A Source Book for Mediæval History

A Source Book for Mediæval History PDF Author: Oliver J. Thatcher
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
A Source Book for Mediæval History is a scholarly piece by Oliver J. Thatcher. It covers all major historical events and leaders from the Germania of Tacitus in the 1st century to the decrees of the Hanseatic League in the 13th century.

A Source Book for Mediæval History

A Source Book for Mediæval History PDF Author: Oliver J. Thatcher
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
A Source Book for Mediæval History is a scholarly piece by Oliver J. Thatcher. It covers all major historical events and leaders from the Germania of Tacitus in the 1st century to the decrees of the Hanseatic League in the 13th century.

The Florentine Histories

The Florentine Histories PDF Author: Niccolò Machiavelli
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Florence (History)
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description


A History of Florence, 1200 - 1575

A History of Florence, 1200 - 1575 PDF Author: John M. Najemy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1405178469
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
In this history of Florence, distinguished historian John Najemy discusses all the major developments in Florentine history from 1200 to 1575. Captures Florence's transformation from a medieval commune into an aristocratic republic, territorial state, and monarchy Weaves together intellectual, cultural, social, economic, religious, and political developments Academically rigorous yet accessible and appealing to the general reader Likely to become the standard work on Renaissance Florence for years to come

History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy

History of Florence and of the Affairs of Italy PDF Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465527443
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 595

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Book Description
Niccolo Machiavelli, the first great Italian historian, and one of the most eminent political writers of any age or country, was born at Florence, May 3, 1469. He was of an old though not wealthy Tuscan family, his father, who was a jurist, dying when Niccolo was sixteen years old. We know nothing of Machiavelli's youth and little about his studies. He does not seem to have received the usual humanistic education of his time, as he knew no Greek. The first notice of Machiavelli is in 1498 when we find him holding the office of Secretary in the second Chancery of the Signoria, which office he retained till the downfall of the Florentine Republic in 1512. His unusual ability was soon recognized, and in 1500 he was sent on a mission to Louis XII. of France, and afterward on an embassy to Cæsar Borgia, the lord of Romagna, at Urbino. Machiavelli's report and description of this and subsequent embassies to this prince, shows his undisguised admiration for the courage and cunning of Cæsar, who was a master in the application of the principles afterwards exposed in such a skillful and uncompromising manner by Machiavelli in his Prince. The limits of this introduction will not permit us to follow with any detail the many important duties with which he was charged by his native state, all of which he fulfilled with the utmost fidelity and with consummate skill. When, after the battle of Ravenna in 1512 the holy league determined upon the downfall of Pier Soderini, Gonfaloniere of the Florentine Republic, and the restoration of the Medici, the efforts of Machiavelli, who was an ardent republican, were in vain; the troops he had helped to organize fled before the Spaniards and the Medici were returned to power. Machiavelli attempted to conciliate his new masters, but he was deprived of his office, and being accused in the following year of participation in the conspiracy of Boccoli and Capponi, he was imprisoned and tortured, though afterward set at liberty by Pope Leo X. He now retired to a small estate near San Casciano, seven miles from Florence. Here he devoted himself to political and historical studies, and though apparently retired from public life, his letters show the deep and passionate interest he took in the political vicissitudes through which Italy was then passing, and in all of which the singleness of purpose with which he continued to advance his native Florence, is clearly manifested. It was during his retirement upon his little estate at San Casciano that Machiavelli wrote The Prince, the most famous of all his writings, and here also he had begun a much more extensive work, his Discourses on the Decades of Livy, which continued to occupy him for several years. These Discourses, which do not form a continuous commentary on Livy, give Machiavelli an opportunity to express his own views on the government of the state, a task for which his long and varied political experience, and an assiduous study of the ancients rendered him eminently qualified. The Discourses and The Prince, written at the same time, supplement each other and are really one work. Indeed, the treatise, The Art of War, though not written till 1520 should be mentioned here because of its intimate connection with these two treatises, it being, in fact, a further development of some of the thoughts expressed in the Discorsi. The Prince, a short work, divided into twenty-six books, is the best known of all Machiavelli's writings. Herein he expresses in his own masterly way his views on the founding of a new state, taking for his type and model Cæsar Borgia, although the latter had failed in his schemes for the consolidation of his power in the Romagna. The principles here laid down were the natural outgrowth of the confused political conditions of his time.

