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The Renaissance Popes Culture Power And The Making Of The Borgia Myth
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Book Synopsis The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth by : Gerard Noel
Download or read book The Renaissance Popes: Culture, Power, and the Making of the Borgia Myth written by Gerard Noel and published by Constable. This book was released on 2016-04-28 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V) Rome was transformed from a ruined Medieval city. The Vatican became the official home of the church and the worlds largest bureaucracy, a spectacular new Basilica of St Peters took 100 years to build and Michelangelo changed the course of art history with his Sistine Chapel. So vast and expensive was this cultural explosion that a new fundraising initiative was launched: the sale of indulgences. The Renaissance Popes were statesmen, warriors, patrons of the arts as well as churchmen. These were earthly times and the reputations of popes like Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II for murder, poison, sodomy and simony vary only in degree. Meanwhile, the sin of heresy, which threatens the very core of the Catholic soul, was tirelessly targeted by two other lasting innovations of the period: the Inquisition and witch-hunts. Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, is seen to this day as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows this is unjust, and based on false confessions and historical myth. What's more, Alexander created the blueprint for reform -- the first of its kind -- that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colourful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth Noel brings to light the true legacy -- political, artistic, religious -- of an extraordinary time.
Book Synopsis The Renaissance Popes by : Gerard Noel
Download or read book The Renaissance Popes written by Gerard Noel and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2006-11-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the years of 1447 (Nicholas V) and 1572 (Pius V), the Vatican became the official home of the Church, and a succession of Renaissance Popes — who were statesmen, warriors, and patrons of the arts as well as churchmen — turned Rome into an unparalleled center for culture, and turned the Church into the world's largest bureaucracy. These mercurial popes, such as Alexander VI, the infamous Borgia patriarch, and Julius 'Il Terrible' II, contributed to cultural achievements — the Basilica of St. Peters and Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel — through the sale of indulgences, and targeted heretics with Inquisitions and witchhunts. In the midst of this explosion of great culture and violent debasement, Alexander VI, father of the ruthless Cesare and jezebel Lucrezia, came to be seen as the embodiment of this iniquity. But Gerard Noel shows that Alexander's legacy was tainted by false confessions and historical myth. In fact, Alexander created the blueprint for reform — the first of its kind — that would eventually lead to the Counter-Reformation. In his survey of the colorful reigns of the seventeen Renaissance Popes and his examination of the great Borgia myth, Noel brings to light the true legacy — political, artistic, religious — of an extraordinary time.
Book Synopsis Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance by : Philip Wexler
Download or read book Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance written by Philip Wexler and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2017-03-13 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance provides an authoritative and fascinating exploration into the use of toxins and poisons in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Part of the History of Toxicology and Environmental Health series, this volume is a follow-up, chronologically, to the first two volumes which explored toxicology in antiquity. The book approximately covers the 1100s through the 1600s, delving into different aspects of toxicology, such as the contributions of scientific scholars of the time, sensational poisoners and poisoning cases, as well as myths. Historical figures, such as the Borgias and Catherine de Medici are discussed. Toxicologists, students, medical researchers, and those interested in the history of science will find insightful and relevant material in this volume. Provides the historical background for understanding modern toxicology Illustrates the ways previous civilizations learned to distinguish safe from hazardous substances, how to avoid them, and how to use them against enemies Explores the way famous historical figures used toxins
Book Synopsis The Borgia Family by : Jennifer Mara DeSilva
Download or read book The Borgia Family written by Jennifer Mara DeSilva and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-11 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Borgia Family: Rumor and Representation explores the historical and cultural structures that underpin the early modern Borgia family, their notoriety, and persistence and reinvention in the popular imagination. The book balances studies focusing on early modern observations of the Borgias and studies deconstructing later incarnations on the stage, on the page, on the street, and on the screen. It reveals how contemporary observers, later authors and artists, and generations of historians reinforced and perpetuated both rumor and reputation, ultimately contributing to the Borgia Black Legend and its representations. Focused on the deeds and posthumous reputations of Pope Alexander VI and his children, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, the volume charts the choices made by the family and contextualizes them amid contemporary expectations and reactions. Extending beyond their deaths, it also investigates how the Borgias became emblems of anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish criticism in the later early modern period and their residing reputation as the best and worst of the Renaissance. Exploring a spectrum of traditional and modern media, The Borgia Family contextualizes both Borgia deeds and their modern representations to analyze the family’s continuing history and meaning in the twenty-first century. It will be of great interest to researchers and students working on interdisciplinary aspects of the Renaissance and early modern Italy.
