Search results for ""author leonard"

Para los griegos, el concepto de patria estaba ligado a "la tierra donce crecen el trigo, la viña y el olivo", y esa idea es importante en esta obra. El cultivo de la vid y de su producto, el vino, está íntimamente ligado al desarrollo de la sociedad occidental y de su cultura. Mauricio Wiesenthal experto en temas vinícolas al tiempo que insigne humanista y novelista de éxito recoge aquí toda la cultura del vino (desde los bendictinos a los poetas árabes, desde los trovadores a los ritos masónicos o las viñas que cultivó Leonardo Da Vinci en el Piamonte), así como toda la ciencia a él vinculada, las técnicas de cultivo, los secretos de la tonelería, las características principales de las regiones vinícolas de todo el mundo o las grandes y pequeñas bodegas que elaboran los mejores caldos. Todo ello en una obra ilustrada, con 6.500 entradas, 2.500 voces de léxico vinícola y más de 5.000 artículos de información enciclopédica y actualizada.Wiesenthal consigue entusiasmar incluso a los lectores más abstemios.

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Si bien el presente estudio no pretende -en palabras de su autor- ser una biografía crítica completa de Piero della Francesca, sino una guía para la valoración de su obra, pocos estudios iluminan de forma tan esclarecedora la peculiar, profunda e incluso enigmática obra del pintor de Borgo San Sepolcro. Gran conocedor no sólo de arte, sino de la civilización occidental y, especialmente, de la cultura del Renacimiento y del marco social e histórico de esta época, como se aprecia en su importante ensayo sobre Leonardo da Vinci y los sugerentes estudios sobre Donatello, Uccello, Alberti, Mantegna y Botticelli que forman el volumen titulado El arte del humanismo, Kenneth Clark (1903-1983), antiguo director de la National Gallery de Londres, nos brinda en este volumen, acompañada de un completo repertorio iconográfico que nos permite abordarla en sus más pequeños detalles, una reveladora visión de un pintor que tuvo una conciencia fuera de lo común del modo en que debían hacerse coincidir l

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With this text, Emilio Bejel looks at Cuba's markedly homoerotic culture through writings about homosexuality, placing them in the social and political contexts that led up to the Cuban revolution. By reading against the grain of a wide variety of novels, short stories, autobiographies, newspaper articles, and films, Bejel maps out an argument about the way in which different attitudes toward power and nationalism struggle for an authoritative stance on homosexual issues. Through close readings of writers such as Jose Marti, Alfonso Hernandez-Cata, Carlos Montenegro, Jose Lezama Lima, Leonardo Padura Fuentes, and Reinaldo Arenas, the text shows that the category of homosexuality is always lurking, ghost-like, in the shadows of nationalist discourse. The book stakes out Cuba's sexual battlefield, and aims to challenge the homophobia of both Castro's revolutionaries and Cuban exiles in the States.

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A richly illustrated and extremely enjoyable reference book on the historical evolution of the nude. From the Palaeolithic “Great Mothers” to the Greek athletes, from the Venus of Urbino by Titian to Leonardo’s Virtuvian Man, from the Odalisque by Boucher to those by Ingres, to the amazons of Helmut Newton and the desolate lifeless bodies of Andres Serrano, the nude is the theme of artistic representation par excellence. The nude body as the incarnation of perfect beauty and the suspicions concerning its sensuality imposed by Christian culture; the renewed triumph of ancient beauty in the Renaissance and the study of anatomy; the visual licentiousness of the 18th century and the photographic nude; ideal beauty, eroticism, pornography; the nude also as representation of the ugly and its flaunted truthfulness in the art of the 20th century; the nude that itself becomes a work of art in the avant-garde of the post-WWII period, with performance, body art and experimental theatre. These are the threads of the narration all conducted around a rich apparatus of images. After Art of the Twentieth Century, published by Skira in four languages in 2009, Flaminio Gualdoni has now created a richly illustrated new reference book that is also extremely enjoyable to read.

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A comprehensive study of Nicole Kidman’s work through the lens of ten of her most iconic roles Nicole Kidman (b.1967), internationally renowned and one of the most celebrated actors of her generation, has starred in a host of award- winning movies. She came to worldwide recognition for her roles in Days of Thunder (1990), Far and Away (1992), and Eyes Wide Shut (1995), and has since been the recipient of numerous Golden Globe awards. Her performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours (2002) received an Oscar for Best Actress. The Anatomy of an Actor series takes ten roles by a single actor, each studied in a dedicated chapter, and identifies the key elements that made the performances exceptional – carefully examining the actor’s craft for both a professional audience and movie fans alike. Arguably the biggest star of his generation, Leonardo DiCaprio (b. 1974) is also one of its finest actors. Since first gaining attention in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape at only 19 years old, he has consistently been in the public eye: notably in record-breaking Titanic in 1997, and most recently as the lead in Wolf of Wall Street, nominated for five Oscars.

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Let Secret Tuscany guide you around the unusual and unfamiliar. Step off the beaten track with this fascinating Tuscany guide book and let our local experts show you the well-hidden treasures of this beautiful region. Ideal for local inhabitants, curious visitors and armchair travellers alike. The oak at which Pinocchio, Mussolini was hanged on the glass of a 15th century church, a forgotten sculpture by Leonardo da Vinci, a luxurious hotel converted into a public bath, a "milk distributor" 17th century, a frog that drinks wine, a unique astronomical phenomenon in the world, the imprints of Santa Caterina's teeth on a stairway in Siena, a shield with the blood of Christ, the place where the amphora of the Cana Wedding is preserved, one extraordinary anatomical theatre in Pistoia, the fountain of the youth of fairy Morgana, an unusual walk along the marble monorail... Far away from people and cliches, Tuscany still has hidden treasures which it is ready to unveil to its inhabitants and travellers willing to abandon the beaten paths. An indispensable guide for those who think they know Tuscany well or for those who wish to discover the secret face of the region.

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Last words can come in all shapes and sizes. From comic quips to profound deathbed wit, shocking and surprising final revelations, delicious puns and too-good turns of phrase, gravestone gags and premature celebrations... or even just awkward and unfortunate quotes the speaker ended up eating.Indeed, this tiny tome is stacked to the rafters with notable people, past, present, who are still very much alive and quipping – though not for long. From the long-time dead to the recently deceased (or simply dying of embarassment; see Liz Truss), Nostradamus to Leonardo da Vinci, Henry VIII to Princess Diana, these famous last words span centuries and continents and will no doubt echo through eternity.If you're look to have the last laugh, The Little Book of Famous Last Words will have you laughing out loud till the very last page. For those about to die, we salute you!'I'm a fighter, not a quitter,'* Liz Truss, UK Prime Minister, October 19, 2022.*Poor ol' Liz quit the next day. Her calamitous career as PM lasted for just 44 days.

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The newest volume in Black Dog's best-selling, award-winning Child's Introduction series explores the fascinating world of art and artists and includes do-it-yourself art projects throughout.In the tradition of Black Dog's best-selling Child's Introduction books, which include The Story of the Orchestra and A Child's Introduction to the Night Sky, A Child's Introduction to Art introduces kids ages 9 through 12 to the art world's most famous painters, styles, and periods, all brought to life through full-color photographs of 40 masterpieces, as well as charming original illustrations.The book highlights 40 painters and sculptors, including Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, Diego Velasquez, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Mary Cassatt, and Andy Warhol, providing information on their life, inspirations, influences, technique, and a full-color photo of one of their signature works of art. It also includes an overview of various styles and periods (Renaissance, Impressionism, Cubism, etc.), instruction on how to view and appreciate art, and information on the color wheel and other tools artists employ.Fun art projects throughout, such as Can You Find It?, Q-tip pointillism, making a stained-glass window with tissue paper, and Spatter Paint like Pollock, allow kids to learn about painting techniques and explore their own artistic abilities. Also includes five masterpiece paintings to color.Meredith Hamilton's witty illustrations add another dimension to the excellent text and photographs.

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Autonomy, Relatedness and Oedipus is an innovative and inspiring work from Thijs de Wolf that takes a critical look at the field of psychoanalysis. He takes the view that psychoanalysis is about both the inner and outer world and presents a compelling case. Using the works of Freud and other leading writers, such as Ferenczi, Faimberg, Laplanche, Lacan, Fonagy, Target, and Blatt, de Wolf investigates the central concepts of psychoanalysis and its place in the world. The wide-ranging chapters include a detailed examination of Freud’s book on Leonardo da Vinci; discussions of the personality, the unconscious, and sexuality; the development of the psychoanalytic frame, not just in terms of the individual but also the object relational, group, and systemic aspects; the issue of descriptive and structural diagnostics and how to find a balance between the two; the analysis of dreams; the concept of change; the difficulties surrounding termination of treatment; and end with a novel explication of the oedipal constellation that brings many new insights to a key foundation stone of psychoanalytic theory. This book is written for trainees and professionals looking to find their own “path” in psychoanalysis; those open to findings from other scientific areas, such as developmental psychopathology, the neurosciences, attachment theories, and human infant research. De Wolf’s theoretical pluralism and breadth of scholarship bestows a stimulating range of ideas to take psychoanalysis back to its place as a leader in the field.

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A necessary volume of essays working to decolonize the digital humanities Often conceived of as an all-inclusive “big tent,” digital humanities has in fact been troubled by a lack of perspectives beyond Westernized and Anglophone contexts and assumptions. This latest collection in the Debates in the Digital Humanities series seeks to address this deficit in the field. Focused on thought and work that has been underappreciated for linguistic, cultural, or geopolitical reasons, contributors showcase alternative histories and perspectives that detail the rise of the digital humanities in the Global South and other “invisible” contexts and explore the implications of a globally diverse digital humanities.Advancing a vision of the digital humanities as a space where we can reimagine basic questions about our cultural and historical development, this volume challenges the field to undertake innovation and reform. Contributors: Maria José Afanador-Llach, U de los Andes, Bogotá; Maira E. Álvarez, U of Houston; Purbasha Auddy, Jadavpur U; Diana Barreto Ávila, U of British Columbia; Deepti Bharthur, IT for Change; Sayan Bhattacharyya, Singapore U of Technology and Design; Anastasia Bonch-Osmolovskaya, National Research U Higher School of Economics; Jing Chen, Nanjing U; Carlton Clark, Kazimieras Simonavičius U, Vilnius; Carolina Dalla Chiesa, Erasmus U, Rotterdam; Gimena del Rio Riande, Institute of Bibliographic Research and Textual Criticism; Leonardo Foletto, U of São Paulo; Rahul K. Gairola, Murdoch U; Sofia Gavrilova, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography; Andre Goodrich, North-West U; Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change; Aliz Horvath, Eötvös Loránd U; Igor Kim, Russian Academy of Sciences; Inna Kizhner, Siberian Federal U; Cédric Leterme, Tricontinental Center; Andres Lombana-Bermudez, Pontificia, U Javeriana, Bogotá; Lev Manovich, City U of New York; Itay Marienberg-Milikowsky, Ben-Gurion U of the Negev; Maciej Maryl, Polish Academy of Sciences; Nirmala Menon, Indian Institute of Technology, Indore; Boris Orekhov, National Research U Higher School of Economics; Ernesto Priego, U of London; Sylvia Fernández Quintanilla, U of Kansas; Nuria Rodríguez-Ortega, U of Málaga; Steffen Roth, U of Turku; Dibyadyuti Roy, Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur; Maxim Rumyantsev, Siberian Federal U; Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru; Juan Steyn, South African Centre for Digital Language Resources; Melissa Terras, U of Edinburgh; Ernesto Miranda Trigueros, U of the Cloister of Sor Juana; Lik Hang Tsui, City U of Hong Kong; Tim Unwin, U of London; Lei Zhang, U of Wisconsin–La Crosse.

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Aprender de los grandes maestros compensa cualquier esfuerzo y es un lujo que ahora está al alcance de todos: El teorema de Pitágoras, la resolución de ecuaciones y sistemas, la determinación del área del círculo y del volumen de la pirámide, el cálculo diferencial e integral, la asignación de probabilidades a los sucesos aleatorios... son algunos de los enigmas matemáticos que han mantenido ocupados durante siglos a científicos de primera fila y que configuran una parcela fundamental de la cultura científica. En este manual se pueden leer muchos de los textos originales escritos por grandes maestros que han contribuido a levantar el bello y complejo edificio matemático: Euclides de Alejandría y el teorema de Pitágoras; Savasorda y la resolución de ecuaciones de 2 grado; Leonardo de Pisa ?Fibonacci? y las ternas pitagóricas; Simon Stevin y el trazado de elipses; Descartes y la geometría analítica; Fermat y la cuadratura de parábolas e hipérbolas y las progresiones; Pascal y el triángul

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Do you ever wonder where some of today’s most brilliant inventions come from? In this book, you will learn about the most exciting ones, and maybe you can come up with one too! Our world is filled with the most wonderful tools and machines. This is, of course, thanks to clever inventors! The first television was concocted with simple tea boxes and biscuit tins. The first airplane was the product of bicycle makers. The first submarine had oars. And Leonardo da Vinci described his many inventions in mirrored writing. Why? You’ll discover these things and more in this informative book.A fascinating book filled with fun facts about great inventions and their brilliant inventors. For bright minds ages 5 years and up.

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The Bible For Dummies (9781119293507) was previously published as The Bible For Dummies (9780764552960). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product. Discover the world’s all-time bestseller in an entirely new lightNinety percent of Americans own a copy of the Bible, and while it's the most widely read book, it's also the least understood. Regardless of your religion, understanding the Bible brings much of Western art, literature, and public discourse into greater focus—from Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" painting to the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix movies. People have historically turned to religion to deal with tragedy and change, and with the right insight, the Bible can be an accessible, helpful guide to life's big questions. The Bible For Dummies appeals to people of all faiths, as well as those who don't practice any particular religion, by providing interfaith coverage of the entire Bible and the often fascinating background information that makes the Bible come alive. You'll find answers to such questions as: Where did the Bible come from? Who wrote the Bible? How is the Bible put together? Follow the history of the Bible from its beginning thousands of years ago as tattered scrolls to its status as the bestseller of all time. The Bible For Dummies covers these topics and more: Ten people in the Bible you should know The Hebrew Bible The Apocrypha's hidden treasures What's new about the New Testament Israel's wisdom, literature, and love poetry The Bible's enduring influence The prophets: more than fortunetellers Whether you're interested in broadening your spiritual horizons, uncovering the symbolism of Western culture, or gaining a deeper understanding of the book you grew up reading, The Bible For Dummies has all the information you need to navigate this ancient and fascinating book.

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A celebration of evolving taste, told through the stories behind 250 objects sold by the world's leading auction houseFounded in London in 1766, Christie's is one of the most important auction houses in the world. During its history, Christie's has sold masterpieces by artists such as Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Vincent van Gogh, often at record-breaking prices; and, away from the world of art, the personal possessions of such well-known figures as Napoleon Bonaparte, Marilyn Monroe, Yves Saint Laurent, and Princess Diana.From furniture to works of fine and decorative art, vintage cars to clothing and jewellery, the items sold at its auctions hold a mirror to our history and reflect our culture at large. Going Once vividly brings to life the shifts in aesthetic trends, fashion, and design over the centuries, showcasing 250 of the most outstanding objects in its storied history - including some of the very first pieces sold at the auction house.

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Here, for the first time, Christopher Kul-Want brings together twenty-five texts on art written by twenty philosophers. Covering the Enlightenment to postmodernism, these essays draw on Continental philosophy and aesthetics, the Marxist intellectual tradition, and psychoanalytic theory, and each is accompanied by an overview and interpretation. The volume features Martin Heidegger on Van Gogh's shoes and the meaning of the Greek temple; Georges Bataille on Salvador Dali's The Lugubrious Game; Theodor W. Adorno on capitalism and collage; Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes on the uncanny nature of photography; Sigmund Freud on Leonardo Da Vinci and his interpreters; Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva on the paintings of Holbein; Freud's postmodern critic, Gilles Deleuze on the visceral paintings of Francis Bacon; and Giorgio Agamben on the twin traditions of the Duchampian ready-made and Pop Art. Kul-Want elucidates these texts with essays on aesthetics, from Hegel and Nietzsche to Badiou and Ranciere, demonstrating how philosophy adopted a new orientation toward aesthetic experience and subjectivity in the wake of Kant's powerful legacy.

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The Book of Hermetica is the definitive collection of the most pivotal texts of hermetic wisdom. It includes the three most critical books in the cannon - Corpus Hermeticum, The Emerald Tablet, and The Kybalion. Corpus Hermeticum and The Emerald Tablet are both attributed to Hermes Trismegistus and were written between 100-300 BCE. These works form the foundation of hermetic wisdom, expounding on philosophy, religion, magic, and alchemy. The Kybalion was written much later, in the 20th century, and explores the seven basic hermetic principles. Faithfully reproduced in The Book of Hermetica, these esoteric writings have inspired great minds throughout the ages - everyone from Newton and Milton to Leonardo da Vinci and Jung - and modern readers will find their pages equally fascinating. The Book of Hermetica is the perfect introduction to the mysteries of hermeticism and essential reading for anyone interested in understanding western mystical thought through the ages.

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This delightful and engaging introduction to the history of art for children comes in a beautiful oversized format and features intricate illustrations with hidden details. Children love to pore over detailed illustrations, especially when they contain hidden elements for them to find. This endlessly entertaining book opens up entire historic periods to young readers in double page spreads that are teeming with life and meticulously drawn to teach them about artistic traditions. Each spread represents a moment in history, capturing how art wasintegrated into daily life and illustrating contemporary styles,tools, and mediums. Children will learn about cave paintingsand what humans used for light and why they painted so manyanimals and hunting scenes. They’ll find themselves in AncientGreece, where deities watch over a busy marketplace in frontof the Parthenon. A cross-section of a medieval monastery,Leonardo’s workshop, and a collection of 19th-ce

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Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce and art. It has created civilisations, fostering the fomenting of revolutions and the stabilising of regimes. History’s greatest press run produced 6.5 billion copies of Máo zhu xí yu lu, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Zedong) and Leonardo da Vinci left behind only 15 paintings but 4,000 works on paper. Now, on the cusp of "going paperless"—and amid speculation about the effects of a digitally dependent society—we’ve come to a world-historic juncture to examine what paper means to civilisation. Through tracing paper’s evolution, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay. Paper will be the history that guides us forward in the twenty-first century.

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Book 4 in the Romantic Times Sapphire award-winning Elfhome series. Even though they attend a school of gifted students in New York City, child geniuses Louise Mayer and her twin sister Jillian have always felt alone in the world, isolated by their brilliance. Shortly before their ninth birthday, they make an amazing discovery. They’re not alone. Their real mother was astronaut Esme Shenske and their father was the famous inventor, Leonardo Dufae. They have an older sister, Alexander, living on the planet of Elfhome, and four siblings still in cryogenic storage at the fertility center. There’s only one problem: the frozen embryos are scheduled to be destroyed within six months. The race is on to save their baby brother and sisters! As a war breaks out on Elfhome and riots start in New York City, the twins use science and magic to plow over everything standing in their way. But when they come face-to-face with an ancient evil force, they’re soon in over their heads in danger!

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SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BENICIO DEL TORO, PRODUCED BY LEONARDO DICAPRIO.Cuba, 1961.A failed invasion at The Bay of Pigs results in Fidel Castro tightening his hold over Cuba. José Miguel Battle Sr., a former cop and member of the counter-revolutionary group intent on overthrowing him, is captured.Miami, 1962.José Miguel Battle Sr. travels to the USA, chased from the island by revolution, and is renamed The Godfather. A 2,500 strong Cuban-American criminal alliance is established.Known on both sides of the law as 'The Corporation', its powerful members were fellow outcasts and enemies of Castro. A hero to many Cuban-Americans, The Godfather created a unit of trusted men who fought alongside him to reclaim their nation from the Marxist dictator.Gaining money, power and inluence by running gambling rackets, money- laundering, drug tra?cking and murder, The Corporation never gave up the dream of killing Castro and reclaiming their homeland. This explosive biography reveals how an entire generation of political exiles, refugees, racketeers, corrupt cops, hitmen (and their wives and girlfriends) became caught up in this violent desire, and built a criminal empire surviving over 40 years.An epic tale of gangsters, drugs and violence, learn how The Corporation grew into one of the USA's most sordid and deadly organisations.

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SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BENICIO DEL TORO, PRODUCED BY LEONARDO DICAPRIOCuba, 1961.A failed invasion at The Bay of Pigs results in Fidel Castro tightening his hold over Cuba. José Miguel Battle Sr., a former cop and member of the counter-revolutionary group intent on overthrowing him, is captured.Miami, 1962.José Miguel Battle Sr. travels to the USA, chased from the island by revolution, and is renamed The Godfather. A 2,500 strong Cuban-American criminal alliance is established.Known on both sides of the law as 'The Corporation', its powerful members were fellow outcasts and enemies of Castro. A hero to many Cuban-Americans, The Godfather created a unit of trusted men who fought alongside him to reclaim their nation from the Marxist dictator.Gaining money, power and inluence by running gambling rackets, money- laundering, drug trafficking and murder, The Corporation never gave up the dream of killing Castro and reclaiming their homeland. This explosive biography reveals how an entire generation of political exiles, refugees, racketeers, corrupt cops, hitmen (and their wives and girlfriends) became caught up in this violent desire, and built a criminal empire surviving over 40 years.An epic tale of gangsters, drugs and violence, learn how The Corporation grew into one of the USA's most sordid and deadly organisations.

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A vivid picture of the human heart and its place in culture and medicine Published upon the opening of the Wellcome Collection, the Wellcome Trust's new public venue in London, this book examines the history of our understanding of the human heart. Encompassing material from Henry Wellcome's own collections in the Wellcome Library and images and artifacts from private and public archives across the world, the book provides a richly illustrated account of changes in our perception of what the heart does and what it means.The book first explores the symbolic significance of the heart in ancient Egypt, China, India, and Greece; its role in Aztec ceremony; and its place in the medieval world. It then considers the centrality of the heart in Christianity and other religions and the literary and artistic views of the heart as the seat of the soul and emotions.The growth of anatomical knowledge of the heart and its treatment through developing technology is fundamental to the volume. Fifteenth-century drawings by Leonardo da Vinci reveal his extraordinary early insight into the heart’s mechanisms, and twentieth-century medical breakthroughs prompt questions about ownership of the heart and the source of life itself. With testimony from surgeons and patients, the book highlights developments in cardiac surgery and considers future alternatives involving gene therapy, stem cell options, and micro-surgery.Published with The Wellcome Trust

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The Stalker’s Tale follows three storylines (two set in fashionable, contemporary London, a third in 1930’s bohemian Fitzrovia & 1940’s post-occupation Paris), representing three lives, simultaneously estranged, yet entwined in a decades long tale of Stalking. Successful modern day portrait painter, Bianca Johnson, is forced to warily defend herself against relentless stalker, wealthy entrepreneur, Hesketh James (since married, with a disabled nine year old son), with whom she had a brief affair twenty-five years earlier. Bianca is determined, meanwhile, to boldly claim the freedom to live an unorthodox, secretive life with her frequently absent Italian film director husband, Leonardo Vescarro, while at the same time conducting a clandestine affair with her very first love, the London publisher, Stephen Marchant, to whom she was once engaged to be married. The novel’s numerous complex dramas are set against her fraught, sorrowful relationship with her estranged mother, the beautiful, turbulent Anya, whose wartime affair with the Parisian aristocrat, Charles de Courcelles, had led to the breakdown of her marriage to Bianca’s father, the water-colourist painter, William Johnson, who made his reputation in the 1930’s, followed by his war years in the Middle East. These three storylines plait together evenly throughout the novel, creating suspense, as Hesketh’s increasingly desperate and erratic behaviour finally culminates in an incoherent explosion of violence.

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The National Gallery in London houses one of the richest collections of Western European paintings in the world, ranging from the 13th to the 20th century. In this beautiful book, one hundred of the greatest works from the collection, each by a different artist, are presented in chronological order, and accompanied by a lively, informative text and full-page color reproductions. From the earliest—a remnant of an Italian altarpiece dating from around 1265—to the most recent—Paul Cézanne’s great Bathers, of about 1894–1905—each painting has been carefully chosen for the unique significance it holds; whether representing a particular artist, place or time, or simply for its beauty and the pleasure it provides to the viewer. The painters featured here include some of the most famous names in European art—Duccio, Giotto, Dürer, Holbein, van Eyck, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt, El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán, Goya, Caravaggio, Claude, Poussin, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Constable, Turner, Courbet, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Rousseau, and Van Gogh—and some of the most iconic paintings in the world—The Wilton Diptych, The Arnolfini Portrait, The Ambassadors, and Sunflowers. These selected highlights introduce some of the most inspiring paintings ever made. The reader can dip in to explore individual paintings, or read from cover to cover for a full survey.Published by the National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

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THE BESTSELLING BOOK THAT INSPIRED THE AWARD-WINNING MOVIE Winner of 3 OSCARS including BEST DIRECTOR and BEST ACTOR Winner of 5 BAFTAS including Best Actor, Best Director and Best Film Winner of the 2016 Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Drama, and Best Director The novel that inspired the epic new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. Hugh Glass isn’t afraid to die. He’s done it once already. Rocky Mountains, 1823 The trappers of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company live a brutal frontier life. Hugh Glass is one of the most respected men in the company, an experienced frontiersman and an expert tracker.But when a scouting mission puts Glass face-to-face with a grizzly bear, he is viciously mauled and not expected to survive. Two men from the company are ordered to remain with him until his inevitable death. But, fearing an imminent attack, they abandon Glass, stripping him of his prized rifle and hatchet. As Glass watches the men flee, he is driven to survive by one all-consuming desire: revenge. With shocking grit and determination, he sets out on a three-thousand-mile journey across the harsh American frontier, to seek revenge on the men who betrayed him. The Revenant is a remarkable tale of obsession and the lengths that one man will go to for retribution.