The Two First Centuries of Florentine History

The Two First Centuries of Florentine History PDF Author: Pasquale Villari
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Florence (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description


The Literary World

The Literary World PDF Author: Evert Augustus Duykinck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Books
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description


Machiavelli's Prince

Machiavelli's Prince PDF Author: Erica Benner
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191003921
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Why did Machiavelli write the Prince - and why did religious and political authorities find it so threatening? Five hundred years on, this book tries to answer these questions. In the first detailed, chapter-by-chapter reading of the Prince in any language, Erica Benner shows that the book is a masterpiece of ironic writing. Machiavelli's style is deliberately ambiguous: he often seems to say one thing, but gives readers clues that point toward a very different message. Beyond its 'Machiavellian' surface, the Prince has a surprisingly moral purpose. It teaches readers how to recognize hidden dangers in political conduct that merely appears great or praiseworthy - and to mistrust promises of easy solutions to political problems. This highly engaging new interpretation helps readers to see beyond the Prince's deceptive first appearances. Benner sets out Machiavelli's main ironic techniques at the outset, especially his coded use of words to signal praise or blame. Once readers become familiar with these codes, they will find it easier to grasp the Prince's surreptitiously pro-republican message - and its powerful critique of charismatic one-man rule and imperial politics.

The Essential Douglass

The Essential Douglass PDF Author: Frederick Douglass
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 1624664555
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
In addition to a thoughtful selection of the essays, speeches, and autobiographical writings of Frederick Douglass, this anthology provides an illuminating Introduction; a timeline of Douglass' life; footnotes that introduce individuals, quotations, and events; and a selected bibliography.

Machiavelli's Politics

Machiavelli's Politics PDF Author: Catherine H. Zuckert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022643480X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 511

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Book Description
Machiavelli is popularly known as a teacher of tyrants, a key proponent of the unscrupulous “Machiavellian” politics laid down in his landmark political treatise The Prince. Others cite the Discourses on Livy to argue that Machiavelli is actually a passionate advocate of republican politics who saw the need for occasional harsh measures to maintain political order. Which best characterizes the teachings of the prolific Italian philosopher? With Machiavelli’s Politics, Catherine H. Zuckert turns this question on its head with a major reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s prose works that reveals a surprisingly cohesive view of politics. Starting with Machiavelli’s two major political works, Zuckert persuasively shows that the moral revolution Machiavelli sets out in The Prince lays the foundation for the new form of democratic republic he proposes in the Discourses. Distrusting ambitious politicians to serve the public interest of their own accord, Machiavelli sought to persuade them in The Prince that the best way to achieve their own ambitions was to secure the desires and ambitions of their subjects and fellow citizens. In the Discourses, he then describes the types of laws and institutions that would balance the conflict between the two in a way that would secure the liberty of most, if not all. In the second half of her book, Zuckert places selected later works—La Mandragola, The Art of War, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Florentine Histories—under scrutiny, showing how Machiavelli further developed certain aspects of his thought in these works. In The Art of War, for example, he explains more concretely how and to what extent the principles of organization he advanced in The Prince and the Discourses ought to be applied in modern circumstances. Because human beings act primarily on passions, Machiavelli attempts to show readers what those passions are and how they can be guided to have productive rather than destructive results. A stunning and ambitious analysis, Machiavelli’s Politics brilliantly shows how many conflicting perspectives do inform Machiavelli’s teachings, but that one needs to consider all of his works in order to understand how they cohere into a unified political view. This is a magisterial work that cannot be ignored if a comprehensive understanding of the philosopher is to be obtained.

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance PDF Author: Gordon Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191025259
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
The Renaissance is one of the most celebrated periods in European history. But when did it begin? When did it end? And what did it include? Traditionally regarded as a revival of classical art and learning, centred upon fifteenth-century Italy, views of the Renaissance have changed considerably in recent decades. The glories of Florence and the art of Raphael and Michelangelo remain an important element of the Renaissance story, but they are now only a part of a much wider story which looks beyond an exclusive focus on high culture, beyond the Italian peninsula, and beyond the fifteenth century. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance tells the cultural history of this broader and longer Renaissance: from seminal figures such as Dante and Giotto in thirteenth-century Italy, to the waning of Spain's 'golden age' in the 1630s, and the closure of the English theatres in 1642, the date generally taken to mark the end of the English literary Renaissance. Geographically, the story ranges from Spanish America to Renaissance Europe's encounter with the Ottomans—and far beyond, to the more distant cultures of China and Japan. And thematically, under Gordon Campbell's expert editorial guidance, the volume covers the whole gamut of Renaissance civilization, with chapters on humanism and the classical tradition; war and the state; religion; art and architecture; the performing arts; literature; craft and technology; science and medicine; and travel and cultural exchange.