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.

Offering a comprehensive discussion into regime change in Italy during the Early Modern period, this book will appeal to students and researchers alike interested in the dynamics between politics, military, and culture in Europe during this crucial era.

This book offers a major contribution for understanding the spread of the humanist movement in Renaissance Florence. Investigating the connections between individuals who were part of the humanist movement, Maxson reconstructs the networks that bound them together. Overturning the problematic categorization of humanists as either professional or amateurs, a distinction based on economics and the production of original works in Latin, he offers a new way of understanding how the humanist movement could incorporate so many who were illiterate in Latin, but who nonetheless were responsible for an intellectual and cultural paradigm shift. The book demonstrates the massive appeal of the humanist movement across socio-economic and political groups, and argues that the movement became so successful and widespread because by the 1420s-30s the demands of common rituals began requiring humanist speeches. Over time, humanist learning became more valuable as social capital, which raised the status of the most learned humanists and helped disseminate humanist ideas beyond Florence.

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.

This book offers a major contribution for understanding the spread of the humanist movement in Renaissance Florence. Investigating the connections between individuals who were part of the humanist movement, Maxson reconstructs the networks that bound them together. Overturning the problematic categorization of humanists as either professional or amateurs, a distinction based on economics and the production of original works in Latin, he offers a new way of understanding how the humanist movement could incorporate so many who were illiterate in Latin, but who nonetheless were responsible for an intellectual and cultural paradigm shift. The book demonstrates the massive appeal of the humanist movement across socio-economic and political groups, and argues that the movement became so successful and widespread because by the 1420s-30s the demands of common rituals began requiring humanist speeches. Over time, humanist learning became more valuable as social capital, which raised the status of the most learned humanists and helped disseminate humanist ideas beyond Florence.

A BESTSELLER IN CANADA -- NOW IN TRADE PAPERBACK! This is the story of an authentic Canadian hero, a man whose courage and determination saved the lives of countless soldiers and civilians in the besieged mountains of Yugoslavia during the Second World War. On the night of May 12, 1944, Major Colin Scott Dafoe -- a surgeon on assignment with Britain's Special Operations Executive -- parachuted into eastern Bosnia. His mission was to provide medical aid to the men and women who were Marshal Tito's Partisans. In a makeshift hospital constructed from parachutes, Dafoe operated on the maimed and wounded. And when an enemy offensive forced the Partisans into the rugged mountains and dense forests, Dafoe and his portable "parachute ward" followed, operating in the field of combat. Based on Dafoe's own record of his wartime mission, and through the reminiscences of his family, friends, and colleagues, "The Parachute Ward" recounts the saga of a truly remarkable man.

These volumes bring together what is known of Dionisio Aguado's life, and give full details about the publication of his music. Volume 4 completes the set with 10 works by Aguado without opus number. Facsimile reproduction in Spanish with preface in English.