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Italian Renaissance (American Heritage Library Series)
by J.H. Plumb
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Mariner Books (1987-01-03)
ISBN: 0828104859
EAN: 9780828104852
Dewey Decimal #: 945.05
Paperback: 318 pages
SKU: 20283
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Paperback. Pages clean and free of markings.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
A definitive overview of Renaissance-era Italy.
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Customer Reviews
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A Dated Classic
Rating  (3)
Date: 2008-08-05
Plumb's work is very readable and paints an overview of the Italian Renaissance with a broad brush. It is, however, 47 years old (published 1961). There's been an enormous amount of scholarship in those 47 years, and Plumb is showing his age, in his adulatory tone and his dismissive insults about the European Middle Ages.
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enjoyable
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-03-03
The text by mr. Plumb is very entertaining. The images do not add much to the value of the book. The second part of the book, consisting of monographs on individual personalities, written by several scholars, was a much less enjoyable read. On the whole: informative.
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Wow!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-12-18
What an intriguing book! I have a degree in art history so the Italian Renaissance is nothing new to me. I so enjoyed this book! It is written for a reader that is somewhat familiar with the time & people, but it goes into detail to clairfy. This was a great read!
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Introducing the Renaissance
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-07-14
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
I wish there were more books like this one. The first half is discussion by J. H. Plumb about many basic aspects of the Italian Renaissance one should know, the second half is a collection of well-written biographical essays about prominent Italian Renaissance figures. The second half was particularly good. I think Kenneth Clark's essay on Michaelangelo and Morris Bishop's on Petrach were the best, but they were all very good. All are well written, unpretentious and intelligent, and all concern interesting people.
The notable figures of Renaissance Italy are really quite different from notable figures of the American Revolution, say. They were much more passionate. The good better, the evil were more evil. Men loved works of art, they didn't just pretend to. I was reading about Benedict Arnold recently, deplorable traitor! but for diabolical rogues, he's nothing beside Cesare Borgia or Sigismondo Malatesta. And who can compare with Federigo da Montefeltro? Or Leonardo da Vinci? They're inspirational. They make you want to live.
Anyway, this is great book. I'm glad I read it.
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An introduction to a magnificent time
Rating (4)
Date: 2001-11-15
32 out of 33 customers found this reveiw helpful
Plumb's book is a very readable introduction to the Renaissance. He begins by explaining how civilization collapsed after the fall of Rome. But the Renaissance grew from the increases in population, trade and the flow of ideas. Italy was a land of cities instead of feudalism, able to make good use of trade to gain great power. The increase of trade brought power to the merchants and guilds instead of the nobility. Trade and power brought money to support an explosion of the arts and finance the flow of ideas, especially from the past. Plumb describes the histories of some of the cities of Italy. In one chapter he describes the intricate diplomacy of Milan. In other chapters he describes the commerce of Venice and the trade of Florence. We see the brilliance of artists and dissipation of rulers. Plumb describes how the new learning, the new way of seeing the world, spread across Europe. However, Plumb only wrote half of the book. The second half contains a series of biographies of great artists and rulers of the Renaissance, written by different authors. There are short biographies of artists such as Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci: rulers such as Lorenzo de Medici and Doge Foscari, and authors such as Petrarch and Machiavelli. This book is a tour de force introduction to the magnificent Renaissance.
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