An authoritative, richly illustrated history, and affectionate celebration, of Siena, one of the best-loved and most-visited cities in Italy. Occupying a hilltop site in the midst of a vast, undulating landscape, Siena is as much a magnet for contemporary tourism as Florence. However, its proud republican past presents an intriguing contrast with its Medici-dominated northern Tuscan rival, with which it tussled for local supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, profiting from its advantageous position on a major pilgrim route, the Republic of Siena developed into a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial and artistic centre for four centuries. Jane Stevenson charts the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural heyday in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic late medieval decline in the aftermath of the Black Death, but transcended the loss of its wider political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Siena today enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, crammed with world-class art and architecture, furnished with appealing and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.

An authoritative, richly illustrated history, and affectionate celebration, of Siena, one of the best-loved and most-visited cities in Italy. Occupying a hilltop site in the midst of a vast, undulating landscape, Siena is as much a magnet for contemporary tourism as Florence. However, its proud republican past presents an intriguing contrast with its Medici-dominated northern Tuscan rival, with which it tussled for local supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, profiting from its advantageous position on a major pilgrim route, the Republic of Siena developed into a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial and artistic centre for four centuries. Jane Stevenson charts the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural heyday in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic late medieval decline in the aftermath of the Black Death, but transcended the loss of its wider political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Siena today enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, crammed with world-class art and architecture, furnished with appealing and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.

A paperback edition of a classic of 17th-century English writing about food and drink. There is perhaps none more frequently quoted than this, no title more familiar. Its reappearance, therefore, will be very welcome to both the academic market, and the general reader. Digby was a European figure of some renown in scientific, philosophical and mathematical circles (besides being a military man, a pirate and a womaniser). This recipe collection made by him (in line with similar collections made by male enthusiasts and intellectuals of the time, for example the diarist John Evelyn) was published after his death by his former assistant George Hartman. It is perhaps the most literate of such cookery books. Digby was a natural writer, as entertaining as instructive. Many of the recipes are for drinks, particularly of meads or metheglins, but the culinary material provides a remarkable conspectus of accepted practice among court circles in Restoration England, with extra details supplied from Digby's European travels. The editors also include the inventory of Digby's own kitchen in his London house, discovered amongst papers now deposited in the British Library, and they have provided a few modern interpretations of Digby's recipes. The work was last printed in 1910, in a sound edition that is no longer easily available. This new version has several improvements. The editors discuss the role of George Hartman in the compilation of the book, and relate its contents to the work that appeared in 1682 under Hartman's own name, The True Preserver and Restorer of Health . There is a full glossary and the reader will be helped by the extensive biographical notes about people named in the text as the source of recipes. Sir Kenelm Digby (1611-1665) was born of gentry stock, but his family's adherence to Roman Catholicism coloured his career. His father, Sir Everard, was executed in 1606 for his part in the Gunpowder Plot. Digby went to Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1618. He spent three years in Europe between 1620 and 1623. Around 1625, he married Venetia Stanley. He had also become a member of the Privy Council. In 1628, Digby became a privateer, with some success, particularly in the Mediterranean. He returned to become a naval administrator and later Governor of Trinity House. His wife died suddenly in 1633. Digby, stricken with grief and the object of enough suspicion that the Crown had ordered an autopsy (rare at the time) on Venetia's body, secluded himself in Gresham College and attempted to forget his personal woes through scientific experimentation. Digby received the regional monopoly of sealing wax in Wales and the Welsh Borders and monopolies of trade with the Gulf of Guinea and with Canada. In the Civil War he went into exile in Paris, where he spent most of his time until 1660. He became Chancellor to Queen Henrietta Maria. Digby was regarded as an eccentric by contemporaries, partly because of his effusive personality, and partly because of his interests in scientific matters. Notable among his pursuits was the concept of the Powder of Sympathy. This was a kind of sympathetic magic to cure injuries. His book on this salve went through 29 editions. He was a founding member of the Royal Society. His correspondence with Fermat contains the only extant mathematical proof by Fermat. His Discourse Concerning the Vegetation of Plants (1661) proved controversial. He is credited with being the first person to note the importance of "vital air," or oxygen, to the sustenance of plants. Digby is also considered the father of the modern wine bottle. During the 1630s, Digby owned a glassworks and manufactured wine bottles which were globular in shape with a high, tapered neck, a collar, and a punt.

