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One of the world's leading historians of Renaissance Italy brings to life here the vibrant--and violent--society of fifteenth-century Florence. His disturbing narrative opens up an entire culture, revealing the dark side of Renaissance man and politician Lorenzo de' Medici. On a Sunday in April 1478, assassins attacked Lorenzo and his brother as they attended Mass in the cathedral of Florence. Lorenzo scrambled to safety as Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor. April Blood moves outward in time and space from that murderous event, unfolding a story of tangled passions, ambition, treachery, and revenge. The conspiracy was led by one of the city's most noble clans, the Pazzi, financie...
In Power and Imagination, a noted historian rethinks the evolution of the city-state in Renaissance Italy and recasts the conventional distinction between "society" and "culture." Martines traces the growth of commerce and the evolution of governments; he describes the attitudes, pleasures, and rituals of the ruling elite; and he seeks to understand the period's towering works of the imagination in literature, painting, city planning, and philosophy-not simply as the creations of individual artists, but as the forman expression of the ambitions and egos of those in power.
A riveting new book about Savonarola, a lowly friar of Renaissance Florence, but also a charismatic preacher and the talk of all Italy in the 1490s when he called for the renewal of a corrupt Church and the purging of vile governments.
During the European Renaissance, an age marked equally by revolutionary thought and constant warfare, it was armies, rather than philosophers, who shaped the modern European nation state. "Mobile cities" of mercenaries and other paid soldiers-made up of astonishingly diverse aggregations of ethnicities and nationalities-marched across the land, looting and savaging enemy territories. In the 15th century, Poland hired German, Spanish, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Scottish soldiers. Later, Sweden fought in Muscovy with Irish, English, Scottish, French and German troops. Units of Croats, Germans, Walloons, Albanians, and especially Swiss served in French armies. In the Netherlands, Italians and Spa...
Lauro Martines' exhaustive search of manuscript material in the state archives of Florence is the basis for a fascinating portrayal of representative humanists of the period. The Social World of the Florentine Humanists explores the wealth, family tradition, civic prominence, and intellectual achievements of these individuals while assessing the attitudes of other Florentines towards them. Martines demonstrates that humanists tended to be wealthy educated men from important families, challenging long-held assumptions about the status of humanisits in that society. First published in 1963, this groundbreaking study provides a detailed picture of the social structure of Florence in the Quattrocento. Martines's work influenced a generation of scholars and illuminated a complex and multifaceted world.
A gripping and beautifully written narrative that reads like a novel, Fire in the City presents a compelling account of a key moment in the history of the Renaissance, illuminating the remarkable man who dominated the period, the charismatic Girolamo Savonarola. Lauro Martines, whose decades of scholarship have made him one of the most admired historians of Renaissance Italy, here provides a remarkably fresh perspective on Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has long been portrayed as a dour, puritanical demagogue who urged his followers to burn their worldly goods in "the bonfire of the vanities." But as ...
The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy features original contributions by international scholars on the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Lauro Martines' Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence, which is recognized as a groundbreaking study challenging traditional approaches to both Florentine and legal history. Essays by leading historians examine the professional, social, and political functions of Italian jurists from the thirteenth to the late fifteenth centuries. The volume also examines the use of emergency powers, the critical role played by jurists in mediating the rule of law, and the adjudication of political crimes. The Politics of Law in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy provides both an assessment of Martines' pioneering archival scholarship as well as fresh insights into the interplay of law and politics in late medieval and Renaissance Italy.
When the King of France invaded Italy in 1494, princely states would fall, sending tremors up and down the peninsula. The Medici fled from Florence; the republic sprang back to life; and the French army, occupying the Renaissance city for ten terrifying days, stood on the verge of sacking it. A 'little friar' from Ferrara, Savonarola was alone in knowing how to comfort citizens with his sermons and in urging the King to get out of Florence. Although the French left a city riven by political factions, the Friar's popular 'party' swiftly prevailed. With Florence at the height of its Renaissance glories, his voice rose above those of all other men. Claiming to be a messenger from God, he attack...
A dark, riveting tale of love, politics, and religion in sixteenth-century Venice--the embodiment of Leonardo da Vinci's ideal city. In early sixteenth-century Italy, two lovers, Loredana and Orso, seem ready to die rather than be separated. Their tale unfolds in the two-tiered city of Venice, where the nobility have the upper tier and the light of the sun, while the common people, with their manual trades, occupy the lower city--the dark tier in the shadows. Violating social and religious taboos, the passion of the lovers bridges the two cities. A beautiful young widow, Loredana, dreads the cruel judgment of her family, one of the most powerful houses in republican Venice. Orso--a Dominican...
Essays illustrate the ways Renaissance Florentines expressed or shaped their identities as they interacted with their society.