The Medici Conspiracy

Author : Peter Watson
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1586485407
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli—tomb raiders— who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous exposés of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Author : Peter Watson
Publisher : Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 9781586484026
Total Pages : 420 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2006-04-24 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli—tomb raiders— who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous exposés of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Author : Peter Watson
Publisher : Hachette UK
ISBN 13 : 1586485407
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers who spirit them out of Italy and into the hands of wealthy collectors and museums. Peter Watson, a former investigative journalist for the London Sunday Times and author of two previous expos's of art world scandals, names the key figures in this network that has depleted Europe's classical artifacts. Among the loot are the irreplaceable and highly collectable vases of Euphronius, the equivalent in their field of the sculpture of Bernini or the painting of Michelangelo. The narrative leads to the doors of some major institutions: Sothebys, the Getty Museum in L.A., the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York among them. Filled with great characters and human drama, The Medici Conspiracy authoritatively exposes another shameful round in one of the oldest games in the world: theft, smuggling and duplicitous dealing, all in the name of art.

Author : Marcello Simonetta
Publisher : Doubleday
ISBN 13 : 0385526806
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Montefeltro Conspiracy written by Marcello Simonetta and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brutal murder, a nefarious plot, a coded letter. After five hundred years, the most notorious mystery of the Renaissance is finally solved. The Italian Renaissance is remembered as much for intrigue as it is for art, with papal politics and infighting among Italy’s many city-states providing the grist for Machiavelli’s classic work on take-no-prisoners politics, The Prince. The attempted assassination of the Medici brothers in the Duomo in Florence in 1478 is one of the best-known examples of the machinations endemic to the age. While the assailants were the Medici’s rivals, the Pazzi family, questions have always lingered about who really orchestrated the attack, which has come to be known as the Pazzi Conspiracy. More than five hundred years later, Marcello Simonetta, working in a private archive in Italy, stumbled upon a coded letter written by Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, to Pope Sixtus IV. Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence. Montefeltro, long believed to be a close friend of Lorenzo de Medici, was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place. In The Montefeltro Conspiracy, Simonetta unravels this plot, showing not only how the plot came together but how its failure (only one of the Medici brothers, Giuliano, was killed; Lorenzo survived) changed the course of Italian and papal history for generations. In the course of his gripping narrative, we encounter the period’s most colorful characters, relive its tumultuous politics, and discover that two famous paintings, including one in the Sistine Chapel, contain the Medici’s astounding revenge.

Author : Lauro Martines
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0195348435
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book April Blood written by Lauro Martines and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-04-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's leading historians of Renaissance Italy brings to life here the vibrant--and violent--society of fifteenth-century Florence. His disturbing narrative opens up an entire culture, revealing the dark side of Renaissance man and politician Lorenzo de' Medici. On a Sunday in April 1478, assassins attacked Lorenzo 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 in time and space 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, financiers who feared and resented the Medici's swaggering new role as political bosses--but the web of intrigue spread through all of Italy. Bankers, mercenaries, the Duke of Urbino, the King of Naples, and Pope Sixtus IV entered secretly into the plot. Florence was plunged into a peninsular war, and Lorenzo was soon fighting for his own and his family's survival. 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. All remaining members of the larger Pazzi clan were forced to change their surname, and every public sign or symbol of the family was expunged or destroyed. 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.

Author : Miles Unger
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743254341
Total Pages : 530 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Magnifico written by Miles Unger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008 with total page 530 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Miles Unger's biography of this complex figure draws on primary research in Italian sources and on his intimate knowledge of Florence, where he lived for several years."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Donna Russo Morin
Publisher : Next Chapter
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Portrait Of A Conspiracy written by Donna Russo Morin and published by Next Chapter. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 15th century Florence, five women and a legendary artist weave together a dangerous plot that could bring peace - or get them all killed. Seeking to wrest power from the Medici, members of the Pazzi family slay the beloved Giuliano. But Lorenzo de' Medici survives the attack and seeks revenge on everyone involved, plunging the city into murderous chaos. Bodies are dragged through the streets, and no one is safe. Five women steal away to a church to ply their craft in secret. Viviana, Fiammetta, Isabetta, Natasia and Mattea are painters, not allowed to be public with their skill but freed from the restrictions in their lives by their art. When a sixth member of their group, Lapaccia, goes missing and is rumored to have stolen a much sought-after painting before she vanished, the women must venture out into the dangerous streets to find their friend. They will have help from one of the most renowned painters of their era: the peaceful and kind Leonardo da Vinci. It is under his tutelage that they flourish as artists and with his access that they infiltrate some of the highest, most secretive places in Florence, unraveling one conspiracy as they build another in its place. Vibrant and absorbing, Portrait Of A Conspiracy is the first novel in Donna Russo Morin's Da Vinci's Disciples series.

Author : Michael White
Publisher : Random House Australia
ISBN 13 : 1742747191
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Medici Secret written by Michael White and published by Random House Australia. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ancient mystery. A conspiracy of silence. A secret to kill for. In the crypt of the Medici Chapel in Florence, scientist Edie Granger, and her uncle, Carlin Mackenzie, are examining the mummified remains of one of the most powerful families in Renaissance Italy. The embalmers have done their work well in terms of outward appearance. But under the crisp skin, the organs have shrivelled to a fraction of their original size, which means it is difficult to gather usable DNA samples. Edie and Mackenzie both have serious doubts about the true identity of at least two of the 500-year-old bodies. And no one can explain the presence of an alien object discovered resting against Cosimo di Medici's spine. For Carlin Mackenzie, this is the most fascinating and the most dangerous discovery of his life. For Edie, it is the beginning of an obsessive, life-threatening quest. The Medici Secret meshes past and present, cryptic clues and constant menace to produce a mystery thriller that does not relax its grip for one single moment.

Author : Peter Watson
Publisher : Hardie Grant Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781740664271
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Medici Conspiracy written by Peter Watson and published by Hardie Grant Publishing. This book was released on 2006 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With unprecedented access to confidential Carabinieri and court documents in Italy, Watson details startling evidence from dealers and museums on three continents, from the auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's in London and New York to art dealers and collectors in Japan, Germany and Paris.

Author : Richard Stapleford
Publisher : Penn State Press
ISBN 13 : 027105641X
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lorenzo De' Medici at Home written by Richard Stapleford and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An inventory of the private possessions of Lorenzo il Magnifico de' Medici, head of the ruling Medici family during the apogee of the Florentine Renaissance"--Provided by publisher.