Bøger af Mary Hollingsworth

An illustrated history of the Renaissance told through the lives of its most important and influential patrons - the princely rulers of Italy's dynastic states and their families.

The life and times of Catherine de' Medici--the most powerful woman in sixteenth-century Europe--as seen through her often controversial role in religion and the arts. During an age of heightened religious conflict, Catherine de' Medici lived her life at the center of sixteenth-century European and French politics. Daughter of Lorenzo II, the Medici ruler of Florence--and then wedded to a French prince by papal decree at the age of fourteen--Catherine first became queen consort of France and then mother to three French kings (Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III) who reigned in an era of almost continuous civil and religious strife. A lavish promoter of the arts, Catherine patronized poets, painters, and sculptors; lavished ruinous sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces; and masterminded spectacular entertainments and tournaments that prefigure the splendor and ritual of the court of Versailles. Catherine maintained eighty ladies-in-waiting at court; it was rumored she used these women as bait to seduce courtiers for her political ends. Her admiration for the seer Nostradamus fueled claims of her love for the occult and the dark arts. Posterity has condemned her as the epitome of the scheming royal matriarch, her reputation tainted forever by her role in instigating the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of Protestants in 1572. Catherine de' Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen is Mary Hollingsworth's evocative, authoritative biography of the most extraordiary woman of the sixteenth-century.

'In a subject of this magnitude, the author's coverage is impeccable ... Patronage in Renaissance Italy is an absolute must.' - The Art BookA perfect read for art historians and their students and for lovers of Renaissance art and civilization.In this first comprehensive study of patrons in the Italian quattrocento, Mary Hollingsworth shows how the patron - rather than the artist - carefully controlled both subject and medium in artistic creation.In a competitive and violent age, she explains, image and ostentation were essential statements of the patron's power. As a result, perceived cost became more important than artistic quality (and buildings, bronze, or tapestry were considered more eloquent statements than cheaper marble or fresco).Since Christian teaching frowned on wealth and power, money also had to be spent on religious endowments made in expiation. But here too the patron was in control, and used the arts and other means to express religious belief, not aesthetic sensibility. Artists in the early Renaissance were employed as craftsmen, Hollingsworth concludes, and only late in the century did their relations with patrons start to adopt a pattern we might recognize today.Praise for Mary Hollingsworth: 'Many readers, specialists and non-specialists alike, will welcome this book as a reliable and straightforward introduction to an important and interesting subject' - Literary Review'She writes authoritatively, drawing on a vast store of knowledge' - Frances Spalding, The Sunday Times'A thorough, readable and skilfully crafted survey' - Burlington Magazine'This book will be of interest to anyone who looks at art in fifteenth-century Italy [and] will be particularly salutary for anyone who teaches or studies art history.' - ApolloMary Hollingsworth is an academic and an expert in Renaissance art and architecture. Her published works include The Medici, The Borgias, and The Cardinal's Hat.

A fresh, revelatory, and shockingly revisionist narrative of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, by the acclaimed author of The Cardinal's Hat and The Borgias.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 Leonardo were among the artists with whom they were socialized and patronized. Thus runs the "accepted view" of the Medici. However, Mary Hollingsworth argues that the idea that the Medici were enlightened rulers of the Renaissance is a fiction that has now acquired the status of historical fact. In truth, the Medici were as devious and immoral as the Borgias-tyrants loathed in the city they illegally made their own. In this dynamic new history, Hollingsworth argues that past narratives have focused on a sanitized and fictitious view of the Medici-wise rulers, enlightened patrons of the arts, and fathers of the Renaissance-but that in fact their past was reinvented in the sixteenth century, mythologized by later generations of Medici who used this as a central prop for their legacy. Hollingsworth's revelatory re-telling of the story of the family Medici brings a fresh and exhilarating new perspective to the story behind the most powerful family of the Italian Renaissance.

Conspiracy, intrigue and faction fighting as the future of Europe hangs in the balance: Mary Hollingsworth tells the story of the papal conclave in 1559.

A fresh telling of the rise and fall of the House of Medici, the family that dominated political and cultural life in Florence for three centuries.

History's most notorious dynasty brought vividly to life.