Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Luxury Arts of the Renaissance

Author: Marina Belozerskaya

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 2005-10-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0892367857

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Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.


The Modern School Movement

The Modern School Movement

Author: Paul Avrich

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-07-14

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1400853184

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In this comprehensive study of the Modern School movement, Paul Avrich narrates its history, analyzes its successes and failures, and assesses its place in American life. In doing so, he shows how the radical experimentation in art and communal living as well as in education during this period set the precedent for much of the artistic, social, and educational ferment of the 1960's and I970's. Originally published in 1980. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.


An Engine, Not a Camera

An Engine, Not a Camera

Author: Donald MacKenzie

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2008-08-29

Total Pages: 782

ISBN-13: 0262250047

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In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion were outstanding worldwide. MacKenzie suggests that this growth could never have happened without the development of theories that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities. MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most serious crises to hit the world's financial markets in recent years: the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. He also looks at finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist Benoit Mandelbrot's model of "wild" randomness. MacKenzie's pioneering work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants to understand how America's financial markets have grown into their current form.


The Dictator's Seduction

The Dictator's Seduction

Author: Lauren H. Derby

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2009-07-17

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0822390868

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The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, was one of the longest and bloodiest in Latin American history. The Dictator’s Seduction is a cultural history of the Trujillo regime as it was experienced in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Focusing on everyday forms of state domination, Lauren Derby describes how the regime infiltrated civil society by fashioning a “vernacular politics” based on popular idioms of masculinity and fantasies of race and class mobility. Derby argues that the most pernicious aspect of the dictatorship was how it appropriated quotidian practices such as gossip and gift exchange, leaving almost no place for Dominicans to hide or resist. Drawing on previously untapped documents in the Trujillo National Archives and interviews with Dominicans who recall life under the dictator, Derby emphasizes the role that public ritual played in Trujillo’s exercise of power. His regime included the people in affairs of state on a massive scale as never before. Derby pays particular attention to how events and projects were received by the public as she analyzes parades and rallies, the rebuilding of Santo Domingo following a major hurricane, and the staging of a year-long celebration marking the twenty-fifth year of Trujillo’s regime. She looks at representations of Trujillo, exploring how claims that he embodied the popular barrio antihero the tíguere (tiger) stoked a fantasy of upward mobility and how a rumor that he had a personal guardian angel suggested he was uniquely protected from his enemies. The Dictator’s Seduction sheds new light on the cultural contrivances of autocratic power.


The Secret History of the Jesuits

The Secret History of the Jesuits

Author: Edmond Paris

Publisher: Chick Publications

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 0758908253

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Secrets the Jesuits don't want Christians to know Out of Europe, a voice is heard from the secular world that documents historically the same information told by ex-priests. The author exposes the Vatican's involvement in world politics, intrigues, and the fomenting of wars throughout history. It appears, beyond any doubt, that the Roman Catholic institution is not a Christian church and never was. The poor Roman Catholic people have been betrayed by her and are facing spiritual disaster. Paris shows that Rome is responsible for the two great world wars. Author Edmond Paris explains why he wrote this book... "The public is practically unaware of the overwhelming responsibility carried by the Vatican and its Jesuits in the start of the two world wars -- a situation which may be explained in part by the gigantic finances at the disposition of the Vatican and its Jesuits, giving them power in so many spheres, especially since the last conflict." "In fact, the part they took in those tragic events has hardly been mentioned until the present time, except by apologists eager to disguise it. It is with the aim of rectifying this and establishing the true facts that we present in this and other books the political activity of the Vatican during the contemporary -- activity which mutually concerns the Jesuits." "This study is based on irrefutable archive documents, publications from well-known political personalities, diplomats, ambassadors and eminent writers, most of whom are Catholics, even attested by the imprimatur."


The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal

The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal

Author: The J. Paul Getty Museum

Publisher: Getty Publications

Published: 1994-03-24

Total Pages: 170

ISBN-13: 0892362561

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The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal has been published annually since 1974. It contains scholarly articles and shorter notes pertaining to objects in the Museum’s seven curatorial departments: Antiquities, Manuscripts, Paintings, Drawings, Decorative Arts, Sculpture and Works of Art, and Photographs. The Journal includes an illustrated checklist of the Museum’s acquisitions for the previous year, a staff listing, and a statement by the Museum’s director outlining the year’s most important activities. Volume 21 of the J. Paul Getty Museum Journal includes articles by John Walsh, Barbara C. Anderson, Ariel Herrmann, Jill Finsten, Lynn F. Jacobs, And Peter J. Holliday.


Biography of an Industrial Town

Biography of an Industrial Town

Author: Alessandro Portelli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-09-27

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 3319508989

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A pioneering work in oral history, this book tells the story of the rise and fall of the industrial revolution and the apogee and crisis of the labor movement through an oral history of Terni, a steel town in Central Italy and the seat of the first large industrial enterprise in Italy. This story is told through a combination of stories, songs, myths and memories from over 200 voices of five generations, woven with a wealth of archival material.