April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici - Couverture rigide

Martines, Lauro

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0195152956 ISBN 13 : 9780195152951

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2003

Synopsis

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, financiers who feared and resented the Medici's swaggering new role as political bosses - but the web of intrigue spread through all of Italy. Bankers, mercenaries, the Duke of Urbino, the King of Naples, and Pope Sixtus IV entered secretly into the plot. Florence was plunged into a peninsular war, and Lorenzo was soon fighting for his own and his family's survival. The failed assassination doomed the Pazzi. Medici revenge was swift and brutal - plotters were hanged or beheaded, innocents were hacked to pieces, and bodies were put out to dangle from the windows of the government palace. All remaining members of the larger Pazzi clan were forced to change their surname, and every public sign or symbol of the family was expunged or destroyed. "April Blood" offers us a fresh portrait of Renaissance Florence, where dazzling artistic achievements went side by side with violence, craft, and bare-knuckle politics. At the center of the canvas is the figure of Lorenzo, the Magnificent - poet, statesman, connoisseur, patron of the arts, and ruthless "boss of bosses." This extraordinarily vivid account of a turning point in the Italian Renaissance is bound to become a lasting work of history.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family miscarried dramatically in the cathedral of Florence. The younger of the two brothers was killed, but Lorenzo the Magnificent, the brilliant poet and connoisseur escaped. A bloodbath followed in reprisal. All Italy was at once affected, as it emerged that the Pope, the King of Naples, and the Duke of Urbino were deeply implicated in the plot, and that binding treaties required Milan and Venice to assist Florence. A tangle of Florentine interests now came to light, revealing a dangerous archbishop, a cosseted papal nephew, and the Pazzi - an ambitious family of bankers with lofty connections abroad. The Pazzi were the foremost social and financial rivals of the Medici, but they were forced - like all other leading families in Florence - to pay political obeisance to them, in a play of attitudes that was stifling public discussion and subverting the Florentine republic. Against the high abstract shadows of power politics and the menace to political debate, the Pazzi Conspiracy was driven by bankers, priests, politicians, and mercenaries, caught up in a tangle of passion and armed violence.

Biographie de l'auteur

One of the world's foremost authorities on the Italian Renaissance, Lauro Martines was born in Chicago, has a Ph.D. from Harvard University, but has been living in London since 1970. Until recently he communted to Los Angeles, where he was Professor of European History at the University of California. He and his wife, the novelist Julia O'Faolain, lived for some years in Florence.

His best known books include Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence (1968), Society and History in English Renaissance Verse (1985), An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context (1994), Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance (2001), and Power and Imagination, now available in Pimlico.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2003
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0195152956
• ISBN 13: 9780195152951
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 320
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie