Death in Florence

Paul Strathern

• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781681772301
• eBook ISBN:
  9781605988276
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances. In Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations and intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events—invasions, trials by fire, the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions and mysterious deaths—featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.In an exhilaratingly rich and deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts, and political compromises that made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex and important moments in Western history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Maps
• The Medici Family Tree
• Leading Dramatis Personae and Main Factions
• Prologue: ‘The needle of the Italian compass’
• 1 A Prince in All but Name
• 2 ‘Blind wickedness’
• 3 Lorenzo’s Florence
• 4 Securing the Medici Dynasty
• 5 Pico’s Challenge
• 6 The Return of Savonarola
• 7 Cat and Mouse
• 8 The End of an Era
• 9 Noah’s Ark
• 10 A Bid for Independence
• 11 ‘Italy faced hard times ... beneath stars hostile to her good’
• 12 ‘I will destroy all flesh’
• 13 Humiliation
• 14 A New Government
• 15 The Voices of Florence
• 16 ‘A bolt from the blue’
• 17 The Bonfire of the Vanities
• 18 ‘On suspicion of heresy’
• 19 Open Defiance
• 20 The Tables Are Turned
• 21 Ordeal by Fire
• 22 The Siege of San Marco
• 23 Trial and Torture
• 24 Judgement
• 25 Hanged and Burned
• Aftermath
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Acknowledgements
• Index
• Praise for Death in Florence
• Also by Paul Strathern
• Copyright