinvention - and they divided Paris into two fabulous halves. Their enduring rivalry is chronicled in this dazzling exposè of an era: of social ambitions, shared obsessions, and the mesmerizing quest for beauty. "Deliciously dramatic... The Beautiful Fall crackles with excitement."-New York Times Book Review "Fascinating." -New York Times "Addictive." -Philadelphia Inquirer "It's like US Weekly, 1970s style." -Gotham "A story constructed as exquisitely as a couture dress. . . . It moves stylishly forward, with frequent over-the-shoulder glances at some very dishy background." -Boston Globe
Download or read book The Sun s Heartbeat written by Bob Berman and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-07-13 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beating heart of the sun is the very pulse of life on earth. And from the ancients who plotted its path at Stonehenge to the modern scientists who unraveled the nuclear fusion reaction that turns mass into energy, humankind has sought to solve its mysteries. In this lively biography of the sun, Bob Berman ranges from its stellar birth to its spectacular future death with a focus on the wondrous and enthralling, and on the heartbreaking sacrifice, laughable errors, egotistical battles, and brilliant inspirations of the people who have tried to understand its power. What, exactly, are the ghostly streaks of light astronauts see-but can't photograph-when they're in space? And why is it impossible for two people to see the exact same rainbow? Why are scientists beginning to think that the sun is safer than sunscreen? And how does the fluctuation of sunspots-and its heartbeat-affect everything from satellite communications to wheat production across the globe? Peppered with mind-blowing facts and memorable anecdotes about spectral curiosities-the recently-discovered "second sun" that lurks beneath the solar surface, the eerie majesty of a total solar eclipse-The Sun's Heartbeat offers a robust and entertaining narrative of how the Sun has shaped humanity and our understanding of the universe around us.
Download or read book The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium written by Juan Pimentel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One animal left India in 1515, caged in the hold of a Portuguese ship, and sailed around Africa to Lisbon—the first of its species to see Europe for more than a thousand years. The other crossed the Atlantic from South America to Madrid in 1789, its huge fossilized bones packed in crates, its species unknown. How did Europeans three centuries apart respond to these two mysterious beasts—a rhinoceros, known only from ancient texts, and a nameless monster? As Juan Pimentel explains, the reactions reflect deep intellectual changes but also the enduring power of image and imagination to shape our understanding of the natural world. We know the rhinoceros today as “Dürer’s Rhinoceros,” after the German artist’s iconic woodcut. His portrait was inaccurate—Dürer never saw the beast and relied on conjecture, aided by a sketch from Lisbon. But the influence of his extraordinary work reflected a steady move away from ancient authority to the dissemination in print of new ideas and images. By the time the megatherium arrived in Spain, that movement had transformed science. When published drawings found their way to Paris, the great zoologist Georges Cuvier correctly deduced that the massive bones must have belonged to an extinct giant sloth. It was a pivotal moment in the discovery of the prehistoric world. The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium offers a penetrating account of two remarkable episodes in the cultural history of science and is itself a vivid example of the scientific imagination at work.
Download or read book Piero di Cosimo written by Dennis Geronimus and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-25 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Piero di Cosimo: Painter of Faith and Fable makes available the proceedings of a conference of the same name, hosted by the Dutch University Institute for Art History (NIKI), Florence, in September 2015, at the conclusion of the second of two exhibitions dedicated to Piero at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence. It is the twelfth publication in the NIKI series and the first such anthology to be published by Brill.
Download or read book And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind written by Bill Streever and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling exploration of the science and history of wind from the bestselling author of Cold. Scientist and bestselling nature writer Bill Streever goes to any extreme to explore wind -- the winds that built empires, the storms that wreck them -- by traveling right through it. Narrating from a fifty-year-old sailboat, Streever leads readers through the world's first forecasts, Chaos Theory, and a future affected by climate change. Along the way, he shares stories of wind-riding spiders, wind-sculpted landscapes, wind-generated power, wind-tossed airplanes, and the uncomfortable interactions between wind and wars, drawing from natural science, history, business, travel, as well as from his own travels. And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind is an effortless personal narrative featuring the keen observations, scientific rigor, and whimsy that readers love. You'll never see a breeze in the same light again.
Download or read book Giraffe written by Edgar Williams and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Their extraordinary long necks, distinctive camouflage, graceful movements, and friendly nature have made giraffes one of the most fascinating and beloved animals on the planet. But while giraffes once roamed the Great Plains of Africa in huge herds, their numbers have greatly diminished, and they are now entirely dependent on humanity for their survival. In Giraffe, Edgar Williams explores not only the biology of the tallest animals on earth, but also their impact on human history—including in ancient Egypt, where giraffes were kept as exotic pets; the Middle Ages, when giraffes were considered mythical beasts as improbable and mysterious as the dragon; and the Victorian era, in which giraffe hunting was considered an exhilarating sport. Giraffe is the first book to provide a comprehensive, twenty-first-century view of the giraffe in art, literature, film, and popular culture, as well as its natural history from prehistory to modern times. With new insights into the giraffe’s genetics and evolution, this book will appeal to those interested in the giraffe’s unique biology and to anyone who admires the majestic giraffe.
Download or read book Genre in a Changing World written by Charles Bazerman and published by Parlor Press LLC. This book was released on 2009-09-16 with total page 486 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions, and educational settings. GENRE IN A CHANGING WORLD provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, and North and South America, were selected from the over 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies) held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches, including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.
Download or read book Failure Is Impossible written by Lynn Sherr and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Susan B. Anthony didn’t live long enough to see women get the vote, but her tireless dedication shines through on every page.”—The Washington Post Book World Failure Is Impossible brings together—for the first time—a wide-ranging, spirited collection of Susan B. Anthony’s speeches, letters, and quotes, linked by contemporary reports and Lynn Sherr’s insightful biographical commentary. By allowing the legendary suffragist to speak for herself, Sherr brushes the dust off of the Susan B. Anthony icon, introducing a new generation to the brave, brilliant, funny, and, most of all, prescient woman she really was. “Lynn Sherr has done us all a great service by bringing to spectacular light the too long neglected story of one of our greatest patriots—a genuine hero who helped change for the better the lives of a majority of American citizens.”—Ken Burns
