Catherine de Medici

Catherine de Medici PDF Author: Leonie Frieda
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063235919
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen, premiering September 11. “A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine’s own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine’s story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children’s royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure.

Catherine de Medici

Catherine de Medici PDF Author: Leonie Frieda
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063235919
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
The inspiration for the STARZ original series, The Serpent Queen, premiering September 11. “A beautifully written portrait of a ruthless, subtle and fearless woman fighting for survival and power in a world of gangsterish brutality, routine assassination and religious mania. . . . Frieda has brought a largely forgotten heroine-villainess and a whole sumptuously vicious era back to life. . . . This is The Godfather meets Elizabeth.” —Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Poisoner, besotted mother, despot, necromancer, engineer of a massacre: the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen of France to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds. Based on comprehensive research including thousands of Catherine’s own letters, Frieda unfurls Catherine’s story from her troubled childhood in Florence to her tumultuous marriage to Henry II of France; her transformation of French culture to her reign as a queen who would use brutality to ensure her children’s royal birthright. Brilliantly executed, this enthralling biography goes beyond myth to paint a very human portrait of this remarkable figure.

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici PDF Author: Edith Helen Sichel
Publisher: Hardpress Publishing
ISBN: 9781290917964
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici PDF Author: Edith Helen Sichel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : France
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici PDF Author: Edith Sichel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : France - Histoire
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Catherine de'Medici

Catherine de'Medici PDF Author: R J Knecht
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317896866
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Catherine de' Medici (1519-89) was the wife of one king of France and the mother of three more - the last, sorry representatives of the Valois, who had ruled France since 1328. She herself is of preeminent importance to French history, and one of the most controversial of all historical figures. Despised until she was powerful enough to be hated, she was, in her own lifetime and since, the subject of a "Black Legend" that has made her a favourite subject of historical novelists (most notably Alexandre Dumas, whose Reine Margot has recently had new currency on film). Yet there is no recent biography of her in English. This new study, by a leading scholar of Renaissance France, is a major event. Catherine, a neglected and insignificant member of the Florentine Medici, entered French history in 1533 when she married the son of Francis I for short-lived political reasons: her uncle was pope Clement VII, who died the following year. Now of no diplomatic value, Catherine was treated with contempt at the French court even after her husband's accession as Henry II in 1547. Even so, she gave him ten children before he was killed in a tournament in 1559. She was left with three young boys, who succeeded to the throne as Francis II (1559-60), Charles IX (1560-74) and Henry III (1574-89). As regent and queen-mother, a woman and with no natural power-base of her own, she faced impossible odds. France was accelerating into chaos, with political faction at court and religious conflict throughout the land. As the country disintegrated, Catherine's overriding concern was for the interests of her children. She was tireless in her efforts to protect her sons' inheritance, and to settle her daughters in advantageous marriages. But France needed more. Catherine herself was both peace-loving and, in an age of frenzied religious hatred, unbigoted. She tried to use the Huguenots to counterbalance the growing power of the ultra-Catholic Guises but extremism on all sides frustrated her. She was drawn into the violence. Her name is ineradicably associated with its culmination, the Massacre of St Bartholomew (24 August 1572), when thousands of Huguenots were slaughtered in Paris and elsewhere. To this day no-one knows for certain whether Catherine instigated the massacre or not, but here Robert Knecht explores the probabilities in a notably level-headed fashion. His book is a gripping narrative in its own right. It offers both a lucid exposition of immensely complex events (with their profound imact on the future of France), and also a convincing portrait of its enigmatic central character. In going behind the familiar Black Legend, Professor Knecht does not make the mistake of whitewashing Catherine; but he shows how intractable was her world, and how shifty or intransigent the people with whom she had to deal. For all her flaws, she emerges as a more sympathetic - and, in her pragmatism, more modern - figure than most of her leading contemporaries.

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici PDF Author: Edith Helen Sichel
Publisher: Palala Press
ISBN: 9781355861935
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

LATER YEARS OF CATHERINE DE ME

LATER YEARS OF CATHERINE DE ME PDF Author: Edith Helen 1862-1914 Sichel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781372591662
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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The Life and Times of Catherine De' Medici

The Life and Times of Catherine De' Medici PDF Author: Francis Watson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Queens
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici (Classic Reprint)

The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici (Classic Reprint) PDF Author: Edith Helen Sichel
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780265198438
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Excerpt from The Later Years of Catherine De' Medici HE second half of my study of Catherine de' Medici hardly seems to need any preface, and yet I should like to take the opportunity of once again defining the scope of my work. I can make no claim to figure as an expert historian. My aim has been no more than to paint portraits - to draw the central figure of Catherine as I see her, with such other persons in the drama as were interwoven with her destiny, standing out against a multi-coloured background and throwing strong shadows upon it. I have detected no error in accepted dates I have made no discovery of an actual fact. Yet the research into character may shed fresh light upon old events, may account for the unaccountable, and harmonize what is discordant. And the comments of contemporaries when read for themselves, apart from any larger historical purpose, acquire a new vitality. They sharpen our perception of detail, and give us that more personal aspect of the strange things that happen which often explains them. It is from this point of View alone that I venture to reproduce such famous catastrophes as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, or the murder of Henri, Due de Guise. Charity, which is understanding, is as needful for sound judgment of bygone generations as it is for our judgment of our neighbours. When men appear to us abnormally wicked, it is because we have not grasped closely enough the current standard of their morality. They only show black or white according as they rise or fall below the average line, and if they do not chance to possess some virtue upon which we pride ourselves, we may feel sure that they are rich in some other of which our age knows nothing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici PDF Author: C. W. Gortner
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0345501861
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Leaving her native Florence to marry Henry II of France, Catherine de Medici embarks on an unanticipated destiny of religious warfare, thwarted leadership and psychologically charged royal machinations. By the author of The Last Queen.