Kategoria BISAC: History >> Europe - Renaissance

Michael Burger's goal in this inexpensive overview is to provide a brief, historical narrative of Western civilization. Not only does its length and price separate this text from the competition, but its no-frills, uncluttered format and well-written, one-authored approach make it a valuable asset for every history student.

The Shaping of Western Civilization: From Antiquity to the Mid-Eighteenth Century begins with the ancient Near East and ends with the mid-eighteenth century. Unlike other textbooks that pile on dates and facts, Shaping is a more coherent and...

Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist who wrote this book sometime around 1513. In 1512 the Medici's came to power and he lost his post in Florence. It is believed he wrote this book in an effort to win them over and be taken back into politics. It is now the world's most well-known political reference. It is also considered to be the first book on modern political philosophy, where effective truth is considered more important than abstract ideals. Therefore, immoral means are acceptable in "The Prince" when used to achieve the aims of princes and...

The work of the Latin writers of Scotland has suffered a neglect which its variety, copiousness, and intrinsic interest do not deserve. Their importance, and the importance of Latin as a literary language, is beginning to be recognized by scholars. Researchers from the universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews have now prepared the first-ever bibliography of Scottish Latin in print - unique both in its focus on the many works written in Latin and in the way in which Scottish writers are specifically targeted. Covering the years c. 1480-1700, this new reference tool carefully catalogues the...

In 1482, the Florentine humanist and statesman Francesco Berlinghieri produced the Geographia, a book of over one hundred folio leaves describing the world in Italian verse, inspired by the ancient Greek geography of Ptolemy. The poem, divided into seven books (one for each day of the week the author "travels" the known world), is interleaved with lavishly engraved maps to accompany readers on this journey.

Sean Roberts demonstrates that the Geographia represents the moment of transition between printing and manuscript culture, while forming a critical base for the rise...

In this original, provocative, well-reasoned, and thoroughly documented book, Frank Klaassen proposes that two principal genres of illicit learned magic occur in late medieval manuscripts: image magic, which could be interpreted and justified in scholastic terms, and ritual magic (in its extreme form, overt necromancy), which could not. Image magic tended to be recopied faithfully; ritual magic tended to be adapted and reworked. These two forms of magic did not usually become intermingled in the manuscripts, but were presented separately. While image magic was often copied in the...

Historians of early modern Europe have long stressed how new practices of diplomacy that emerged during the period transformed European politics. Fictions of Embassy is the first book to examine the cultural implications of the rise of modern diplomacy. Ranging across two and a half centuries and half a dozen languages, Timothy Hampton opens a new perspective on the intersection of literature and politics at the dawn of modernity.

Hampton argues that literary texts-tragedies, epics, essays-use scenes of diplomatic negotiation to explore the relationship between politics and...

This is the definitive study of John Dee and his intellectual career. Originally published in 1988, this interpretation is far more detailed than any that came before and is an authoritative account for anyone interested in the history, literature and scientific developments of the Renaissance, or the occult.

John Dee has fascinated successive generations. Mathematician, scientist, astrologer and magus at the court of Elizabeth I, he still provokes controversy. To some he is the genius whose contributions to navigation made possible the feats of Elizabethan explorers and colonists,...

Roger Kuin's Chamber Music is a playfully written, imaginative, and ultimately demanding book, with a critical approach characterized by an unusual and indiosynchratic post-modern critical style that will challenge the reader's perceptions of what a book of criticism should and can do.

Analysing the sonnet sequences of Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare both from an interpretive angle and from the perspective of a post-modern re-evaluation of the Renaissance sonnets, Roger Kuin's discussion is influenced by many modern literary critics, including Roland Barthes and Umberto...

In 1545 Henry VIII created a Revels Office within the royal household and appointed Sir Thomas Cawarden, one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, as its Master. In so doing he set a precedent for the production of revels at court for the next century.

Some historians have only recently examined the revels in their historical context, but none has attempter, as W.R. Streitberger does, to study court entertainments in terms of the growth and development of the Revels organization and its adaptation to different political climates at court.

Streitberger presents evidence in...

The atlas, one of the oldest types of geographic encyclopedias and reference works, has often been thought of as simply a group of maps bound together. Yet every atlas is conceived and shaped, put into meaningful order and made uniform in some way by its author, editor, or publisher. Editing Early and Historical Atlases was the title and focus of the twenty-ninth annual Conference on Editorial Problems, organized in honour of the completion of the final volume of the Historical Atlas of Canada.

The essays in this collection focus on two areas of inquiry: original...