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This book examines the relationship between humans and nature that evolved in medieval Europe over the course of a millennium. From the beginning, people lived in nature and discovered things about it. Ancient societies bequeathed to the Middle Ages both the Bible and a pagan conception of natural history. These conflicting legacies shaped medieval European ideas about the natural order and what economic, moral, and biological lessons it might teach. This book analyzes five themes found in medieval views of nature - grafting, breeding mules, original sin, property rights, and disaster - to understand what some medieval people found in nature and what their assumptions and beliefs kept them from seeing.
This Encyclopedia gathers together the most recent scholarship on Medieval Italy, while offering a sweeping view of all aspects of life in Italy during the Middle Ages. This two volume, illustrated, A-Z reference is a cross-disciplinary resource for information on literature, history, the arts, science, philosophy, and religion in Italy between A.D. 450 and 1375. For more information including the introduction, a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample pages, and more, visit the Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia website.
The contributions contained in this volume address a variety of topics related to the history of education and learning in the Netherlands during the crucial period of transition between the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. With contributions by Hildo van Engen, Antheun Janse, Mario Damen, Madelon van Luijk, Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, Jaap van Moolenbroek, Ad Tervoort, Koen Goudriaan, Bart Ramakers, Arjan van Dixhoorn, Marijke Spies, Karel Davids, Sabrina Corbellini, Gerrit Verhoeven, Peter van Dael, Samme Zijlstra, Ilja M. Veldman.
A readable and authoritative account of the economic development of the early Ottoman state.
In The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462, Christopher Wright offers a window into the culturally and politically diverse late medieval Aegean. The overlapping influences of the contrasting networks of power at work in the region are explored through the history of one of many small and distinctive political units that flourished in this fragmented environment, the lordships of the Gattilusio family, centred on Lesbos. Though Genoese in origin, they owed their position to Byzantine authority. Though active in crusading, they cultivated congenial relations with the Ottomans. Though Catholic, they afforded exceptional freedom to the Orthodox Church. Their regime is shown to represent both a unique fusion of influences and a revealing microcosm of its times.
Between 1250 and 1350, numerous Italian city-states jockeyed for position in a cutthroat political climate. Seeking to legitimate and ennoble their autonomy, they turned to ancient Rome for concrete and symbolic sources of identity. Each city-state appropriated classical symbols, ancient materials, and Roman myths to legitimate its regime as a logical successor to&—or continuation of&—Roman rule. In Urban Legends, Carrie Bene&š illuminates this role of the classical past in the construction of late medieval Italian urban identity.
Examines the commission of the Vatican tomb of Pope Alexander VIII Ottoboni by his great-nephew Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. Although neglected for centuries, the Ottoboni monument occupies the most strategic liturgical position in the complex of tombs in the Vatican basilica. It is impressive in scale, & offers a commanding presence on the path from the papal entryway to the apse & main altar, with a majestic papal effigy, a visually compelling narrative relief carving, & symbolically important allegories. Using unpublished archival documents in the Vatican & Lateran archives, this study discusses in detail the 30-year campaign for the construction of the tomb & identifies the artists & artisa...
First published in 1989. This volume includes twelve of the main papers given at the Joint Meeting of the XXII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies and of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East held at the University of Nottingham from 26-29 March 1988. The Conference brought together a wide range of scholars and dealt with four main themes: relations between native Greeks and western settlers in the states founded by the Latin conquerors in former Byzantine lands in the wake of the Fourth Crusade; the Byzantine successor states at Nicaea, Epirus, and Thessalonica; the influence of the Italian maritime communes on the eastern Mediterranean in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance; and the impact on Christian societies there of the Mongols and the Ottoman Turks, as well as the perception of Greeks and Latins by other groups in the eastern Mediterranean.