The story of the Renaissance city and palace of Urbino, and the life of the extraordinary man who created it: Federico da Montefeltro. 'Painstakingly researched and yet unfailingly readable' Ross King 'An insight into one of Renaissance Italy's most glamorous courts' Catherine Fletcher 'The perfect tour guide to the past' Literary Review 'A fabulous merging of seductive design with bravura scholarship' Alexandra Harris 'A superior study... Packed with detail' TLS The one-eyed mercenary soldier Federico da Montefeltro, lord of Urbino between 1444 and 1482, was one of the most successful condottiere of the Italian Renaissance: renowned humanist, patron of the artist Piero della Francesca, and creator of one of the most celebrated libraries in Italy outside the Vatican. From 1460 until her early death in 1472 he was married to Battista, of the formidable Sforza family, their partnership apparently blissful. In the fine palace he built overlooking Urbino, Federico assembled a court regarded by many as representing a high point of Renaissance culture. For Baldassare Castiglione, Federico was la luce dell'Italia - 'the light of Italy'. Jane Stevenson's affectionate account of Urbino's flowering and decline casts revelatory light on patronage, politics and humanism in fifteenth-century Italy. As well as recounting the gripping stories of Federico and his Montefeltro and della Rovere successors, Stevenson considers in details Federico's cultural legacy - investigating the palace itself, the splendours of the ducal library, and his other architectural projects in Gubbio and elsewhere.

The Laterculus Malalianus, a historical exegesis of the life of Christ, appears to be the only complete text to survive from the hand of Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury. Its language, style and intellectual frame of reference are thus of great importance for establishing the nature and scope of teaching at Canterbury, the first school of Anglo-Saxon England. This edition, with translation and commentary, is the third volume in this series to offer a reassessment of Canterbury as a major seat of learning, together with Bernhard Bischoff's and Michael Lapidge's edition of the biblical commentaries from the Canterbury school and Michael Lapidge's edited collection of essays on the life and influence of Archbishop Theodore. In the introduction Jane Stevenson examines the intellectual milieu of this work, argues the case for attribution to Theodore, and suggests the need for a complete rethinking of the basis of Anglo-Saxon culture.

The Laterculus Malalianus, a historical exegesis of the life of Christ, appears to be the only complete text to survive from the hand of Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury. Its language, style and intellectual frame of reference are thus of great importance for establishing the nature and scope of teaching at Canterbury, the first school of Anglo-Saxon England. This edition, with translation and commentary, is the third volume in this series to offer a reassessment of Canterbury as a major seat of learning, together with Bernhard Bischoff's and Michael Lapidge's edition of the biblical commentaries from the Canterbury school and Michael Lapidge's edited collection of essays on the life and influence of Archbishop Theodore. In the introduction Jane Stevenson examines the intellectual milieu of this work, argues the case for attribution to Theodore, and suggests the need for a complete rethinking of the basis of Anglo-Saxon culture.