Download or read book The Borgias written by Paul Strathern and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice and vicious cruelty—all have been associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy. Examples of infamy flourished alongside some of the finest art produced in western history.This is but one of several paradoxes associated with the Borgia family. For the family which produced corrupt popes, depraved princes and poisoners, would also produce a saint. Previously history has tended to condemn, or attempt in part to exonerate, this remarkable family. Yet in order to understand the Borgias, the Borgias must be related to their time, together with the world which enabled them to flourish. Within this context the Renaissance itself takes on a very different aspect. Was the corruption part of the creation, or vice versa? Would one have been possible without the other?The powerful forces which first played out in the amphitheaters of ancient Greece: hubris, incest, murder, rivalries and doomed families, treacheries of political power, twists of fate—they are all here. Along with the final, tragic downfall. All these elements are played out in full in the glorious and infamous history of the Borgia family.
Book Synopsis Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia by : Samantha Morris
Download or read book Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia written by Samantha Morris and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2020-12-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This myth-busting biography reveals the fascinating true lives of Renaissance Italy’s most infamous brother and sister. Salacious rumors have shrouded the Borgia family for centuries. In particular, tales of murder and incest have stuck to the names of Cesare and Lucrezia. But in this enlightening biography, Samantha Morris separates fact from fiction, presenting these two fascinating individuals from their early lives, through their years at the Vatican and their untimely deaths. Morris begins her narrative in the bustling metropolis of Rome, where the siblings were caught up in the dynastic plans of their father, Pope Alexander VI. Though they were not the villains depicted in popular media, their intertwined lives were full of ambition, intrigue, and danger. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, Morris follows Cesare through his cardinalship and military career, and Lucrezia through her multiple arranged marriages and her rule over Spoleto.
Book Synopsis Renaissance Woman by : Ramie Targoff
Download or read book Renaissance Woman written by Ramie Targoff and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Vittoria Colonna, a confidante of Michelangelo, the scion of one of the most powerful families of her era, and a pivotal figure in the Italian Renaissance Ramie Targoff’s Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist’s best friend—the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy—but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d’Este, among others. Vittoria was the scion of an immensely powerful family in Rome during that city’s most explosively creative era. Art and literature flourished, but political and religious life were under terrific strain. Personally involved with nearly every major development of this period—through both her marriage and her own talents—Vittoria was not only a critical political actor and negotiator but also the first woman to publish a book of poems in Italy, an event that launched a revolution for Italian women’s writing. Vittoria was, in short, at the very heart of what we celebrate when we think about sixteenth-century Italy; through her story the Renaissance comes to life anew.
Book Synopsis Caesar Borgia by : John Leslie Garner
Download or read book Caesar Borgia written by John Leslie Garner and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Francis I written by Leonie Frieda and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Francis I (1494-1547) was inconstant, amorous, hot-headed and flawed. Arguably he was also the most significant king that France ever had. A contemporary of Henry VIII of England, Francis saw himself as the first Renaissance king. A courageous and heroic warrior, he was also a keen aesthete, an accomplished diplomat and an energetic ruler who turned his country into a force to be reckoned with. Bestselling historian Leonie Frieda's comprehensive and sympathetic account explores the life of the most human of all Renaissance monarchs - and the most enigmatic.
