The Medici Giraffe

The Medici Giraffe PDF Author: Marina Belozerskaya
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316076422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
A fascinating exploration, spanning two thousand years, of the central role exotic animals have played in war, diplomacy, and the pomp of rulers and luminaries.

The Medici Giraffe

The Medici Giraffe PDF Author: Marina Belozerskaya
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316076422
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
A fascinating exploration, spanning two thousand years, of the central role exotic animals have played in war, diplomacy, and the pomp of rulers and luminaries.

Exotic Animals in the Art and Culture of the Medici Court in Florence

Exotic Animals in the Art and Culture of the Medici Court in Florence PDF Author: Angelica Groom
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004371133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The book examines the roles that rare and exotic animals played in the cultural self-fashioning and the political imaging of the Medici court during the family’s reign, first as Dukes of Florence (1532-1569) and subsequently as Grand Dukes of Tuscany (1569-1737). The book opens with an examination of global practices in zoological collecting and cultural uses of animals. The Medici’s activities as collectors of exotic species, the menageries they established and their deployment of animals in the ceremonial life of the court and in their art are examined in relation to this wider global perspective. The book seeks to nuance the myth promoted by the Medici themselves that theirs was the most successful princely serraglio in early modern Europe.

The Medici Popes

The Medici Popes PDF Author: Herbert Millingchamp Vaughan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Italy
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description


Medusa's Gaze

Medusa's Gaze PDF Author: Marina Belozerskaya
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199876428
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Tazza Farnese is one of the most admired objects from classical antiquity. A libation bowl carved from banded agate, it features Medusa's head on its outside and, inside, an assembly of Egyptian gods. For more than two millennia, these radiant figures have mesmerized emperors and artists, popes and thieves, merchants and museum goers. In this, the first book-length account of this renowned masterpiece, Marina Belozerskaya traces its fascinating journey through history. That it has survived at all is a miracle. The Tazza's origins date back to Ptolemaic Egypt where it likely enhanced the power and prestige of Cleopatra. After her defeat by Emperor Augustus, the bowl began an amazing itinerary along many flashpoints in world history. It likely traveled from Rome to Constantinople. After that city's sack by crusaders in 1204, it returned west to inspire the classical revival at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II at Palermo. The Tazza next graced Tamerlane's court at Samarqand, before becoming an obsession of Renaissance popes and princes. It witnessed the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the turbulent aftermath of the French Revolution, and the birth of the modern Italian state. Throughout its journey, the Tazza aroused the lust of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Mongol rulers, consoled a heart-broken duchess, inspired artists including Botticelli and Raphael, tempted spies and thieves, and drew the ire of a deranged museum guard who nearly destroyed it. More than a biography of the world's most cherished bowl, Medusa's Gaze is a vivid and delightful voyage through history.

The Breathless Zoo

The Breathless Zoo PDF Author: Rachel Poliquin
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271059613
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

Giraffe Reflections

Giraffe Reflections PDF Author: Dale Peterson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520266854
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Presents a cultural, historical, and pictorial history of giraffes, describing their biology and behavior and demonstrating their grace and elegance through over one hundred photographs.

Lives of the Early Medici

Lives of the Early Medici PDF Author: Janet Ross
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Florence (Italy)
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description


Zeraffa Giraffa

Zeraffa Giraffa PDF Author: Dianne Hofmeyr
Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children's Books
ISBN: 9781847806611
Category : Children's stories
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This is the astonishing true story of Zeraffa, a giraffe who was sent as a gift from Egypt to France in 1826. A young boy, Atir, takes care of Zeraffa on her epic journey and the sailors sing songs as she gazes down at them. In France, Atir leads her through the countryside, and thousands of people marvel at Zeraffa. Paris falls in love with Zeraffa. The King builds her a special house in the Jardin des Plantes. On warm nights, the young princess visits, while Atir whispers stories to Zeraffa of a hot land far away. The amazing story by an award-winning author of a giraffe's extraordinary voyage from Africa to Paris.

And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind

And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind PDF Author: Bill Streever
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316410586
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
A thrilling exploration of the science and history of wind from the bestselling author of Cold. Scientist and bestselling nature writer Bill Streever goes to any extreme to explore wind -- the winds that built empires, the storms that wreck them -- by traveling right through it. Narrating from a fifty-year-old sailboat, Streever leads readers through the world's first forecasts, Chaos Theory, and a future affected by climate change. Along the way, he shares stories of wind-riding spiders, wind-sculpted landscapes, wind-generated power, wind-tossed airplanes, and the uncomfortable interactions between wind and wars, drawing from natural science, history, business, travel, as well as from his own travels. And Soon I Heard a Roaring Wind is an effortless personal narrative featuring the keen observations, scientific rigor, and whimsy that readers love. You'll never see a breeze in the same light again.

The Beautiful Fall

The Beautiful Fall PDF Author: Alicia Drake
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316068926
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
A comprehensive biography of the late designer, Karl Lagerfeld, and his infamous rivalry with Yves Saint Laurent. In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition. At the center of it all were fashion's most beloved luminaries - Yves Saint Laurent, the reclusive enfant terrible, and Karl Lagerfeld, the flamboyant freelancer with a talent for reinvention - and they divided Paris into two fabulous halves. Their enduring rivalry is chronicled in this dazzling exposè of an era: of social ambitions, shared obsessions, and the mesmerizing quest for beauty. "Deliciously dramatic... The Beautiful Fall crackles with excitement."-New York Times Book Review "Fascinating." -New York Times "Addictive." -Philadelphia Inquirer "It's like US Weekly, 1970s style." -Gotham "A story constructed as exquisitely as a couture dress. . . . It moves stylishly forward, with frequent over-the-shoulder glances at some very dishy background." -Boston Globe