April Blood
Price:
$19.99 (01)Description
On a Sunday in April 1478, assassins attacked Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother as they attended Mass in the cathedral of Florence. Lorenzo scrambled to safety as Giuliano bled to death on the cathedral floor. April Blood moves outward from that murderous event, unfolding a story of tangled passions, ambition, treachery, and revenge. The conspiracy was led by one of the city's most noble clans, the Pazzi--but the web of intrigue spread through all of Italy. Bankers, mercenaries, the Duke of Urbino, the King of Naples, and Pope Sixtus IV all entered secretly into the plot. The failed assassination doomed the Pazzi. Medici revenge was swift and brutal--plotters were hanged or beheaded, innocents were hacked to pieces, and bodies were put out to dangle from the windows of the government palace. April Blood offers us a fresh portrait of Renaissance Florence, where dazzling artistic achievements went side by side with violence, craft, and bare-knuckle politics. At the center of the canvas is the figure of Lorenzo the Magnificent--poet, statesman, connoisseur, patron of the arts, and ruthless "boss of bosses." This extraordinarily vivid account of a turning point in the Italian Renaissance is bound to become a lasting work of history.Reviews
"Fascinating.... Martines is a master researcher and, like a collector showing off his treasures, his delight in his findings sparkles on every page."--Philadelphia Inquirer
"Just the sort of historical mystery that should appeal to fans of, say, Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning (about the murder of Christopher Marlowe) or Josephine Tey's classic The Daughter of Time ."--Washington Post
"An intriguing book.... Every situation and character Martines presents to usis of marvelous complexity."--The New York Review of Books
"A quietly subversive, elegant counterbalance to centuries of Medici adulation. His narrative is enthralling, his irony devastating, his conclusions unsettling."--Financial Times
"A spine-chilling political drama of conspiracy, murder at High Mass, and bloody revenge."--The Times (London)
Product Details
320 pages; 2 maps, 13 halftones; 5-1/16 x 8-1/8; ISBN13: 978-0-19-517609-4ISBN10: 0-19-517609-XAbout the Author(s)
Lauro Martines , former Professor of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles, is renowned for his books on the Italian Renaissance. The author of Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy , and most recently of Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance , he reviews for The Times Literary Supplement and lives in London with his wife, novelist Julia O'Faolain.
