Lila Acheson Wallace - Reader’s Digest Publications Subsidy

Medieval Christian image cults and Florentine relic cults -- The chronological development of Florentine image cults -- The topography of the sacred in the city -- The Florentine contado and subject territories -- Image and efficacy -- The physiognomy, metaphors, and style of sacred embodiment -- Enshrinement: framing and veiling -- Image cults and the Florentine Renaissance.

Scholasticism, appropriation, and censure -- Humanists' invectives and Aristotle's impiety -- Renaissance Aristotle, Renaissance Averroes -- Italian Aristotelianism after Pomponazzi -- Religious reform and the reassessment of Aristotelianism -- Learned anti-Aristoteliansim -- History, erudition, and Aristotle's past -- Pious novelty.

Introduction -- The development of an urban monastery -- Benedictine decadence and the path to reform -- Badia patronage and the paradox of autonomy -- Architectural design as monastic reform -- Icon, symbol, and narrative at the Florentine Badia -- The Badia painters -- Epilogue. The Badia from the Renaissance to today.

The growth of Florentine convents -- Nuns, neighbors, and kinsmen -- The Renaissance convent economy -- Invisible hands : Renaissance nuns at work -- Contesting the boundaries of enclosure.

""Nicholas Terpstra uses the puzzling deaths of teenaged girls in a Florentine asylum for the poor to take us into many surprising corners in the life of working people, and especially women, in that sixteenth-century city--sexual, medical, religious, and more. A fascinating Renaissance mystery story and a wonderful read!"--Natalie Zemon Davis, author of The Return of Martin Guerre" ""This is history with a decidedly human face. The author's vivid descriptions of urban life and its material realities are unsurpassed. It's no exaggeration to say that this book makes the streets of Renaissance Florence come alive like no other."--Sharon T. Strocchia, author of Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence" "In 1554, a group of Idealistic Laywomen founded a home for homeless and orphaned adolescent girls in one of the worst neighborhoods in Florence. Of the 526 girls who lived in the home during its fourteen-year tenure, only 202 left there alive. Struck by the unusually high mortality rate, Nicholas Terpstra sets out to determine what killed the lost girls of the House of Compassion shelter (Casa della Pieta)." "Reaching deep into the archives' letters, ledgers, and records from both inside and outside the home, he slowly pieces together the tragic story. The Casa welcomed girls in bad health and with little future, hoping to save them from an almost certain life of poverty and drudgery. Yet this "safe" house was cruelly dangerous. Victims of Renaissance Florence's sexual politics, these young women were at the disposal of the city's elite men, who treated them as property meant for their personal pleasure." "With scholarly precision and journalistic style, Terpstra uncovers and chronicles a series of disturbing leads that point to possible reasons so many girls died: hints of routine abortions, basic medical care for sexually transmitted diseases, and appalling conditions in the textile factories where the girls worked.""Church authorities eventually took the Casa della Pieta away from the women who had founded it and moved it to a better part of Florence. Its sordid past was hidden, until now, in an official history that bore little resemblance to the orphanage's true origins. Terpstra's meticulous investigation not only uncovers the sad fate of the lost girls of the Casa della Pieta but also explores broader themes, including gender relations, public health, church politics, and the challenges girls and adolescent women faced in Renaissance Florence."--Jacket.

Introduction. Choosing the "beautiful ones" -- The standing of Mary : Opus Formosior -- A saint for all seasons : taking liberties with John the Baptist -- Recovering Mary Magdalene and the dignity of woman : Apostola Apostolorum -- Manliness and saintliness : the cases of Mark, Sebastian, and Rocco -- The pearls of Saint Lawrence : what Ruskin sees when he looks at a picture -- Imagining Augustine imagining, or, A theologian's toothache -- Sodoma's Saint Benedict : out in the cloister -- Further considerations of the holy stigmata of Saint Francis : where was Brother Leo? -- The saint who lost her head, or, Who's afraid of Catherine of Siena? -- Saints fair and fearsome : Louis of Toulouse and Bernardino da Siena -- Epilogue : pace e bene.

Not empty silence : the age of dissimulation -- Taking one's distance : civil and moral dissimulation -- Confidence games : dissimulation at court -- The government of designs : dissimulation and reason of state -- The writing on the walls .

Introduction -- Biographies -- Documents -- Catalogue.Summary : This book is the first synthetic treatment of Venetian woodcarving and woodcarvers. It opens with an introduction covering all aspects of the subject - materials, techniques, patronage, genres, and style, as well as social history of the profession in late Medieval and Renaissance Venice. There follows a biographical dictionary of nearly 600 woodcarvers, largely based on unpublished archival documents, the most interesting of which are transcribed in entirety. The catalogue focuses on 13 works of particular interest in and outside of Venice. The corpus of 20 illustrations in color and 300 in black and white reproduces statues, altarpieces, crucifixes, and choir stalls in lavish and exquisite detail. Centro.

Communes and despots -- Communes and despots: the city state in Late-Medieval Italy / P.J. Jones -- Power and restraint -- The use of sortition in appointments in the Italian Communes / Daniel Waley -- Magnate violence revisited / Carol Lansing -- Political thought: theory and practice -- Communes and despots: some Italian and Transalpine political thinkers / Robert Black -- The myth of the Renaissance Despot / Benjamin G. Kohl -- Conflicting attitudes towards Machiavelli's works in sixteenth-century Spain, Rome and Florence / Humfrey C. Butters -- Communes and despots: some case studies -- From commune to regional state: political experiments in fourteenth century Cremona / Marco Gentile -- The Gonzaga Signoria, communal institutions and 'the honor of the city': mixed ideas in quattrocento Mantua / David S. Chambers -- Giangaleazzo Visconti and the ducal title / Jane Black --'Whatever's administered is best': Paolo Guinigi signore of Lucca, 1400-1430 / Christine Meek -- The mouse ane the elephant: relations between the kings of Naples and ateh lordship of Piombino in the fifteenth century / David Abulafia -- Communes and despots: the nature of 'diarchy' / John E. Law -- Concepts of Libertà in Renaissance Genoa / Christine Shaw -- The case of the Medici -- Prato and Lorenzo de' Medici / F.W. Kent -- The early years of Piero de Lorenzo, 1472-1492: between Florentine citizen and Medici Prince / Alison Brown -- Muddying the waters: Alfonsina Orsini de' Medici and the Lake of Fucecchio / Cathreine Kovesi -- The Medici Dukes, Comandati and Pratolino: forced labour in Renaissance Florence / Suzanne B. Butters -- Culture, art, and patronage -- Giovanni Bellini and the background to Venetian painting / George Holmes -- Communes, despots and universities: structures and trends of Italian studi to 1500 / Peter Denley --Aedificia iam in regales surgunt altitudines: The Mendicant Great Church in the Trecento / Julian Gardner -- 'Communes and Despots': The opening paragraph / Trevor Dean.The City State in Late-Medieval Italy - Power and restraint - Political thought: theory and practice - Case studies - Medici - Culture, art and patronage.