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This intellectual biography of Johan David Åkerblad (1763–1819) presents a new account of the decipherment of ancient Egyptian. Oriental and classical studies and their entwinement in the turbulent politics of this age of Revolutions are presented from a novel perspective.
This book explores the political uses of Italy's antique past in the early nineteenth century, tracing how anti-romanism was transformed into a pillar of the nation-building process. It demonstrates the pivotal role played by this ancient heritage in the formation of modern Italian national identity.
In the early development of the modern Italian state, individual orphanages were a reflection of the intertwining of politics and charity. Nearly half of the children who lived in the cities of the late Italian Renaissance were under fifteen years of age. Grinding poverty, unstable families, and the death of a parent could make caring for these young children a burden. Many were abandoned, others orphaned. At a time when political rulers fashioned themselves as the "fathers" of society, these cast-off children presented a very immediate challenge and opportunity. In Bologna and Florence, government and private institutions pioneered orphanages to care for the growing number of homeless child...
A classic history of banking and trade in the medieval period, combining superb research and analysis with graceful writing. The Medici Bank was the most powerful banking house of the 15th century. Headquartered in Florence, Italy, it established branches in Rome, Venice, Geneva, Lyons, Bruges, London, and many other cities. The bank served as financial agent of the Church, extended credit to monarchs, and facilitated international trade in Western Europe. By their personal influence and the use of their profits, the owners and administrators of the bank contributed significantly to the development of Florence as the greatest center of the Renaissance.
One year before Galileo's, another trial was the talk of Rome. The city's most notorious astrologer--Orazio Morandi, abbot of the monastery of Santa Prassede--was brought before the governor's court on charges of possessing prohibited books, fortune telling, and political chicanery. His most serious crime was to have predicted the death of Pope Urban VIII and allowed news of this to spread as far as Spain, where cardinals quickly embarked for Italy to attend a conclave that would not occur for fourteen years. The pope, furious at such astrological and political effrontery, personally ordered the criminal inquiry that led to Morandi's arrest, trial, and death in prison, probably by assassinat...
The Florentine poet Antonio Malatesti (1610-1672) earned a brief but significant mention in the earliest history of Italian literature for his contributions to the renewal of the sonnet form in two genres, enigmatography and dithyrambic poetry. In more recent times, his name has cropped up most frequently because of a sequence of fifty bawdy sonnets entitled La Tina, equivoci rusticali, which Malatesti dedicated and presented to the young John Milton on the occasion of his visit to Florence in 1638. The dedication manuscript disappeared soon after Milton's death and remained practically unknown until 1757, when it was found on a bookstall in London and copied as a curiosity. Then it disappea...
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