Ugly Renaissance: (Treasure Hunters 1)

Testo molto interessante sulla vita di quel periodo storico.

When I read the first few chapters of Part One, I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into. I was not particularly interested in the possible affair between Michelangelo and Tomasso.. But after I got into Parts Two and Three, I couldn't put the book down. Part Two deals with the rise of banking and development of commerce, creating a good deal of conflict among the various city states of Italy, and the use of art as a tool to demonstrate the importance of particular families. Part Three deals with the culture of the times and the extreme prejudice of the populace and local officials to all persons who are not "Italian" e.g. Jews.The effect of New World discoveries seemed too have an adverse effect on Renaissance culture. I had not thought much about that until I read this book. Through the years I had been led to believe that the Reformation was due somewhat to the extravagance of the Papal Court. This was not discussed, although I dare say that the sale o f indulgences was a factor in the Reformation. The Papacy certainty would have been money starved to pay for some of the extravagances of the papal court. The conquest of the New World might have supplied some of this money but I suspect that the conquistadors were not in the least interested in rewarding the Church. My understanding is that many of the conquistador leaders, e.g. Hernando Cortez, Juan Pizarro among others, came from the Extradamura iregion ofn Spain , a backwater region without much to offer up and coming Spanish knights,I felt that the book was well worth my effort to get through it.

Alexander Lee in his book The Ugly Renaissance: Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty introduces and develops the theme that there is an alternative, different and much darker side of Renaissance era. There is no doubt that the Renaissance is one of the most beautiful periods in human history, especially in the history of art. After the dim and mediocre Medieval times, there came this enormous explosion of fresh and interesting thinking, philosophy, and of course artistic masterpieces. It was called the Renaissance (Rebirth) since the idea was to revive the beauty of ancient Greek and Roman cultures, but it became much more than that. The ideas were not only reviewed but were built upon, and expanded and reformed into fresh and novel concepts. In fact, the Renaissance era generated so many new objects and subjects, that despite many books already written about the Renaissance, there is always a place for another book, especially if it aims for a fresh angle. Of course the first question is, is this really a new angle? The author seems to think so, someone else may disagree. The scholars always knew that for all these beautiful paintings, buildings, and erudite philosophical and literary discourses, the real life looked rather different. A famous painter often was a difficult person to deal with if you were his apprentice (apparently Michelangelo practically never washed or changed his clothes); the fancy flights of the brilliant architect's imagination didn't build themselves and if you were a mason working on such a project, most likely you were underpaid and worked in dangerous conditions with no regard for your safety; and all these philosophers and erudites usually weren't too nice to their house servants. Perhaps the general public was not aware of that fact, but one would think that since the cable show "The Borgias" became so popular a few years ago, this gaping hole in general knowledge has been plugged. To give the author his due, it is evident while reading the book that Dr. Lee has extensive knowledge of the Renaissance period (if there are any mistakes, it would take an expert to spot them) and feels very strongly about the subject. He really, really wants the reader to know how different was the everyday life for those who happened to be just ordinary people and not highly gifted artists or extremely wealthy patrons (and let's not even mentioned how miserable was life for these who happen to be of different religious persuasion or race). That need to expose the seedy underbelly of Renaissance is so great that it oftentimes leads to repeating things over and over again. The author mentions economic and social interactions while discussing the world the artists live in (in a subsection entitled suitably: "The World of the Renaissance Artist") but then he also discusses similar issues when he talks about the world the patrons live in (this time the subsection title is: "The World of the Renaissance patron"). While the details and the emphasis vary between subsections, there is still this overlap which leaves the reader with a feeling of repetitiveness. In a way the last subsections entitled "The Renaissance and the World" (and yes, we get the clever titles in subdivisions) is actually the most interesting with the least repetitions. I was surprised to learn that the relations between republics, cities and people from the lands of the Italian Renaissance and people of either different religion (Jews, Muslims) or people from a different continent (Africa, America) weren't very good and intolerance and racism were rampant. One would think that all these exalted philosophical ideas espoused by the Renaissance crowd would translate into better understanding of each other and better interactions. The writing style is very erudite, rather dense and full of detail. While the author tries to make an effort to accommodate the general public, it is mostly by using some popular literary devices that he does it. He is especially fond of anecdotes, which often serve as a launching point for a more scholastic discourse. I like how the book starts with a description of a summer day in 1491, which is a day when a 16-year old Michelangelo Buonarotti (later known simply as Michelangelo), an apprentice sculptor in Florence, got his nose bashed in. The author uses this anecdote to start a discussion how such a brutal thing could happen in a supposedly happy and enlightened world of the Renaissance. He makes some effort trying to develop characters of personae populating his book and he succeeds to a degree, especially when discussing his favorites, such as Michelangelo. But the book has so many characters, that the reader easily becomes first lost and later immune to literary efforts! The book could have benefited from a few more tables and/or lists (only two in this edition). Since the author introduces so many people, for someone who is not well versed in history, the plethora of names can be quite daunting. The book The Ugly Renaissance: Sex, Greed, Violence and Depravity in an Age of Beauty by Alexander Lee strongly promotes the view that whenever we talk about Renaissance era, apart from acknowledging all the beautiful things that happened during that time, we should also remember that this cultural development didn't happen in a vacuum but was a product of specific social and political situations. The book discusses in great details the chiasm between the artist as a divine creator, admired and worshipped for his creativity perhaps for the first time since Antiquity and the artist as a human being exposed to all temptations and customs of that period. There are several chapters describing in minutiae the ever-shifting politics and flow of money in Florence and Rome. The reader gets the impression the author strongly objects to the fact that the wealthy patrons would commission works from the artists not necessarily purely for their artistic values but to show off their family fortune and influence! And since the author also shows how many of these many fortunes were acquired by nefarious means and how political plans often required unsavory measures, the reader again gets an impression that this offends the author's sensibilities. Well then, how about some sense? The author would do well to remember the story of Aristippus of Cyrene, a Greek philosopher who taught that the meaning of life was pleasure and that the pursuit of pleasure was the most noble path one could take (that squares right with the writings of Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola; the author's favorite Renaissance writer). One day Aristippus was asking a favor for a friend from the tyrant Dionysius and when he was initially unsuccessful, finally he fell at the tyrant's feet and got his wish granted. Later someone criticized his behavior, to which Aristippus said, "It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet." The rich and their riches were products of their time and if they wanted beauty for their selfish reasons, so be it! Should we enjoy works of art less just because they were commissioned out of hubris? There are few other faults to be found with this otherwise well-written book. One is that it is extremely detailed. While it may please history buffs to no end, it becomes tiring and tedious for an ordinary reader. There are many interesting details but the author keeps going forward and provides more and more information, while the reader wishes for a moment of respite to contemplate what's already known. The author manages to avoid generalizations and stereotyping but falls often into a didactic mode as he has a habit of viewing and judging the past while using modern moral values. He seems to be so upset by all that ugliness associated with Renaissance that he all but forgets to ask a fundamental question: was that ugly reality that much different than one before or even after the Renaissance period? Were all these social and political machinations shown in the Italian Renaissance much different than the living conditions and politics in other countries? The author criticizes a lot but rarely looks at the situation from the point of view of a XV-century citizen. Doing so would answer for him some very rhetorical questions he posses. Why such anti-Semitism? - look no further as to the Catholic Church and its teachings. Why racism? - looking through history shows that even nowadays people are afraid of strangers, especially of a different appearance. The questions could continue but hopefully, there will be answers to them in the next edition.

