Padua in the Age of Dante

Padua in the Age of Dante PDF Author: John Kenneth Hyde
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN:
Category : Civilization, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
"In the first decade of the fourteenth century , the city of Padua was at the zenith of its medieval prosperity. With a population approximately equal to that of contemporary London , Padua was the seat of a university and the centre of an important state which dominated the Venetian hinterland for over fifty years. Unlike the majority of the Italian cities of the period, Padua had a relatively stable contstitution which was republican both in theory and in fact. Since the franchise extended to at least one in ten of the adult male population of the city, politics played a large part in the career of many of the citizens. It is no accident that Marsiglio, the most revolutionary political thinker of the Middle Ages, was a Paduan, or that Padua was one of the earliest centres of a civic humanism.It is the aim of this book to analyse the Padua governing class in relation to its economic foundations and its social structure, and then to trace the political development of the commune culminating in the prolonged crisis of 1310 to 1328, which ended with the definitive establisment of the signoria of the Carrara family. Although primarily concerned with only one city, this study has wider implications, as the Paduan crisis with its choice between responsible and personal government, was far from unique. No less than the great cities of Florence or Venice, secondary centres like Padua were the component cells which made up the distinctive Italian culture of the later Middle Ages, in whose prevailing ethos the origins of the Renaissance must be sought"--Provided by publisher.

Padua in the Age of Dante

Padua in the Age of Dante PDF Author: John Kenneth Hyde
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN:
Category : Civilization, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 380

Get Book

Book Description
"In the first decade of the fourteenth century , the city of Padua was at the zenith of its medieval prosperity. With a population approximately equal to that of contemporary London , Padua was the seat of a university and the centre of an important state which dominated the Venetian hinterland for over fifty years. Unlike the majority of the Italian cities of the period, Padua had a relatively stable contstitution which was republican both in theory and in fact. Since the franchise extended to at least one in ten of the adult male population of the city, politics played a large part in the career of many of the citizens. It is no accident that Marsiglio, the most revolutionary political thinker of the Middle Ages, was a Paduan, or that Padua was one of the earliest centres of a civic humanism.It is the aim of this book to analyse the Padua governing class in relation to its economic foundations and its social structure, and then to trace the political development of the commune culminating in the prolonged crisis of 1310 to 1328, which ended with the definitive establisment of the signoria of the Carrara family. Although primarily concerned with only one city, this study has wider implications, as the Paduan crisis with its choice between responsible and personal government, was far from unique. No less than the great cities of Florence or Venice, secondary centres like Padua were the component cells which made up the distinctive Italian culture of the later Middle Ages, in whose prevailing ethos the origins of the Renaissance must be sought"--Provided by publisher.

Albertino Mussato: The Making of a Poet Laureate

Albertino Mussato: The Making of a Poet Laureate PDF Author: Aislinn McCabe
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000532143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
This book examines the life and political career of Albertino Mussato (1261–1329), a Paduan poet, historian and politician. Mussato was one of the first writers of the late medieval period to begin reviving classical Latin in his works. His classical style tragic drama Ecerinis, inspired by the writings of Seneca, paved the way for him to be crowned as the first poet laureate since antiquity. This work outlines how Mussato depicted the course of his own career, from being an impoverished teenager of insignificant birth to becoming a celebrated poet and scholar, as well as an influential political figure. It looks specifically at the years leading up to Mussato’s public coronation, on 3rd December 1315, as poet laureate for his city. His writings are a key component of his political manoeuvres as he tried to navigate through the troubled waters of northern Italian politics. The book demonstrates how the sources pertaining to Mussato’s life and career are part of an exercise in self-promotion and self-fashioning, intended to secure his position within factional politics, but rooted in a philosophical approach derived from his early classical studies. Accordingly, this book acts as a fully-fledged account of the interaction between Mussato’s writings and his political career, and how this contributed to his rise to fame.

Italy in the Age of Dante and Petrarch, 1216-1380

Italy in the Age of Dante and Petrarch, 1216-1380 PDF Author: John Larner
Publisher: London ; New York : Longman
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description


Urban Legends

Urban Legends PDF Author: Carrie E. Benes
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271037660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Between 1250 and 1350, numerous Italian city-states jockeyed for position in a cutthroat political climate. Seeking to legitimate and ennoble their autonomy, they turned to ancient Rome for concrete and symbolic sources of identity. Each city-state appropriated classical symbols, ancient materials, and Roman myths to legitimate its regime as a logical successor to&—or continuation of&—Roman rule. In Urban Legends, Carrie Bene&š illuminates this role of the classical past in the construction of late medieval Italian urban identity.

Siena, Florence, and Padua: Case studies

Siena, Florence, and Padua: Case studies PDF Author: Diana Norman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300061269
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Three cities compared : urbanism - The design of town halls - Duccio's Maesta - The Arena Chapel - Effigies: human and divine - Design of Siena and Florence Duomos - Paintings of the Sala dei Nove in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena - Funerary chapels - Marian altarpieces - Artistic schemes in Florence - Women as patrons: nuns, widows and rulers.

