Can anyone recommend good books about the interaction of Italian City-States during the Renaissance? My brother is writing a 200 page paper over the next three years, and his topic is Rome, Venice, Florence, and Milan and how their interactions shaped the Italian Renaissance. He doesn't have any good books to go on, and I'm at a loss to help him (I'm not a history person) Any help would be appreciated.
posted by nickhb on Jul 3, 2009 - 18 answers

Calling all Italians: Walking from Firenze to Roma, advice needed! [more inside]
posted by vespr1610 on Jun 6, 2009 - 5 answers

I'd thought it was a Goya, but the (self?) portrait I'm looking for isn't turning up amongst his collected works. The striking feature of the Renaissance-y painting is the joyous, somewhat impish expression of the subject. [more inside]
posted by Ogre Lawless on Feb 4, 2009 - 8 answers

Searching for an understandable snippet of Shakespeare. [more inside]
posted by Hargrimm on Sep 4, 2007 - 28 answers

Help me think of a suitable question for an essay on Mantegna's prints. [more inside]
posted by trashcan on Jul 5, 2007 - 3 answers

HistoryFilter: Help me think of an interesting and researchable thesis for a Renaissance History course. [more inside]
posted by jckll on Apr 3, 2007 - 11 answers

I want Albrecht Dürer's hat. The hat is the one in this self-portrait. I would like to make a replica of this hat. It looks fairly simple at a glance, but examining it closely, I can't figure out how it's constructed. Other paintings or illustrations of this type of hat would be helpful, too.
posted by Stove on Jan 23, 2007 - 9 answers

Artsy fartsy filter: While thinking about the Medici family, the renaissance and the idea of commissioned works of art, I was wondering if there have ever been works of literature that have been sponsored or commissioned purely for the sake of art. [more inside]
posted by snsranch on Nov 21, 2006 - 18 answers

Can anyone identify the artist, title, and location of this artwork? (It's a cropping of a larger work, and it may be a version of the Last Judgement, that's all I know....)
posted by extrabox on May 23, 2006 - 5 answers

I've been reading Barbara Tuchman's The March of Folly, an account of notable historical episodes where governing bodies persisted in the pursuit of policies contrary to the interests of the governed. Among the most amusing and weird episodes is the history of the papacy in the decades around 1500 -- when popes led troops in battle, presided over orgies, and generally fiddled while Rome was about to be sacked (in 1527). Anyone know of a really sprightly historical novel on this subject?
posted by bmckenzie on Jun 7, 2005 - 9 answers

I'm reading a French text printed in Paris in 1527. The language is clear enough, no less intuitive than Olde Englysh, but the typography can be a poser. Can anyone recommend a particularly good reference text (or web site) that lists the various abbreviations, letter, and number variations, that keep cropping up?
posted by IndigoJones on May 9, 2005 - 5 answers

NovelFilter: I just finished Romola, by Eliot, and didn't love it, but want to learn more about Florence in the era--a very interesting time, to put it mildly--with the Medicis, Savanarola, etc. Any good novels or non-boring non-fiction on Florence in the late 1400s-early 1500s?
posted by amberglow on Mar 18, 2005 - 11 answers