This is an interesting book, with a clumsy and misleading subtitle. The focus is mainly the 15th century and Florence. The beauty of that time and that place concealed much that was ghastly. If we look closely, art meant to deceive can reveal another Renaissance.We first meet Michelangelo and join him on a stroll through the city – poverty, degradation and disease. We learn that he himself rarely took a bath! The author then asks us to consider who paid the unhygienic artist’s wages, who commissioned the Sistine ceiling and the statue of David. We meet the patrons - depraved popes, bloodthirsty mercenaries, scheming bankers. They all used commissions to advance their respective causes and draw a veil over their sins. Art was propaganda. In a final section Lippi’s Barbadori altarpiece is analysed – for what is not in the painting. We meet the social outsiders – Jews, Muslims, and the peoples newly encountered by the voyages of discovery to Africa and across the great ocean. For them at least, the Renaissance was “a very bad thing”.Thirty or so paintings are well reproduced. Alexander Lee builds his narrative round the works of art themselves. He also references heavily humanist scholarship of the period. Copious notes show his arguments to be based on modern research from a range of specialist journals, many not in English. I was completely unaware of how much interest there is in this area and how much is being revealed today. The reader would need an expert like the author to summarize and sift so much work.In an epilogue I think he lets it slip a little. The modern world has all the ugliness of the quattrocento and none of its beauty; contemporary art lies in the gutter, but does not look at the stars – he says. Well ,that’s for discussion at least.

I thought is was going to be quite salacious and was delighted to find it's not. It is possibly the most accessible and well researched academic book I have ever come across and it was gripping to read - I didn't want to finish it. My only regret is that this paperback edition only has black and white illustrations - the hardback has colour. However the paper back has an extra section on where to find relevant pictures in UK collections which the hard back doesn't have. It' a shame that the format is quite small too. If you are at all interested in Italian art and life style - particularly as it was expressed in Florence then this book is for you. I shall certainly read it and refer to it again and again. BUY IT!