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Full-text articles to support research in history and genealogy and lesson plans to support student learning.
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Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter's abilities. But their burgeoning relationship is interrupted when Alessandra's parents arrange her marriage to a wealthy, much older...
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"The author of Hamnet-New York Times best seller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner-brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court. Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its...
4) Three fires
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Reimaging the "Bonfire of the Vanities" through a series of fires lit throughout Florence at the end of the fifteenth century, this modern take on a fascinating historical story follows Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar who, railing against the vice and avarice of the ruling Medici family, was instrumental in their removal from power.
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A vivid, dramatic and authoritative account of the most influential family in Italian history: The Medici.
Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. He follows the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists and scientists with...
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It was a dynasty with more wealth, passion, and power than the houses of Windsor, Kennedy, and Rockefeller combined. It shaped all of Europe and controlled politics, scientists, artists, and even popes, for three hundred years. It was the house of Medici, patrons of Botticelli, Michelangelo and Galileo, benefactors who turned Florence into a global power center, and then lost it all.
The House of Medici picks up where Barbara Tuchman's Hibbert delves
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The bestselling author of Brunelleschi's dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's ceiling captures the excitement and spirit of the Renaissance in this chronicle of the life and work of 'the king of the world's booksellers" and the technological disruption that forever changed the ways knowledge spread.
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Young, beautiful, and witty, Ginevra de' Benci longs to take part in the artistic ferment of Renaissance Florence. But as the daughter of a wealthy family in a society dictated by men, she is trapped in an arranged marriage, expected to limit her creativity to domestic duties. Her poetry reveals her deepest feelings, and she aches to share her work, to meet painters and sculptors mentored by the famed Lorenzo de Medici, and to find love. When the...
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"Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born--or emerge in an entirely new guise....
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Having founded the bank that became the most powerful in Europe in the fifteenth century, the Medici gained massive political power in Florence, raising the city to a peak of cultural achievement and becoming its hereditary dukes. Among their number were no fewer than three popes and a powerful and influential queen of France. Their influence brought about an explosion of Florentine art and architecture - Michelangelo, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and...
12) Francesca
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Silk merchant's daughters volume 2
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New York Times bestselling author Bertrice Small continues her glorious historical-romance series featuring four sisters in Renaissance Florence who have anything but marriage on their minds. Giovanni Pietro d' Angelos selected his oldest daughter's husband, and the marriage proved to be a disaster. He offers to give his next oldest daughter, Francesca, more latitude in choosing a husband than her sister had. But the arrogant beauty has no desire...
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Florentine silk merchant Giovanni Pietro d'Angelo and his wife want nothing more than to marry their daughters to wealthy men of distinction. But when their son's dangerous indiscretion implicates him in a tragic accident, it is their eldest daughter who must pay the price. Blackmailed by the powerful and debauched Sebastiano Rovere, the Pietro d'Angelos must give beautiful Bianca in marriage to Rovere to buy his silence. With the aid of her mother,...
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When Artemisia Gentileschi arrives in Florence seeking a haven for her art, she faces instant opposition from the powerful Accademia, self-proclaimed gatekeepers of Florence’s magical art world. As artists create their masterpieces, they add layer upon layer of magics drawn from their own life essence, giving each work the power to heal - or to curse. The all-male Accademia jealously guards its power and has no place for an ambitious young woman...
15) The smile
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In Renaissance Italy, Elisabetta longs for romance, and when Leonardo da Vinci introduces her to Guiliano de Medici, whose family rules Florence but is about to be deposed, she has no inkling of the romance--and sorrow--that will ensue.
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"This book brings to vivid life the most concentrated surge of creativity in the history of civilization. Launching the Renaissance, the small city of Florence spawned a vibrant cultural and political life that offered unique opportunities for audacious risk taking and reversals to a panoply of memorable individuals"--
17) BIANCA
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Florentine silk merchant Giovanni Pietro d'Angelo and his wife want only to marry their daughters to wealthy men of distinction. But when their son's indiscretion implicates him in a tragic accident, their eldest daughter must pay the price. To buy the silence of Sebastiano Rovere, they must give beautiful Bianca to him in marriage. But Bianca flees this cruel union, and then her husband's shocking murder frees Bianca to love at last...
18) Pippo the Fool
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In fifteenth-century Florence, Italy, a contest is held to design a magnificent dome for the town's cathedral, but when Pippo the Fool claims he will win the contest, everyone laughs at him. Based on a true story.
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Da Vinci's disciples volume 1
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One murder ignites the powder keg that consumes a Florence under the iron rule of the powerful Medici family. Amidst the chaos, five women and one legendary artist weave together a dangerous plot that could bring peace, or get them all killed. Seeking to wrest power, members of the Pazzi family drew their blades in a church and slew the beloved Giuliano. But Lorenzo de' Medici survives, and seeks revenge on everyone involved, plunging the city into...
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