The House Of Medici

The House Of Medici PDF Author: Christopher Hibbert
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062228196
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
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.

The House Of Medici

The House Of Medici PDF Author: Christopher Hibbert
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062228196
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Medici Money

Medici Money PDF Author: Tim Parks
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847656870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
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.

The Family Medici

The Family Medici PDF Author: Mary Hollingsworth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 168177710X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
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.

House of Medici

House of Medici PDF Author: Captivating History
Publisher: Captivating History
ISBN: 9781637165058
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
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.

The Medici

The Medici PDF Author: Paul Strathern
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448104343
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
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

Magnifico

Magnifico PDF Author: Miles Unger
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743254341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
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.

The Black Prince of Florence

The Black Prince of Florence PDF Author: Catherine Fletcher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019061272X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
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.

Medici ~ Legacy

Medici ~ Legacy PDF Author: Matteo Strukul
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786692163
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
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

Cosimo De' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance

Cosimo De' Medici and the Florentine Renaissance PDF Author: Dale V. Kent
Publisher:
ISBN: 0300081286
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
"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

Murder of a Medici Princess

Murder of a Medici Princess PDF Author: Caroline P. Murphy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198042906
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In Murder of a Medici Princess, Caroline Murphy illuminates the brilliant life and tragic death of Isabella de Medici, one of the brightest stars in the dazzling world of Renaissance Italy, the daughter of Duke Cosimo I, ruler of Florence and Tuscany. Murphy is a superb storyteller, and her fast-paced narrative captures the intrigue, the scandal, the romantic affairs, and the violence that were commonplace in the Florentine court. She brings to life an extraordinary woman, fluent in five languages, a free-spirited patron of the arts, a daredevil, a practical joker, and a passionate lover. Isabella, in fact, conducted numerous affairs, including a ten-year relationship with the cousin of her violent and possessive husband. Her permissive lifestyle, however, came to an end upon the death of her father, who was succeeded by her disapproving older brother Francesco. Considering Isabella's ways to be licentious and a disgrace upon the family, he permitted her increasingly enraged husband to murder her in a remote Medici villa. To tell this dramatic story, Murphy draws on a vast trove of newly discovered and unpublished documents, ranging from Isabella's own letters, to the loose-tongued dispatches of ambassadors to Florence, to contemporary descriptions of the opulent parties and balls, salons and hunts in which Isabella and her associates participated. Murphy resurrects the exciting atmosphere of Renaissance Florence, weaving Isabella's beloved city into her story, evoking the intellectual and artistic community that thrived during her time. Palaces and gardens in the city become places of creativity and intrigue, sites of seduction, and grounds for betrayal. Here then is a narrative of compelling and epic proportions, magnificent and alluring, decadent and ultimately tragic.