Book Synopsis BORGIA, Behind the Myth by : Danny Chaplin
Download or read book BORGIA, Behind the Myth written by Danny Chaplin and published by . This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of possibly the most notorious dynasty in papal history is revealed in a new narrative from the author of "The Medici: Rise of a Parvenu Dynasty, 1360-1537", "Pietro Aretino: The First Modern", and "Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu: Three Unifiers of Japan". Danny Chaplin serves up a fresh history of the Borgia which neither flinches from their grisly deeds nor seeks to paint an unduly "revisionist" picture of what is without question one of history's most infamous papal dynasties.The Borgia were that quintessential Renaissance phenomenon, a parvenu family which emerged from relative priestly obscurity to soar to the heights of political and pontifical power in the colourful Italy of the 1400s. Established on the backs of the careers of two popes, Calixtus III and Alexander VI, the family held court initially as princes of the Church and arbiters of European clerical politics. From the abstemious, crusading Pope Calixtus to the venal, sensual and nepotistic Pope Alexander (Rodrigo Borgia), this Spanish house from Valencia quickly established itself as one of Rome's major players.Later, Cesare Borgia, the model for Niccolò Machiavelli's prototypical Renaissance prince, would be recognised as a secular lord in his own right. As "Il duco Valentino" he would blaze a trail of destruction and conquest across the length and breadth of central Italy. The Borgia brokered deals and dynastic alliances with kings, princes, and dukes, often at the point of a sword. They appropriated Church lands for their own aggrandisement. They also walked a delicate tightrope between France and Spain, two emerging superpowers which sought to enact their great rivalry on the Italian Peninsula. Their murders, assassinations, and poisonings have by now become legendary in the annals of European history.Five centuries later, the names of Rodrigo Borgia, Cesare Borgia, Juan Borgia, and their much-slandered sister Lucrezia Borgia are synonymous with everything regarded as being at fault with the Renaissance papal establishment. But is the received wisdom concerning the Borgia entirely accurate or indeed warranted? Cinematic in scope, this meticulously-researched new history of the House of Borgia re-examines their lives and their legacy with uncompromising candidness in the context of late fifteenth-century Italian power politics.
Book Synopsis The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture by : Colum Hourihane
Download or read book The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture written by Colum Hourihane and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 4064 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers unparalleled coverage of all aspects of art and architecture from medieval Western Europe, from the 6th century to the early 16th century. Drawing upon the expansive scholarship in the celebrated 'Grove Dictionary of Art' and adding hundreds of new entries, it offers students, researchers and the general public a reliable, up-to-date, and convenient resource covering this field of major importance in the development of Western history and international art and architecture.
Book Synopsis The Borgias by : Michael Edward Mallett
Download or read book The Borgias written by Michael Edward Mallett and published by New York : Barnes & Noble. This book was released on 1969 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Borgias are one of the most notorious families in European history, not because of any lasting achievements nor for long occupation of positions of power and influence, but because of the moral outrages committed by members of two generations of the family at a time when Italy was at the centre of the European stage. The activities of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, and his children, Cesare and Lucrezia, have attracted the attention of poets, playwrights, novelists and musicians as well as contemporary pamphleteers and historians of all subsequent generations. Most of these have devoted themselves to describing the private lives of these members of the Borigia family, thus creating the impression that the only memorable things about them were their poisonings and their incest. What has rarely been attempted in any reasonably accessible form, and therefore with little impact on popular ideas, is an assessment of the social and political aims and achievements of the Borgia family as a whole. Who were the Borgias? What were they doing in the fifteenth century that made them so hated and feared in Italy? What were the wider implications of the two Borgia pontificates? What happened to the family after the death of Alexander VI? These are the questions which this book attempts to answer for the benefit of as wide an audience as possible. The main significance of the Borgias lies not in their crimes and immoralities but in the dramatic rise of the family from a position of relatively obscure Spanish nobility to the highest position in Renaissance society. It lies in the policies of Alexander VI as one of the leading Popes of the Renaissance: the extent to which these policies were designed for the continued advancement of the family, and the extent to which he succeeded in creating positions of influence and importance for his family in Italy, France, and Spain, which survived for over two centuries." -- Book jacket.
Download or read book The Borgias written by Marion Johnson and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The name Borgia is synonymous with the political corruption, greed, incest and murder rife in Renaissance Italy. Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, the first man to have clearly bought himself the papacy, and two of his infamous illegitimate children, Cesare and Lucrezia, were the three central figures of the Borgia dynasty, seizing power, wealth, land and titles through bribery, marriage and murder. Cesare, with his political astuteness and ruthlessness, became the model for Machiavelli's "The Prince", while Lucrezia, rumoured to have been a poisoner and the lover of her father and brother, may have been as much their victim as their accomplice. Marion Johnson plots the dynasty's dramatic rise from their beginnings in Spain to their occupation of the highest position in Renaissance society, at a time when Italy was the centre of the European stage, both culturally and politically. Finally, she examines how far the myth of the Borgias is borne out by the historical facts. Behind the gaudy horrors, she concludes, lie people of great talent and achievement, possessors, even, of moderate virtues.
Download or read book The Borgias written by G. J. Meyer and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2014-04-29 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The startling truth behind one of the most notorious dynasties in history is revealed in a remarkable new account by the acclaimed author of The Tudors and A World Undone. Sweeping aside the gossip, slander, and distortion that have shrouded the Borgias for centuries, G. J. Meyer offers an unprecedented portrait of the infamous Renaissance family and their storied milieu. They burst out of obscurity in Spain not only to capture the great prize of the papacy, but to do so twice. Throughout a tumultuous half-century—as popes, statesmen, warriors, lovers, and breathtakingly ambitious political adventurers—they held center stage in the glorious and blood-drenched pageant known to us as the Italian Renaissance, standing at the epicenter of the power games in which Europe’s kings and Italy’s warlords gambled for life-and-death stakes. Five centuries after their fall—a fall even more sudden than their rise to the heights of power—they remain immutable symbols of the depths to which humanity can descend: Rodrigo Borgia, who bought the papal crown and prostituted the Roman Church; Cesare Borgia, who became first a teenage cardinal and then the most treacherous cutthroat of a violent time; Lucrezia Borgia, who was as shockingly immoral as she was beautiful. These have long been stock figures in the dark chronicle of European villainy, their name synonymous with unspeakable evil. But did these Borgias of legend actually exist? Grounding his narrative in exhaustive research and drawing from rarely examined key sources, Meyer brings fascinating new insight to the real people within the age-encrusted myth. Equally illuminating is the light he shines on the brilliant circles in which the Borgias moved and the thrilling era they helped to shape, a time of wars and political convulsions that reverberate to the present day, when Western civilization simultaneously wallowed in appalling brutality and soared to extraordinary heights. Stunning in scope, rich in telling detail, G. J. Meyer’s The Borgias is an indelible work sure to become the new standard on a family and a world that continue to enthrall. Praise for The Borgias “A vivid and at times startling reappraisal of one of the most notorious dynasties in history . . . If you thought you knew the Borgias, this book will surprise you.”—Tracy Borman, author of Queen of the Conqueror and Elizabeth’s Women “The mention of the Borgia family often conjures up images of a ruthless drive for power via assassination, serpentine plots, and sexual debauchery. . . . [G. J. Meyer] convincingly looks past the mythology to present a more nuanced portrait.”—Booklist “Meyer brings his considerable skills to another infamous Renaissance family, the Borgias [and] a fresh look into the machinations of power in Renaissance Italy. . . . [He] makes a convincing case that the Borgias have been given a raw deal.”—Historical Novels Review “Fascinating . . . a gripping history of a tempestuous time and an infamous family.”—Shelf Awareness
Book Synopsis In the Pillory: The Tale of the Borgia Pope by : John Bond
Download or read book In the Pillory: The Tale of the Borgia Pope written by John Bond and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-07-21 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'In the Pillory: The Tale of the Borgia Pope' is a biography and historical analysis of Pope Alexander VI, head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 August 1492 until his death in 1503. Alexander is considered one of the most controversial of the Renaissance popes, partly because he acknowledged fathering several children by his mistresses. As a result, his Italianized Valencian surname, Borgia, became a byword for libertinism and nepotism, which are traditionally considered as characterizing his pontificate.
