Название: A Short History of Florence and the Florentine Republic
Автор: Brian Jeffrey Maxson
Издательство: Bloomsbury Publishing
Год: 2023
Страниц: 288
Язык: английский
Формат: epub (true)
Размер: 10.1 MB

The innovative city culture of Florence was the crucible within which Renaissance ideas first caught fire. With its soaring cathedral dome and its classically-inspired palaces and piazzas, it is perhaps the finest single expression of a society that is still at its heart an urban one. For, as Brian Jeffrey Maxson reveals, it is above all the city-state – the walled commune which became the chief driver of European commerce, culture, banking and art – that is medieval Italy's enduring legacy to the present.

Charting the transition of Florence from an obscure Guelph republic to a regional superpower in which the glittering court of Lorenzo the Magnificent became the pride and envy of the continent, the author authoritatively discusses a city that looked to the past for ideas even as it articulated a novel creativity. Uncovering passionate dispute and intrigue, Maxson sheds fresh light too on seminal events like the fiery end of oratorical firebrand Savonarola and Giuliano de' Medici's brutal murder by the rival Pazzi family. This book shows why Florence, harbinger and heartland of the Renaissance, is and has always been unique.

The city of Florence lies within the shadow of Filippo Brunelleschi’s towering dome. Centuries after the dome’s completion the structure still commands the attention of astonished observers. Viewed from the quiet gravel square in front of the church of San Miniato al Monte, the red-bricked dome pulls eyes from the urban buildings out to the Apennines rolling beyond the city. Where once some of Europe’s greatest minds, artists, wealthiest merchants, and most cunning politicians lived their lives, today fiorentini, tourists, and students marvel at the endless wonder found within the city on the Arno. It is a city whose progeny included Dante, Petrarch, Donatello, Lorenzo de’ Medici, Michelangelo, Galileo, and many, many others.

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