The story of the Renaissance city and palace of Urbino, and the life of the extraordinary man who created it: Federico da Montefeltro, humanist, book-collector, patron of celebrated artists, and battle-scarred mercenary soldier. Between 1444 and 1482 the dukedom of Urbino, in what is now the northern part of the region of Marche in central Italy, was ruled by a remarkable man. He was Federico da Montefeltro, condottiere, humanist, book-collector, patron of such artists as Piero della Francesca and creator of one of the most renowned libraries in Italy outside of the Vatican. From 1460 he was married to Battista, of the formidable Sforza family, their partnership apparently a blissful one: Federico calling his wife 'the delight of both my public and my private hours'. The court Federico assembled in the ducal palace of Urbino is regarded by many - from Baldassare Castiglione, author of the highly influential Book of the Courtier, to the German cultural historian Jakob Burckhardt, to Sir Kenneth Clark of Civilisation fame - as representing a high point of Renaissance courtly culture. As well as casting revelatory light on patronage, politics and humanism in fifteenth-century Italy, The Light of Italy is rich in extraordinary details of the brutally demanding lifestyle of Italy's mercenary captains, and the often prominent political and cultural roles played by their wives during their protracted absences on campaign. Jane Stevenson tells the remarkable story of the city that Kenneth Clark saw as the ultimate expression of Renaissance humanist ideals - and its most celebrated duke - in well-wrought words and glorious images.

Warren's book has been the single most useful compendium of information about the ritual aspects of the Celtic Church, which are of both historical and theological interest, since it was first published in 1881. It includes both a critical account of Celtic liturgy, and a collection of editions of Celtic liturgical texts, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish, not all of which has been superseded. This new issue builds on the book's time-tested value by including an extensive new Introduction and Bibliography, which summarise current thought in liturgiology and Celtic history, and which are written with the needs of both Celticists and liturgists in mind.

Old Mortality (1816), which many consider the finest of Scott's Waverley novels, is a swift-moving historical romance that places an anachronistically liberal hero against the forces of fanaticism in seventeenth-century Scotland, in the period infamous as the killing time'. Its central character, Henry Morton, joins the rebels in order to fight Scotland's royalist oppressors, little as he shares the Covenanters' extreme religious beliefs. He is torn between his love for a royalist's granddaughter and his loyalty to his downtrodden countrymen.
As well as being a tale of divided loyalties, the novel is a crucial document in the cultural history of modern Scotland. Scott, himself a supporter of the union between Scotland and England, was trying to exorcise the violent past of a country uncomfortably coming to terms with its status as part of a modern United Kingdom. This novel is in itself a significant political document, in which Scott can be seen to be attempting to create a new centralist Scottish historiography, which is not the political consensus of his own time, the seventeenth century, or today.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Making wine at home with family fun and networking. A HOW TO DO BOOK on making fruit and vegetable wines the GREEN WAY.

Edward Burra (1905-76) was an English painter who is best known for his paintings of the seedy underworld of urban life. Yet, as this fascinating new monograph on his work reveals, his interests were much broader, incorporating landscape and still-life paintings, stage designs, book illustration and watercolours. Somewhat neglected by histories of modern art because his singular vision was often at odd with the mainstream art world, his work is now due for a re-appraisal. This important book represents the first full-scale monograph on Edward Burra and reproduces 100 key paintings alongside drawings and a range of fascinating contextual material. It positions Burra as a major figure in the history of 20th-century art, placing his work alongside that of the German Expressionists and other important contemporaries and influences. Long awaited, this book will be widely welcomed by all those with an interest in the art of this fascinating maverick and documenter of modern life.

Innovation Leaders Praise "Breaking Away"

"Finally, innovation in a framework that is clear, insightful and easy to put into practice. This is a must read."
--Angela Ahrendts, Chief Executive Officer, Burberry

""Breaking Away" has a clear and important message: that innovation--the dogged pursuit of new solutions to old problems--is often the defining feature of a successful endeavor, be it a research project, a corporation or a society."
--Dean Kamen, CEO, DEKA, inventor of the heart stent, the Segway, and many other transformational innovations

"Using case studies and real examples, Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani uncover the missing ingredient in innovation--getting the most from your people. This book shows you how companies can excel."
--Joel Kurtzman, Milken Institute and Wharton's SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management

"Innovation requires top leadership with courage and passion to win. With its four levels of innovation. "Breaking Away" provides a great road map for success. A must read for any executive."
--Denise Morrison, Board Member, COO and CEO Elect, The Campbell Soup Company

"A fabulous read "Breaking Away" artfully defines innovation and clarifies the critical role leadership plays in nurturing the right culture for innovation and growth."
--Marco Jesi, Chairman of the Board, Limoni Profumerie S.P.A.

