Petrarch's Grandchildren
Guest Lectures
•
1h 13m
The Florentine Renaissance conjures images of beautiful frescoes and altarpieces, of snow-white marble statues in sinewy poses and the soaring dome of Santa Maria del Fiore—the handiwork of the city’s brilliant artists and architects. But equally if not more important for the centuries to follow were Florence’s humanists: a group of writers, philosophers, manuscript hunters, teachers, scribes, librarians, notaries, priests and booksellers. These bookworms blew the dust off a thousand years of history and, in the face of historical crises and political turbulence, tried to forge a new world of patriotic public service, friendship, loyalty, wisdom, justice and refined pleasure.
Ross King is the award-winning author of numerous books on Italian and French art and history, including Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. His biography Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power has been called a “convincing portrait of one of the most misunderstood thinkers of all time.” His most recent book, published in April 2021, is The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance.
Up Next in Guest Lectures
-
If This is a Man: Primo Levi, Autobio...
"It is neither easy nor agreeable to dredge this abyss of viciousness, and yet I think it must be done, because what could be perpetrated yesterday could be attempted again tomorrow…" writes Italian Jewish author Primo Levi in his well-known memoir of survival, If This is a Man (Se questo è un uo...
-
Leonardo da Vinci: Cardiovascular Phy...
What do you think of when you hear the name Leonardo da Vinci – artist, inventor, Renaissance Man? But what about Leonardo as an anatomist, physiologist, cardiovascular researcher, or biomedical engineer?
Beginning around 1510, Leonardo had the opportunity to observe dissections by the great cont... -
The Beauty of Ugliness in Renaissance...
Renaissance artists’ fascination with the real world led them to explore and depict surprisingly engaging representations of ugly subjects, not just beautiful and idealizing ones. While many people maligned the unfortunate or ugly as evil, artists often found unrecognized beauty and meaning in im...