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To request A Sourcebook To Accompany Humanities West’s "The Florence of the Medici," please
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Please view The Florence of the Medici in Context, a one-page overview that provides some high-level background information about our topic.
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Suggested
Reading and Resources
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Note: Books may be purchased at Amazon.com by clicking on this link.
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Many of these books are also available at local bookstores including Books Inc and Keplers, or at your local library. |
Short Resource List for The Florence of the Medici, compiled by Chuck Sieloff, PhD
If you would like to learn a little more about our topic, but don't have a lot of extra time to invest, try some of these resources.
Jerry Brotton's The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction (2006, 148pp., also available in Kindle format) puts the period in the broadest possible context, emphasizing often neglected aspects like the influence of Byzantine and Islamic cultures and the role of new technologies like the printing press. The Renaissance – In a Nutshell by Peter Whitfield provides a concise and insightful summary of the Italian Renaissance, with special emphasis on Florence, in a 72-minute audiobook (2009).
If you don't mind the melodramatic presentation style, PBS has a four-part video series on The Medici, Godfathers of the Renaissance as part of its Empires series (3 hours, 40 minutes, available through Netflix). It provides a solid introduction to our topic, and features our Friday night speaker, Dale Kent, as one of the academic commentators.
If art is your primary interest, A. Richard Turner's Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art provides a lavishly illustrated introduction (1997, 176pp.). Finally, an excellent web site Renaissance – Focus on Florence provides a wealth of background material aimed at teachers under the umbrella of Annenberg Media's Learner.org.
Suggested resources, compiled by Monika J. Collins
Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance. Princeton University Press, 1966.
Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 2nd Edition. Broadview Press, 2000.
Biafioli, Mario. Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Brown, Alison. The Renaissance, 2nd Edition. Longman, 1999.
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Indy Publish, 2008.
Connell, William. Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence. University of California Press, 2002.
De Roover, Raymond A. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank: 1397-1494. Beard Books, 1999.
Findlen, Paula. “Historical Thought in the Renaissance," in Companion to Historical Thought, ed. Lloyd Kramer and Sarah Maza (Blackwell, 2002).
---. "Building the House of Knowledge: The Structures of Thought in Late Renaissance Europe," in Tore Frangsmyr, ed., The Structure of Knowledge: Classifications of Science and Learning since the Renaissance (Berkeley, 2001)
---. (ed.). The Italian Renaissance: Essential Readings (Blackwell, 2002).
Frieda, Leonie. Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France. Harper Perennial, 2006.
Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History. John Hopkins University Press, 1982.
Hale, J. R. Florence and the Medici. London, 1977.
Hall, Marcia. After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge, 1999.
Hankins, James. Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Ideas in Context). Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Heydenreich, Ludwig H. Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500. New Haven, 1996.
Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. Harper Perennial, 1999.
Hollingsworth, Mary. Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century. John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Hunt, John Dixon. The Italian Garden: Art, Design and Culture. Cambridge, 2007.
Kent, Dale. Cosimo de` Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The Patron`s Oeuvre. Yale University Press, 2000.
Kent, Dale. Friendship, Love, and Trust in Renaissance Florence (The Bernard Berenson Lectures on the Italian Renaissance). Harvard University Press, 2009.
Kent, F. W. Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Art of Magnificence. Baltimore, 2004.
Kent, F.W. Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century. John Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Kent, F.W. 'The Myth of Lorenzo' and 'Lorenzo and the Florentine Building Boom' in Lorenzo de' Medici and the Art of Magnificence. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Lotz, Wolfgang. Architecture in Italy, 1500-1600. New Haven, 1995.
Luchinat, Cristina Acidini and Suzanne B. Butters and Marco Chiarini and Janet Cox-Rearick. The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence. Yale University Press, 2002.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince.
Martines, Lauro. April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici, new ed. London, 2004.
Martines, Lauro: An Italian Renaissance Sextet: Six Tales in Historical Context (1994)
Martines, Lauro. Power and Imagination: City-states in Renaissance Italy. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Murray, Peter. The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance. London, 1986.
Paoletti, John T. and Gary M. Radke. Art in Renaissance Italy, 3rd ed., London, 2005.
Paolucci, Antonio. The Museum of the Medici Chapels and the Church of San Lorenzo. Sillabe, 1999.
Paolucci, Antonio. The Origins of Renaissance Art: The Baptistery Doors, Florence. George Braziller, 1996.
Parks, Tim. Medici Money. Norton, 2005.
Partridge, Loren, and Randolph Starn. Renaissance Likeness: Art and Culture in Raphael's Julius II. Berkeley, 1980.
Phillips, Mark. The Memoir of Marco Parenti: A Life in Medici Florence. University of Toronto Press, 2000.
Pilliod, Elizabeth. Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori: A Geneaology of Florentine Art. Yale University Press, 2001.
Rabb, Theodore. Renaissance Lives (Perseus, 1993, paperback 2000).
Randolph, Adrian. Engaging Symbols: Gender, Politics, and Public Art in Fifteenth-Century. Yale University Press, 2002.
Richardson, Brian. Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Rowe, Colin and Leon Satkowski. Italian Architecture of the 16th Century. New York, 2002.
Stephens, J. N. The Fall of the Florentine Republic, 1512–1530. Oxford, 1983.
Trexler, Richard C. Public Life in Renaissance Florence. Cornell University Press, 2001.
Unger, Miles J. Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de Medici. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 2 vols. trans. by Gaston du C. de Vere; intro. and notes by David Ekserdjian. London, 1996.
Welch, Evelyn. Art and Society in Italy, 1350-1500. Oxford University Press, 1997.
Zophy, Jonathan. A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Dances over Fire and Water. Prentice Hall, 2003. |
