DescriptionIn this landmark study of Italy from the 14th through the early 16th centuries, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt chronicles the rise of Florence and Venice as powerful city-states, the breakup of the medieval worldview that came with the rediscovery of Greek and Roman culture, and the new emphasis on the role of the individual. All these, Burckhardt explains, went hand in hand with the explorations of science and the more naturalistic depiction of the world in art and literature. Within the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Burckhardt finds the first stirrings of the modern world and, in the Renaissance Italian, the first modern man. His book-length essay includes discussions of all aspects of Italian civilization: art, fashion, literature, and the music of the time, as well as the flourishing of intellectual and spiritual life.
DescriptionThis Middle-English flavored translation contains 50 stories told by seven ladies and three young gentlemen who leave Florence during the plague to reside on a palatial estate near Fiesole. The tales are mainly concerned with love affairs, unfaithfulness and lust, often involving members of the clergy, which may amuse or raise the eyebrows.
DescriptionA Room With a View explores love and prim propriety among a charming cast of eccentric characters assembled in Florence, Italy, and in a corner of Surrey, England. When Lucy Honeychurch exchanges rooms with George Emerson to obtain a view of the Arno, she begins a friendship that will lead her to look closely at love and life itself. Forster delightfully delves into one of his favorite themes, the "undeveloped heart" of the English middle classes. Written in 1908, this tale of romantic intrigue is one of his most celebrated works.
DescriptionLearn with rhythm, learn with tunes, Italian, English words you'll use! Bilingual vocabulary builder for Italian or English 500 words and expressions, plus conversation Original music score energizes the listener Engages both left and right brain for optimal learning…
DescriptionFlorencewalks Audio Guide proves to listeners that much of Florence's art is found not only in her world famous museums but on her streets as well. Florencewalks takes visitors on four intimate walking tours, revealing the treasures that can…
DescriptionE.M. Forster's masterful, romantic comedy of manners tells the tale of an Englishwoman who steps out of her rigid, hierarchical society to find love. Lucy Honeychurch lives in Windy Corners, her family's country estate in Suffolk, England, where she is engaged to the respectable, fastidious Cecil Vyse. But she cannot forget a man named George Emerson, whom she met by chance on a trip to Florence. In Italy, she felt emancipated from her conventional upbringing, and her embrace with George moved him to declare his undying love. Forced to choose between 2 men, 2 marriages, and 2 markedly different ways of seeing the world, Lucy faces a difficult decision. Beautifully narrated by John Frandlyn-Robbins, A Room with a View is one of the 20th century's most charming and compelling novels.
DescriptionAlessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family's Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a…
