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In the seventeenth century, Florence was the splendid capital of the Medici Grand Dukedom of Tuscany. Meanwhile, the Jews in its tiny Ghetto struggled to earn a living by any possible means, especially loan-sharking, rag-picking and second-hand dealing. They were viewed as an uncanny people with rare supernatural powers, and Benedetto Blanisa businessman and aspiring scholar from a distinguished Ghetto dynastysought to parlay his alleged mastery of astrology, alchemy and Kabbalah into a grand position at the Medici Court. He won the patronage of Don Giovanni dei Medici, a scion of the ruling family, and for six tumultuous years their lives were inextricably linked. Edward Goldberg reveals the dramas of daily life behind the scenes in the Pitti Palace and in the narrow byways of the Florentine Ghetto, using thousands of new documents from the Medici Granducal Archive. He shows that truthespecially historical truthcan be stranger than fiction, when viewed through the eyes of the people most immediately involved.
Edward Goldberg shares his sensational discovery of the largest body of surviving correspondence from any Jew in Early Modern Europe. Over the course of six years, Benedetto Blanis — a scholar and entrepreneur in the Florentine Ghetto — wrote nearly 200 letters to his princely patron Don Giovanni dei Medici. For the first time, these letters are available in a definitive critical edition — with full transcriptions in the original Italian, English language summaries, and explanatory notes. This book is a companion volume to Jews and Magic in Medici Florence, in which Goldberg narrates Blanis's startling rise and fall. Readers can now take a step closer and hear Blanis's compelling story in his own words — tracing his fraught relations with Jews and Christians, his desperate (and often illegal) business schemes, his disastrous strategies for advancement at the Medici Court, and his pursuit of arcane knowledge, including astrology, alchemy, and Kabbalah.
Each of the essays in this volume, originally published in 1970, touches upon a historical theme which Herbert Butterfield illuminated. It covers a wide range of topics from music and relgion in modern European history to the scientific revolution of the 17th century.
Emilio Sereni's classic work is now available in an English language edition. History of the Italian Agricultural Landscape is a synthesis of the agricultural history of Italy in its economic, social, and ecological context, from antiquity to the mid-twentieth century. From his perspective in the Italian tradition of cultural Marxism, Sereni guides the reader through the millennial changes that have affected the agriculture and ecology of the regions of Italy, as well as through the successes and failures of farmers and technicians in antiquity, the middle ages, the Renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. In this sweeping historical survey, he describes attempts by successive generations...
This book shows how the seemingly immutable Tuscan landscape was largely shaped by modern conflicts over economic resources and cultural meanings.
This book examines contemporary food systems in Italy, paying particular attention to the landscape, innovative local practices and local cultural history. It illustrates the utility of the value chain concept in navigating the complexities of comparative advantage in an advanced market setting. It establishes the connection between the landscape and individual food practices, and how they have responded to the commodification of the agri-food system, maintaining a distinctive local character while ensuring development and a healthy diet. It explores how community gardens are now a consolidated part of Italian urban experience, as well as the multiple policy frameworks which govern these act...
Originally published between 1894 and 1899, this landmark three-volume work made economic subjects far more accessible to English readers.
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