"At last, a book that captures the critical role leadership plays in enabling a culture where innovation is stimulated, valued, supported and celebrated. The authors have gone deep to understand what the best CEO's do to develop continuous innovation as a competitive edge. "Breaking Away" gives us a clear framework to make that happen in every organization."
--Cynthia McCague, Board of Directors, Monster.com and former SVP Human Resources, The Coca-Cola Company

"Stevenson and Kaafarani 'break away' from traditional thinking to converge on a powerful thesis that will forever change how we view innovation."
--Judith Glaser, CEO Benchmark Communications, Inc, and the bestselling author of "Creating We" and "DNA of Leadership"

"A how-to guide on inspiring a culture of innovation in your workplace."
--CIO Insight's Best Business Books for 2011

About the Book

The key to generating growth and shareholder value today is the ability to develop and embed innovation into every facet of business. But how do you do that?

Leadership. It takes a business leader with vision and a sense of accountability to merge corporate culture and innovation processes into a powerful, self-sustaining engine that dominates markets. Without that kind of leadership, a company is just spinning its wheels.

"Breaking Away" provides the framework to be that leader--and to create other leaders who will drive your company into a future of profits and growth.

Pioneers in the field of innovation leadership, Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani provide a simple but powerful model for breaking away from your industry pack by fully utilizing your employees, technology, and resources. You'll learn how: Ford beat Toyota in the race to create the first hybrid (and why everyone thinks it was vice versa) GE's development of a locomotive battery makes planet earth more sustainable Skype landed 480 million registered users in its first four years of business Emirates airline has grown from a small, regional carrier to one of the world's top three airlines

Different organizations, different industries . . . one thing in common: a cadre of leaders who understand the nature of innovation, develop well-defined priorities, and maintain a powerful sense of accountability.

"Breaking Away" will change the way you approach leadership and innovation--and put you on the road to market domination.

In The Shadow King, Jane Stevenson illuminates the world of the intriguing Balthasar Stuart, the secret biracial child born of the illicit love between a queen of Bohemia and an exiled African prince. A gifted young doctor in the late seventeenth century, Balthasar struggles with very contemporary issues of identity, brought into play by his difficult heritage. Driven out of Holland by the plague, he makes his way first to the raffish, cynical world of Restoration London, where he encounters Aphra Behn, the English spy and sometimes playwright. He leaves to seek prosperity in colonial Barbados, a society marked by slavery and savage racism. Utterly absorbing and deeply perceptive, The Shadow King brings the past radiantly to life in people's habits of speech, their food and fashions, and their medical practices.

An immensely moving account of a strange and magical interracial love affair,The Winter Queen illuminates the Netherlands of the seventeenth century. Amid the dark ambiance of the time, the exiled Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and Pelagius, a West African prince and former slave, fall in love and secretly marry. With great erudition and compassion, Jane Stevenson vividly renders both a portrait of an extraordinary relationship and a tumultuous political history. Set against a historical backdrop enriched with the art, philosophy, and religion of the Dutch Golden Age, "scene succeeds scene in Vermeer-like richness of color" (Memphis Commercial Appeal).

Acclaimed in England, these wicked and wonderfully entertaining novellas deal with the infinite human capacity for deception and self-deception. The four stories in this remarkably assured work are beautifully shaped and deftly plotted; each is narrated by a richly distinctive voice, and each ends with a genuine surprise. The themes are wide-ranging: the mysteries of identity, the pitfalls of intellectual arrogance, the damage wrought by cleverness, the role of time in human affairs. SEVERAL DECEPTIONS is a dazzling debut; it gleams with intelligence and wit.

