The Italian Renaissance, writes Lauro Martines, came forth in two stages. The first extended from the eleventh century to about 1300, the second from the late thirteenth to the late sixteenth centuries. In the first period, social energies - economics, politics, a vibrant demography - were primary and foremost; in the second, cultural energies seemed to dominate. In Power and Imagination, Lauro Martines rethinks the evolution of the city-state in Renaissance Italy and recasts the conventional distinction between 'society' and 'culture'. He traces the growth of commerce and the evolution of governments; he describes the attitudes, pleasures and rituals of the ruling elite; he seeks to understand the period's towering works of the imagination in literature, painting, city planning and philosophy - not simply as the creations of individual artists, but as the formal expression of the ambitions and egos of those in power.

Power and Imagination: City-states in Renaissance Italy (Peregrine Books)

History

MARTINES, Lauro

Europe

Penguin

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.

April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici

Arts & Photography

Oxford University Press

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 gripping and beautifully written narrative that reads like a novel, Fire in the City presents a compelling account of a key moment in the history of the Renaissance, illuminating the remarkable man who dominated the period, the charismatic Savonarola. Lauro Martines, whose decades of scholarship have made him one of the most admired historians of Renaissance Italy, here provides a remarkably fresh perspective on Girolamo Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has long been portrayed as a dour, puritanical demagogue who urged his followers to burn their worldly goods in "the bonfire of the vanities." But as Martines shows, this is a caricature of the truth--the version propagated by the wealthy and powerful who feared the political reforms he represented. In fact, Savonarola emerges as a complex and subtle man: compassionate, wise, a poet and scholar, and even, at critical moments, a force for moderation. The friar, a mesmerizing preacher, set the city afire with his message of Christian charity wedded to republican ideals. It is this reality--of Savonarola as both religious and civic leader--that Martines captures in all its complexity, showing how he inspired an outpouring of political debate in a city newly freed from the tyranny of the Medici. In the end, the volatile passions he unleashed--and the powerful families he threatened--sent the friar to his own fiery death. But the fusion of morality and politics that he represented would leave a lasting mark on Renaissance Florence. For the many readers fascinated by histories of Renaissance Italy--such as Brunelleschi's Dome or Galileo's Daughter, and Martines's acclaimed April Blood--Fire in the City offers a vivid portrait of one of the most memorable characters from that dazzling era.

Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence

A gripping and beautifully written narrative that reads like a novel, Fire in the City presents a compelling account of a key moment in the history of the Renaissance, illuminating the remarkable man who dominated the period, the charismatic Girolamo Savonarola. Lauro Martines, whose decades of scholarship have made him one of the most admired historians of Renaissance Italy, here provides a remarkably fresh perspective on Savonarola, the preacher and agitator who flamed like a comet through late fifteenth-century Florence. The Dominican friar has long been portrayed as a dour, puritanical demagogue who urged his followers to burn their worldly goods in "the bonfire of the vanities." But as Martines shows, this is a caricature of the truth--the version propagated by the wealthy and powerful who feared the political reforms he represented. Here, Savonarola emerges as a complex and subtle man, both a religious and a civic leader--who inspired an outpouring of political debate in a city newly freed from the tyranny of the Medici. In the end, the volatile passions he unleashed--and the powerful families he threatened--sent the friar to his own fiery death. But the fusion of morality and politics that he represented would leave a lasting mark on Renaissance Florence. For the many readers fascinated by histories of Renaissance Italy--such as Brunelleschi's Dome or Galileo's Daughter, and Martines's acclaimed April Blood--Fire in the City offers a vivid portrait of one of the most memorable characters from that dazzling era.

FIRE IN THE CITY:SAVONAROLA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF RENAISSANCE FLORENC: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

In April 1478, a plot to murder the two heads of the powerful Medici family dramatically miscarried. The younger of the two brothers was killed, but Lorenzo the Magnificent, the brilliant poet and connoisseur escaped. A bloodbath followed and all of 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. If the conspirators had succeeded and Lorenzo had been killed the future of the Medici family and, indeed, of the Florentine state would have been utterly transformed.

April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici

Historical Study & Educational Resources

A riveting new book about Savonarola, “a lowly friar” of Renaissance Florence, but also a charismatic preacher and the talk of all Italy in the 1490s when he called for the renewal of a corrupt Church and the purging of vile governments.

Scourge and Fire: Savonarola in Renaissance Italy

JONATHAN CAPE.

Loredana: A Venetian Tale

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Falling in love in spite of their class differences in nobility-dominated Renaissance Venice, widow Loredana, who fears the cruel judgment of her powerful family, and Dominican friar Orso, a revolutionary in hiding from the Venetian secret police, write out penitential confessions to a single trustworthy priest. A first novel.

Contemporary

Thomas Dunne Books

Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy

Analyzes the development of the great city-states of Italy from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, as small market towns grew into independent centers of power and culture

Alfred.A. Knopf

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MARTINES, Lauro. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MARTINES, Lauro

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MARTINES, Lauro. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Power and Imagination: City-states in Renaissance Italy (Peregrine Books)

April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici

April Blood: Florence and the Plot against the Medici

Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence

FIRE IN THE CITY:SAVONAROLA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF RENAISSANCE FLORENC: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence

April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici

Scourge and Fire: Savonarola in Renaissance Italy

Loredana: A Venetian Tale

Loredana: A Venetian Tale

Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy