For this treatise on statecraft the author drew upon his own experience of office under the turbulent Florentine republic, rejecting traditional values of political theory and recognizing the complicated, transient nature of political life.

This volume is a reprint of the Shakespeare Head Press edition, and it presents all the plays in chronological order in which they were written. It also includes Shakespeare's Sonnets, as well as his longer poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece .

Defines the essential virtues for those at Court. This title includes a series of imaginary conversations between the real-life courtiers to the Duke of Urbino, in which his speakers discuss qualities of noble behaviour - chiefly discretion and gracefulness - as well as questions such as the duties of a good government and the true nature of love.

* Reissued in a new look is this richly imagined historical novel that combines mystery, history, politics and passion in a story of gripping power, from the author of SACRED HEARTS

Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with its immense, terracotta-tiled cupola, retains a rare power to astonish. This book tells the story of how the cupola was raised, from its conception to its consecration.

Recasts the storytelling heritage of the ancient and medieval worlds into perennial forms that inspired writers including Chaucer and Shakespeare. This book hovers between the fading glories of an aristocratic past - the Crusades, the Angevins, the courts of France, the legendary East - and the squalor of contemporary life.

Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, this work depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. Led by leering demons, the poet must ultimately journey with Virgil to the deepest level of all.

At its height Renaissance Florence was a centre of wealth, power and influence. A republican city-state funded by trade and banking, its bloody political scene was dominated by mercantile families, the most famous of which were the Medici. This book charts the family's huge influence on the political, economic and cultural history of Florence.

Chastises human beings for their follies and excesses, not with a rod but with a smile.

Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, celebrated Italian goldsmith (1500-1571), in which Cellini tells the story of his life and art and also depicts the manners and morals of both the rulers and their subjects in 16th Century Italy. This new edition includes new notes on the text and a chronology.

Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art. Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before ...

A biographical novel of Michelangelo. Michelangelo Buonarotti lived in the time of the turbulent Renaissance, the years of poisoning princes, warring popes, the powerful Medici family, and the fanatic monk Savonarola. Working with a God-driven fury he created David , painted the Sistine ceiling, and was the architect of the dome of St Peter's.

More paints a vision of the customs and practices of a distant island, but Utopia means 'no place' and his narrator's name, Hythlodaeus, translates as 'dispenser of nonsense'. This tale masks what is a serious and subversive analysis of the failings of More's society.

Galileo is seen as one of the greatest scientists ever. Little is known of his illegitimate daughter, Virginia. As a nun, she wrote 120 letters to her father from 1623 to her death from exposure and malnutrition ten years later. This text investigates the father-daughter relationship.

This title chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain. Unless you read Spanish, you've never read this title.

* Reissued in a new look, the breathtaking historical novel about love, beauty, the politics of sex and the power of loyalty set in Venice, by the author of SACRED HEARTS, featuring a fabulous courtesan and her dwarf

'York Notes Advanced' offer an accessible approach to English Literature. This series has been completely updated to meet the needs of today's A-level and undergraduate students. Written by established literature experts, 'York Notes Advanced' introduce students to sophisticated analysis, a range of critical perspectives and wider contexts.

In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. For the next four years, he and a team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling. This book tells the story of those four years and paints a picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding - in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome.

An introduction to 15th century Italian painting and the social history behind it, arguing that the two are interlinked and that the conditions of the time helped fashion distinctive elements in the painter's style.