Baroque between the Wars is a fascinating and new account of the arts in the twenties and thirties. We often think of this time as being dominated by modernism, yet the period saw a dialogue between modern baroque - eclectic, playful, camp, open to influence from popular culture yet in dialogue with the past, and unafraid of the grotesque or surreal - and modernism, which was theory-driven, didactic, exclusive, and essentially neo-classical. Jane Stevenson argues that both baroque and classical forms were equally valid responses to the challenge of modernity, by setting painting and literature in the context of 'minor arts' such as interior design, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, and by highlighting the social context and sexual politics of creative production. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, the volume focuses on artists, artefacts, clients, places, and publicists to demonstrate how baroque offered a whole way of being modern which was actively subversive of the tenets of modernism and practised by the people modernism habitually defined as not worth listening to, particularly women and homosexuals.

The story of the railway has never been told in such a charming voice as in these letters by Bernice Medbury Martin. Bernice Medbury married railroader Leslie Martin in 1912 and arrived later that year in Prince Rupert at the height of rock blasting and railroad building. Lonely for her family in Wisconsin, Bernice wrote frequent letters home in which she described in striking detail the machinery and mudslides, the weather and the wilderness, the local characters and the outrageous cost of supplies. She wrote of her frustration at the slow pace of the railway work and her happiness at an invitation to a social event many miles away. She lived in a tent at Kitselas, a hotel in Hazelton, a shack in the Bulkley Valley and a hand-hewn log cabin at Decker Lake. Bernice's letters span the two final years of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway track building and are neatly woven together by Jane Stevenson's well-researched narration. This is a stunning collection of photographs that illustrates the enormous task of constructing a railway along the Skeena River, through the Bulkley Valley and on to Burns Lake. Bernice travelled to a land her friends and family could not imagine, where she experienced the challenges and joys of the Canadian western frontier and witnessed the construction of the truly 'Grand' Trunk Pacific Railway, until the last spike was driven near her home early in the spring of 1914.

Women Latin Poets addresses women's relationship to culture between the first century B. C. and the eighteenth century A. D. by studying women's poetry in Latin. Based entirely on original archival research in twelve countries, Stevenson recovers an aspect of history often deemed not to exist: women who achieved public recognition in their own time, sometimes to a startling extent. Presenting, often for the first time, the work of more than three hundred women Latin poets, all translated and included in a comprehensive finding guide, Women Latin Poets substantially revises received opinion on women's participation in, and relation to, elite culture. The sheer number of female Latin poets will require women's historians to completely re-evaluate the idea that all women had 'no access to education' before the nineteenth century.

This is a complete reexamination of early modern women's verse based on primary research in many archives and libraries. Forty per cent of the material included has never been printed before, but the book also includes lavish selections from the early modern women poets currently studied, such as Aphra Behn. It offers a very thorough, and very complete, conspectus of women's verse production at all social levels, from 1520 to 1700.

Women Latin Poets addresses women's relationship to culture between the first century B. C. and the eighteenth century A. D. by studying women's poetry in Latin. Based entirely on original archival research in twelve countries, Stevenson recovers an aspect of history often deemed not to exist: women who achieved public recognition in their own time, sometimes to a startling extent. Presenting, often for the first time, the work of more than three hundred women Latin poets, all translated and included in a comprehensive finding guide, Women Latin Poets substantially revises received opinion on women's participation in, and relation to, elite culture. The sheer number of female Latin poets will require women's historians to completely re-evaluate the idea that all women had 'no access to education' before the nineteenth century.

First published in 1669 and last printed in 1910, this cookery book provides a survey of accepted practice among court circles in Restoration England, with extra details supplied from the author's European travels. Many of the recipes are for drinks, particularly meads or metheglins. Also included is the inventory of Digby's own kitchen in his London house, discovered amongst papers now in the British Library. The editors present a few modern interpretations of Digby's recipes. They also discuss the role of George Hartman, his assistant, in the compilation of the book, and relate its contents to the work that went out in 1682 over Hartman's own name. The text is accompanied by a glossary and extensive biographical notes about people named in the text as the source of recipes.