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 Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397 1494 written by Raymond De Roover and published by Beard Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic history of banking and trade in the medieval period, combining superb research and analysis with graceful writing. The Medici Bank was the most powerful banking house of the 15th century. Headquartered in Florence, Italy, it established branches in Rome, Venice, Geneva, Lyons, Bruges, London, and many other cities. The bank served as financial agent of the Church, extended credit to monarchs, and facilitated international trade in Western Europe. By their personal influence and the use of their profits, the owners and administrators of the bank contributed significantly to the development of Florence as the greatest center of the Renaissance.
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 The House Of Medici written by Christopher Hibbert and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It was a dynasty with more wealth, passion, and power than the houses of Windsor, Kennedy, and Rockefeller combined. It shaped all of Europe and controlled politics, scientists, artists, and even popes, for three hundred years. It was the house of Medici, patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo and Galileo, benefactors who turned Florence into a global power center, and then lost it all. The House of Medici picks up where Barbara Tuchman's Hibbert delves into the lives of the Medici family, whose legacy of increasing self-indulgence and sexual dalliance eventually led to its self-destruction. With twenty-four pages of black-and-white illustrations, this timeless saga is one of Quill's strongest-selling paperbacks.
Download or read book The Medici written by Paul Strathern and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dazzling piece of Italian history of the infamous family that become one of the most powerful in Europe, weaving its history with Renaissance greats from Leonardo da Vinci to Galileo Against the background of an age which saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money and ambition. Strathern paints a vivid narrative of the dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Strathern also follows the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello; as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola; and the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de' Médicis, who became Queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns. ‘A great overview of one family's centuries-long role in changing the face of Europe’ Irish Independent
Download or read book The Medici written by Mary Hollingsworth and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh telling of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, the family that dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries.
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 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 Medici written by George Frederick Young and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Cosimo De Medici and the Florentine Renaissance written by Dale V. Kent and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Cosimo de'Medici (1389-1464), the fabulously wealthy banker who became the leading citizen of Florence in the fifteenth century, spent lavishly as the city's most important patron of art and literature. This book is the first comprehensive examination of the whole body of works of art and architecture commissioned by Cosimo and his sons. By looking closely at this spectacular group of commissions, we gain an entirely new picture of their patron, and of the patron's point of view. Recurrent themes in the commissions - from Fra Angelico's San Marco altarpiece to the Medici palace - indicate the main interests to which Cosimo's patronage gave visual expression. Dale Kent offers new insights and perspectives on the individual objects comprising the Medici oeuvre by setting them within the context of civic and popular culture in early Renaissance Florence, and of Cosimo's life as the leader of the Medici lineage and the dominant force in the governing elite." "From the wealth of available documentation illuminating Cosimo de'Medici's life, the author considers how his own experience influenced his patronage; how the culture of Renaissance Florence provided a common idiom for the patron, his artists, and his audience; what he preferred and intended as a patron; and how focussing on his patronage of art alters the image of him that is based on his roles as banker and politician. Cosimo was as much a product as a shaper of Florentine society, Kent concludes. She identifies civic patriotism and devotion as the main themes of his oeuvre and argues that religious imperatives may well have been more important than political ones in shaping the art for which he was responsible and its reception."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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 Cultivating the Renaissance written by Katie Campbell and published by . This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By exploring the evolution of the Medici family's villas, Cultivating the Renaissance charts the shifting politics, philosophy and aesthetics of the age and chronicles the rise of an extraordinary family from obscure farmers to European royalty. From the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, the Medici family dominated European life. While promoting both arts and sciences, the Medici helped create a new style of architecture, present a new idea of villa life and promote the novel idea of living in harmony with nature. Used variously for pleasure and sports, scholarly and amorous liaisons, commercial enterprise and botanical experimentation, their villas both expressed and influenced contemporary ideas on politics, philosophy, art and design. Each patron's public interests and private passions, as well as the architects, artists and philosophers they employed, are examined. Through a chronological approach, this book reveals how the villas were used, their reception by contemporary commentators, their legacy and their current state approximately five centuries after they were first built. Lavishly illustrated, Cultivating the Renaissance is of great interest to students and scholars of architecture, horticulture, landscape history, philosophy, art, and the history of the Renaissance in Italy.
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 House of Medici written by Captivating History and published by Captivating History. This book was released on 2021-10-30 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meet the Medici family, who, in some ways, can be considered to be the godfathers of the Renaissance. They patronized Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci, among many other famous artists.
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 The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli written by John M. Najemy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) is the most famous and controversial figure in the history of political thought and one of the iconic names of the Renaissance. The Cambridge Companion to Machiavelli brings together sixteen original essays by leading experts, covering his life, his career in Florentine government, his reaction to the dramatic changes that affected Florence and Italy in his lifetime, and the most prominent themes of his thought, including the founding, evolution, and corruption of republics and principalities, class conflict, liberty, arms, religion, ethics, rhetoric, gender, and the Renaissance dialogue with antiquity. In his own time Machiavelli was recognized as an original thinker who provocatively challenged conventional wisdom. With penetrating analyses of The Prince, Discourses on Livy, Art of War, Florentine Histories, and his plays and poetry, this book offers a vivid portrait of this extraordinary thinker as well as assessments of his place in Western thought since the Renaissance.