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The Renaissance artist Raphael is known for his extraordinary frescoes, his sublime Madonnas, devotional altarpieces, architectural designs, and his inventive prints and tapestries. It was his use of ancient Roman models - classical sculptures, reliefs and paintings - that formed his much admired classical style, and influenced the styles of many later artists. In Raphael and the Antique Claudia La Malfa gives a full account of Raphael's prodigious career, from central Italy when he was 17 years old, to Perugia, Siena and Florence, where he first met with Leonardo and Michelangelo, to Rome where he became one of the most feted artists of the Renaissance. This book focuses and highlights Raphael's re-invention of classical models, his draughtsmanship and his concept of art, which he pursued and was still striving to perfect at the time of his death aged only 37, in 1520.

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This is the first collection in English of the extraordinary letters of one of the great writers of the twentieth century. Italy's most important postwar novelist, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) achieved worldwide fame with such books as Cosmicomics, Invisible Cities, and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. But he was also an influential literary critic, an important literary editor, and a masterful letter writer whose correspondents included Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, Gore Vidal, Leonardo Sciascia, Natalia Ginzburg, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Luciano Berio. This book includes a generous selection of about 650 letters, written between World War II and the end of Calvino's life. Selected and introduced by Michael Wood, the letters are expertly rendered into English and annotated by well-known Calvino translator Martin McLaughlin. The letters are filled with insights about Calvino's writing and that of others; about Italian, American, English, and French literature; about literary criticism and literature in general; and about culture and politics. The book also provides a kind of autobiography, documenting Calvino's Communism and his resignation from the party in 1957, his eye-opening trip to the United States in 1959-60, his move to Paris (where he lived from 1967 to 1980), and his trip to his birthplace in Cuba (where he met Che Guevara). Some lengthy letters amount almost to critical essays, while one is an appropriately brief defense of brevity, and there is an even shorter, reassuring note to his parents written on a scrap of paper while he and his brother were in hiding during the antifascist Resistance. This is a book that will fascinate and delight Calvino fans and anyone else interested in a remarkable portrait of a great writer at work.

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Doran West can travel through the ages. But so can his enemies... Welcome to the one-street village of Linntean in the Scottish Highlands. It's great for tourists, less so for local teenager Doran West. He and his best friend Zander crave a change of scenery, some excitement. What they have in mind is a weekend away to the nearest city. Fate has a little more in store. An accident while fleeing school bullies leads Doran to an extraordinary discovery: he can travel in time. What's more, he isn't alone. There are others who share his gifts, hiding in plain sight and tied to a shadowy organisation called the Eternalisium. With Zander in tow, he embarks on a terrifying odyssey through the ages, risking death on the gallows and battlefield, contending with ruthless enemies from the future and learning more than he'd like about his own adult self. Mind-bending, thrilling and funny, The Rebel of Time bounces from Robert the Bruce's Bannockburn to Leonardo Da Vinci's Tuscany, with stops in Hollywood and the First World War trenches, in a spellbinding adventure from a masterful new storyteller.

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In recent decades, scholars have vigorously revised Jacob Burckhardt's notion that the free, untrammeled, and essentially modern Western individual emerged in Renaissance Italy. Douglas Biow does not deny the strong cultural and historical constraints that placed limits on identity formation in the early modern period. Still, as he contends in this witty, reflective, and generously illustrated book, the category of the individual was important and highly complex for a variety of men in this particular time and place, for both those who belonged to the elite and those who aspired to be part of it. Biow explores the individual in light of early modern Italy's new patronage systems, educational programs, and work opportunities in the context of an increased investment in professionalization, the changing status of artisans and artists, and shifting attitudes about the ideology of work, fashion, and etiquette. He turns his attention to figures familiar (Benvenuto Cellini, Baldassare Castiglione, Niccolò Machiavelli, Jacopo Tintoretto, Giorgio Vasari) and somewhat less so (the surgeon-physician Leonardo Fioravanti, the metallurgist Vannoccio Biringuccio). One could excel as an individual, he demonstrates, by possessing an indefinable nescio quid, by acquiring, theorizing, and putting into practice a distinct body of professional knowledge, or by displaying the exclusively male adornment of impressively designed facial hair. Focusing on these and other matters, he reveals how we significantly impoverish our understanding of the past if we dismiss the notion of the individual from our narratives of the Italian and the broader European Renaissance.

