Italy Archive
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The Woman who Ruled the Papacy
Posted on March 9, 2014 | No CommentsShe was the lover of one Pope, mother to another, and grandmother to a third. -
Writing the Antithesis of María of Aragón: Alvaro de Luna’s Rendering of Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris
Posted on February 22, 2014 | No CommentsOf the many works that form the canon of the debate on women in the fifteenth century, particularly in the Iberian Peninsula, there is a text that often omitted. This lesser known text was written by one of the most notorious figures in Spanish history: don Alvaro de Luna. -
Medieval Castle and Hamlet for Sale in Italy: Castello Izzalini
Posted on February 18, 2014 | No CommentsGet an entire medieval village, dating back to the 12th century, with its own castle and church. -
A Medieval Guide to Friendship
Posted on February 17, 2014 | No CommentsWhat kind of friend are you? A 13th-century writer looks at types of friends, most of whom you want to stay away from! -
Medieval Mass Grave discovered underneath the Uffizi Gallery in Florence
Posted on February 17, 2014 | No CommentsWorkers doing renovations at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy have uncovered what seems to be the remains of a mass grave from the fifth-century AD. -
The Meek And Mighty Bride: Representations of Esther, Old Testament Queen of Persia, on Fifteenth-Century Italian Marriage Furniture
Posted on February 16, 2014 | No CommentsCassone and spalliere panels depicting the Old Testament Book of Esther were produced by a number of Florentine artists during the fifteenth century. -
The Man of Sorrows and the King of Glory in Italy, c. 1250 – c. 1350
Posted on February 9, 2014 | No CommentsThe Man of Sorrows – an iconographic type of Jesus Christ following his Crucifixion – has received extensive analytical treatment in the art-historical literature. -
A Medieval LIfe (in his own words)
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsForty years of the life of Opicino de Canistris, priest and writer in 14th century Italy, in his own words. -
Cecco D’Ascoli and Church Discipline of Natural Philosophers in the Middle Ages
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsProbably the only natural philosopher of the Middle Ages to be burnt at the stake at the behest of the Church was one Francisco degli Stabili (c. 1269 – 1327) in Florence in late 1327. -
Seeing again : geometry, cartography and visions in the work of Opicinus de Canistris (1296-C.1354)
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsSet against erratic textual content, the images in the Palatinus are combinations of mathematical forms, collection of figures and zodiac symbols. -
Violence and Repression in Late Medieval Italy
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsBetween the second half of the thirteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth, central and northern Italian city-states frequently suffered moments of disruption of the social peace because of factional battles. -
Opicinus de Canistris: Yesterday and today
Posted on February 8, 2014 | No CommentsOpicinus is the first maker of anthropomorphic maps of the countries around the Mediterranean, and the first psychotic cartographer and imaginative writer in the historical field of the Psychopathology of Expression. -
What Makes Her Beautiful? Feminine Beauty Standards in Renaissance Italy
Posted on January 28, 2014 | No CommentsPerhaps one of the most straightforward elements of beauty was the skin. Pale and undamaged skin was considered the most beautiful for women. -
Florence Cathedral: The Design Stage
Posted on January 25, 2014 | No CommentsNo list of the outstanding Gothic monuments of Europe could fail to include the Cathedral of Florence, yet its place in medieval architecture remains anomalous. Anomalous above all is its unprecedented design, which integrates a rib-vaulted basilica, a domed octagon, and a triconch of fifteen extruded chapels. -
Under the aegis of the saints. Hagiography and power in early Carolingian northern Italy
Posted on January 22, 2014 | No CommentsThis article gives an overview of the features, choices, tastes and models of sanctity characteristic of Italian hagiography, against the background of local contexts and political competition. -
Vespucci’s Triangle and the Shape of the World
Posted on January 17, 2014 | No CommentsInterdisciplinary interactions between sixteenth-century travellers and cosmographers produced visual models that challenged normative modes of visual thinking, even as they tried to clarify ideas about the earth’s surface. -
The magnificent banquets for the wedding of Annibale II Bentivoglio and Lucrezia d’Este
Posted on January 13, 2014 | No CommentsThe banquet started at 20 o'clock and lasted for 7 hours. After some sweets as starters, the very protagonist of the dinner is meat: veals, peacocks, game and fowl of all sorts, followed by further sweets and cakes. -
Medieval Cookbooks: Something to Inspire the Medieval Cook in all of us!
Posted on January 5, 2014 | No CommentsBaby it's cold outside. Brrrrr! It's January, snow is blowing, frost is nipping at your toes - it's a great time to cook a hearty, hot meal. Want to make it even better? Try a medieval menu! Here are a few books to inspire the medieval cook in all of us. -
Leonardo’s Literary Writings: History, Genre, Philosophy
Posted on January 1, 2014 | No CommentsThis dissertation, conceiving Leonardo as a moral philosopher, provides interpretations that lead to the conclusion that his thought pervades both his major and minor works and that these literary writings must be viewed as an extension (and result) of Leonardo’s greater notions of the world and of how all parts relate to one another. -
The Early German Settlement of North Eastern Moravia: and What the Pied Piper of Hamelin Had to Do with It
Posted on December 29, 2013 | No CommentsLong ago, primordial forests, dark and impenetrable, surrounded the mountainous frontier, which today separates northeastern Bohemia from large parts of northern Moravia in the Czech Republic. This area was situated north of the sparsely populated flatlands of the March (Morava) River. The stillness of the forests remained largely undisturbed by man. -
Theodora, Aetius of Amida, and Procopius: Some Possible Connections
Posted on December 29, 2013 | No CommentsBehind the purported facts of Theodora’s career as a common prostitute and later as empress are the hidden details of what we might call feminine pharmacology: what were the drugs used by prostitutes and call-girls in sixth-century Byzan- tium? Were there ordinary pharmaceuticals employed by such professionals to stay in business? -
The Dual Crises of the Late-Medieval Florentine Cloth Industry, c.1320 – c.1420
Posted on December 28, 2013 | No CommentsThe consequences of that first economic crisis, in the ensuing transformation of the Florentine cloth industry, contained the very seeds that spawned the second and far more major crisis, which led to the inexorable downfall of this once majestic industry, by the early fifteenth century. -
Theoderic the Great vs. Boethius: Tensions in Italy in the Late 5th and Early 6th Centuries
Posted on December 28, 2013 | No CommentsIn 524AD the Roman senator Boethius was executed for committing treason against Theoderic the Great, the ruling gothic king in Italy. Boethius was never given a trial, and the charge of treason may have been an exaggeration of what actually happened. -
Boniface VIII and Philip IV: Conflict Between Church and State
Posted on December 27, 2013 | No CommentsDuring the middle ages there were conflicts between church and state. From 1294-1303 Boniface VIII and Philip the IV, king of France had such an issue. -
A Medieval Peace Movement
Posted on December 27, 2013 | No CommentsThe Bianchi in 1399 - a medieval peace movement in Italy