Download or read book Lucrezia Borgia written by Sarah Bradford and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-11-01 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The very name Lucrezia Borgia conjures up everything that was sinister and corrupt about the Renaissance—incest, political assassination, papal sexual abuse, poisonous intrigue, unscrupulous power grabs. Yet, as bestselling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth. Neither a vicious monster nor a seductive pawn, Lucrezia Borgia was a shrewd, determined woman who used her beauty and intelligence to secure a key role in the political struggles of her day. Drawing from a trove of contemporary documents and fascinating firsthand accounts, Bradford brings to life the art, the pageantry, and the dangerous politics of the Renaissance world Lucrezia Borgia helped to create.
Book Synopsis Legends of the Renaissance: the Life and Legacy of Cesare Borgia by : Charles River Charles River Editors
Download or read book Legends of the Renaissance: the Life and Legacy of Cesare Borgia written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Analyzes Cesare's legacy and how it endured over the centuries. *Examines the legends and rumors surrounding Cesare's life in an attempt to separate fact from fiction. *Includes pictures depicting Cesare and other important people in his life. *Includes a Bibliography for further reading. "Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; nonetheless, that cruelty united Romagna and brought it peace and stability. On careful reflection, he was more merciful than the Florentines, who, in order to avoid being seen as cruel, allowed Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies." - Machiavelli, The Prince The Renaissance revolutionized art, philosophy, religion, sciences and math, with individuals like Galileo, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Dante, and Petrarch bridging the past and modern society. But it also had its fair share of notorious villains and legendary characters, such as the Borgias. In Charles River Editors' Legends of the Renaissance, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of the most important men and women of the Renaissance in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. In one of the most famous political treatises in history, Niccolo Machiavelli famously advises those who hold power that it is better to be feared than loved. Though he uses Cesare as a cautionary tale about acquiring power through the good-will and powers of another person (his father, Pope Alexander VI), it is clear in The Prince that Machiavelli holds out Cesare as a skillful, effective ruler and administrator. In many ways, Cesare has been characterized as the "prince" Machiavelli tells his readers to be. As one translator of The Prince put it, Cesare is "cited as a type of the man who rises on the fortune of others, and falls with them; who takes every course that might be expected from a prudent man but the course which will save him; who is prepared for all eventualities but the one which happens; and who, when all his abilities fail to carry him through, exclaims that it was not his fault, but an extraordinary and unforeseen fatality." 500 years after Cesare's death, he and his family have come to be associated more with crime, specifically murder and state-sponsored violence. While 21st century TV series have cast the Borgias as the first organized crime family, the rumors spread by the family's political opponents in the late 15th century have taken hold among a fascinated public. Did Cesare really have an incestuous relationship with sister Lucrezia? Did he really kill his own brother Giovanni (Juan)? While Cesare may not have been as colorful or criminal as the enduring legends, there is no question he was manipulative, ruthless and, for a short time at least, effective. He helped make his father's papacy a success, but his rise was as dramatic as his fall. To the extent that the Borgias are still associated with murder and mayhem, Cesare's actions can be credited with the lion's share of the perception. Not surprisingly, almost everything about Cesare's life is still up for debate, even one long-held assertion by the likes of Alexandre Dumas that Cesare's likeness was used by Renaissance artists to paint images of Jesus Christ during and after his life. Legends of the Renaissance: The Life and Legacy of Cesare Borgia chronicles Cesare's life and discusses the legends and myths about his life in an attempt to separate fact from fiction. Along with pictures of important people in his life, you will learn about Cesare like you never have before, in no time at all.
