'The best conceivable guide to the city' - an essential cultural history for all visitors of FlorenceThe rich and glorious past of one of the best loved cities in the world, Florence, is brought vividly to life for today's visitor in this collection which draws on letters, diaries and memoirs of travellers to Florence and the Florentines themselves.Of all Italian cities, Florence has always had the strongest English accent: the Goncourt bro...

Although the eighteenth century is traditionally seen as the age of the Grand Tour, it was in fact the continental travel of Jacobean noblemen which really constituted the beginning of the Tour as an institutionalized phenomenon. James I's peace treaty with Spain in 1604 rendered travel to Catholic Europe both safer and more respectable than it had been under the Tudors and opened up the continent to a new generation of aristocratic explorers, enquirers and adventurers. This book examines ...

The Grand Tour has become a subject of major interest to scholars and general readers interested in exploring the historic connections between nations and their intellectual and artistic production. Although traditionally associated with the eighteenth century, when wealthy Englishmen would complete their education on the continent, the Grand Tour is here investigated in a wider context, from the decline of the Roman Empire to recent times. Authors from Chaucer to Erasmus came to mock the ...

The opera singer Giusto Ferdinando Tenducci was one of the most famous celebrities of the eighteenth century. In collaboration with the English composer Thomas Arne, he popularized Italian opera, translating it for English audiences and making it accessible with his own compositions which he performed in London's pleasure gardens. Mozart and J. C. Bach both composed for him. He was a rock star of his day, with a massive female following. He was also a castrato. Women flocked to his concert...

Cherished for their linear grace, the divine and mythological masterpieces of Botticelli are the epitome of the golden age of Florentine art. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing digital readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Botticelli’s complete works in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1...

In her famous speech to rouse the English troops staking out Tilbury at the mouth of the Thames during the Spanish Armada's campaign, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have proclaimed, "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king." Whether or not the transcription is accurate, the persistent attribution of this provocative statement to England's most studied and celebrated queen illustrates some of the contradictions and cultural anxieties that dom...

Jane Shore often gets just a byline in history. We know her name, and that she was the mistress of a king. But who was this woman caputred for the stage by Shakespeare in Richard III, fictionalised by Jean Plaidy and others? Where did she come from? And how was it that having been mistress to the most powerful man in the land, she ended her years in prison and poverty?Jane Shore was born into a family of merchants and was married early, to William Shore. H...

The regal courts of the English Stuart Kings, from James I (1603-1625) to the ill-fated James II (1685-1689), were magnificent affairs. In a country otherwise given to increasingly austere Puritan ways of living, the royal court shone with a brilliance usually associated with the courts of the Catholic kings of mainland Europe. They were centres of great culture, patronage, ceremony and politics. The real importance of the courts, though down-played for many years, is now ...

Buckingham's Man: Balthazar Gerbier, a Renaissance Man in 17th Century England by Lita-Rose Betcherman is a captivating portrait of a forgotten figure who moved at the heart of power, art, and intrigue in Stuart England. Balthazar Gerbier—diplomat, art agent, spy, architect, and courtier—served the powerful Duke of Buckingham and rubbed shoulders with kings, artists, and intellectuals across Europe.From the glittering courts of Charles I to the political u...

The Oxford Companion to English Literature has long been established as the leading reference resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers of English literature. It provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of English literature - from writers, their works, and the historical and cultural context in which they wrote, to critics, literary theory, and allusions. For the seventh edition, the Companion has been thoroughly revised and updated to meet the ne...

A sweeping, beautifully written history of artistic patronage from 1000 to the present day by a Wolfson Prize-winning historian.‘Marks of Opulence’ is a magisterial survey of European art and artistic patronage from 1000 until the birth of modernism. Tracing the history from the discovery of silver in the Harz mountains, through the catastrophic effects of plague in the 14th-century, to the studied magnificence of papal and royal courts in the 16th- and 17th-centuries, Platt shows ...

An innovatory exploration of art and visual culture. Through carefully chosen themes and topics rather than through a general survey, the volumes approach the process of looking at works of art in terms of their audiences, functions and cross-cultural contexts. While focused on painting, sculpture and architecture, it also explores a wide range of visual culture in a variety of media and methods. "1600-1850 Academy to Avant-Garde" interrogates labels used in standard histories of the art o...