Siena, Florence, and Padua: Interpretative essays

Siena, Florence, and Padua: Interpretative essays PDF Author: Diana Norman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300061242
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Siena, Florence and Padua were all major centres for the flowering of early Italian Renaissance art and civic culture. The three communities shared a common concern for the embelishment of their cities by means of painting, sculpture and architecture. The eleven papers in this volume re-examine and re-assess the artistic legacy of the three cities during the 14th century amd locate the various works of art considered within their broader cultural, social and religious contexts. Contributors include: D Norman (Patrons, politics and art) ; C Harrison (Giotto and the `rise of painting') ; C King (The arts of carving and casting) ; T Benton (The building trades and design methods) ; D Norman (Art and religion after the Black Death) ; C King (The trecento: New ideas, new evidence) .

Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images

Blurred Boundaries and Deceptive Dichotomies in Pre-Modern Texts and Images PDF Author: Dafna Nissim
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111243893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
This collection of essays focuses on the way blurred boundaries are represented in pre-modern texts and visual art and how they were received and perceived by their audiences: readers, listeners, and viewers. According to the current understanding that opposing cognitive categories that are so common in modern thinking do not apply to pre-modern mentalities, we argue that individuals in medieval and pre-modern societies did not necessarily consider sacred and secular, male and female, real and fictional, and opposing emotions as absolute dichotomies. The contributors to the present collection examine a wide range of cultural artifacts – literary texts, wall paintings, sculptures, jewelry, manuscript illustrations, and various objects as to what they reflect regarding the dominant perceptual system – the network of beliefs, worldviews, presumptions, values, and norms of viewing/reading/hearing different from modern epistemology strongly predicated on the binary nature of things and people. The essays suggest that analyzing pre-modern cultural works of art or literature in light of reception theory can lead to a better understanding of how those cultural products influenced individuals and impacted their thoughts and actions.

Giotto's Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility

Giotto's Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility PDF Author: Henrike Christiane Lange
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009041657
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
In this book, Henrike Lange takes the reader on a tour through one of the most beloved and celebrated monuments in the world – Giotto's Arena Chapel. Paying close attention to previously overlooked details, Lange offers an entirely new reading of the stunning frescoes in their spatial configuration. The author also asks fundamental questions that define the chapel's place in Western art history. Why did Giotto choose an ancient Roman architectural frame for his vision of Salvation? What is the role of painted reliefs in the representation of personal integrity, passion, and the human struggle between pride and humility familiar from Dante's Divine Comedy? How can a new interpretation regarding the influence of ancient reliefs and architecture inform the famous “Assisi controversy” and cast new light on the debate around Giotto's authorship of the Saint Francis cycle? Illustrated with almost 200 color plates, this volume invites scholars and students to rediscover a key monument of art and architecture history and to see it with new eyes.

Giotto the Painter. Volume 1-3

Giotto the Painter. Volume 1-3 PDF Author: Michael Viktor Schwarz
Publisher: Böhlau Wien
ISBN: 3205217357
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 1454

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Book Description
Vol. 1: Life Giotto (1334) is the first European artist about whom it is possible to write following the schema of "life and work". The situation of the sources, however, is complicated: On Giotto's life, there are – on the one hand – biographical accounts from the mid-fourteenth century onwards that responded to various ideological requirements (patriotism, humanism, Renaissance ideology, cult of the artist); on the other, there is extensive documentary material from Giotto's lifetime, which seems to reflect less the biography of an artist than that of a bourgeois businessman resolutely climbing the social ladder. The present volume focuses on this second aspect of the Giotto figure's double life relating it to the form of existence of the pre-modern artist. Vol. 2: Works The paintings examined and contextualised in this volume are those secured for Giotto through early written sources. These sources also help to reconstruct the sequence of his works and artistic inventions as is plausible in the context of media culture in the decades around and after 1300: while Giotto was spiritually and intellectually formed in the sphere of the Florentine Dominicans, his artistic path began in Rome in the shadow of the Curia. The breakthrough to his own artistic concept came immediately before and during his work in Padua. In addition to prominent churchmen, ecclesiastical institutions, and the King of Naples, his clients were predominantly members of Italy's urban and financial elites. The adoption and further development of his inventions by other - especially Sienese - painters pressured him in his later years to try new approaches again. Vol. 3: Survival Giotto is considered by many to be the founder of modern painting. This thesis is discussed and modified in the present volume on an empirical basis. What emerges is that Giotto's impact cannot be reduced simply to the introduction of the study of nature. Rather, his art was involved in the development of pictorial idioms that were attuned to the skills and interests of their audiences. The new approaches in his painting contributed in particular to the possibility of examining and communicating psychological, narrative and allegorical content of great complexity outside the media of language and text, which not only changed the face of European art but certainly contributed to the intellectual opening of Western societies.

Giotto the Painter. Volume 2: Works

Giotto the Painter. Volume 2: Works PDF Author: Michael Viktor Schwarz
Publisher: Böhlau Wien
ISBN: 3205217314
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
The paintings examined and contextualised in this volume are those secured for Giotto through early written sources. These sources also help to reconstruct the sequence of his works and artistic inventions as is plausible in the context of media culture in the decades around and after 1300: while Giotto was spiritually and intellectually formed in the sphere of the Florentine Dominicans, his artistic path began in Rome in the shadow of the Curia. The breakthrough to his own artistic concept came immediately before and during his work in Padua. In addition to prominent churchmen, ecclesiastical institutions, and the King of Naples, his clients were predominantly members of Italy's urban and financial elites. The adoption and further development of his inventions by other - especially Sienese - painters pressured him in his later years to try new approaches again.