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Ideas are not born alone. They come from a process to a large extent organized and rational but sometimes unconscious and magical. In this book we can enjoy and learn from the creative processes of great graphic designers and creative voices around the world. Here we can find impulsive design versus more cerebral design; radical and avant-garde design alongside poetic, childish, commercial, intellectual, subversive and socially oriented design. 26 designers from 15 countries show us their workspaces, their personal notebooks and their creative processes. They teach us the keys to understand what is behind those magnificent works that inspire, thrill, impact or invite us to action. In this book the creative process itself is inspiration, a unique guide to creativity with storytelling and lessons on how to live your best creative life. The book features the work and creative processes of Ralph Bauer (Netherlands/Peru), Susana Blasco (Spain), Tomasz Boguslawski (Poland), Sarah Boris (London), Chelsea Cardinal (USA), Ryan Carl (USA), Andre Da Loba (Portugal), Isidro Ferrer (Spain), Veronica Fuerte (Spain), Rick Griffith (USA), Sebastian Kubica (Poland), Anette Lenz (France), Jiani Lu (Canada), Alejandro Magallanes (Mexico), Veronica Majluf (Peru), Fanette Mellier (France), Claudia Mestre (Portugal), Milimbo (Spain), Akinori Oishi (Japan), Alvaro Pecci (Spain), Stefan Sagmeister (USA), Teresa Sdralevich (Belgium), Akiko Sekimoto (Japan), Leonardo Sonnoli (Italy), Cihan Tamti (Germany), Jessica Walsh (USA).

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'The spiritual-scientific investigator has...to transform the soul itself into an instrument; then - when his soul is awakened and he can see into a spiritual world - he experiences, on a higher level, a similar great moment as blind people do when, having been operated upon, they look at a world they have not seen before.' In a key series of lectures on personal development, Rudolf Steiner explains that the central mission of spiritual science is to enable people to ascend, in full consciousness, to a knowledge of spiritual realities. But given that the means to achieve spiritual perception are now widely available, there is the danger that some individuals will gain access to the spiritual world whilst harbouring impure motives. This can lead to a distorted understanding and vision of that world. Steiner's emphasis, therefore, is on the preparatory steps - the metamorphosis and purification of the human soul - required for achieving true spiritual enlightenment. Life itself teaches and prepares us for progress, and anthroposophy explains and brings this to consciousness. In some of his most lucid lectures, Steiner describes the missions of anger, truth and reverence, the significance of human character, the meaning of asceticism and illness, and the phenomenon of egoism. He also clarifies the differences between Buddhism and Christianity, describes the goal of spiritual science, and makes some esoteric observations about the moon. Throughout the talks, Steiner refers to many significant historical figures, including St Augustine, Coleridge, Leonardo da Vinci, Madame Blavatsky, Goethe, Homer, and Shakespeare.

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Leo Steinberg was one of the most original art historians of the twentieth century, known for taking interpretive risks that challenged the profession by overturning reigning orthodoxies. In essays and lectures that ranged from old masters to contemporary art, he combined scholarly erudition with an eloquent prose that illuminated his subject and a credo that privileged the visual evidence of the image over the literature written about it. His writings, sometimes provocative and controversial, remain vital reading. For half a century, Steinberg delved into Michelangelo's work, revealing the symbolic structures underlying the artist's highly charged idiom. This volume of essays and unpublished lectures elucidates many of Michelangelo's paintings, from frescoes in the Sistine Chapel to the Conversion of St. Paul and the Crucifixion of St. Peter, the artist's lesser-known works in the Vatican's Pauline Chapel; also included is a study of the relationship of the Doni Madonna to Leonardo. Steinberg's perceptions evolved from long, hard looking. Almost everything he wrote included passages of old-fashioned formal analysis, but always put into the service of interpretation. He understood that Michelangelo's rendering of figures, as well as their gestures and interrelations, conveys an emblematic significance masquerading under the guise of naturalism. Michelangelo pushed Renaissance naturalism into the furthest reaches of metaphor, using the language of the body to express fundamental Christian tenets once expressible only by poets and preachers. Michelangelo's Paintings is the second volume in a series that presents Steinberg's writings, selected and edited by his longtime associate Sheila Schwartz.

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*A THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020*'Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness' Simon Sebag MontefioreThe Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century.The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the reality of this astonishing era, and its meaning for today.'Terrifying and fascinating' Sunday Times'Enlightening...exactly the alternative history you might wish for' Daily Telegraph

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A compelling firsthand account of Keith Devlin's ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story In 2000, Keith Devlin set out to research the life and legacy of the medieval mathematician Leonardo of Pisa, popularly known as Fibonacci, whose book Liber abbaci has quite literally affected the lives of everyone alive today. Although he is most famous for the Fibonacci numbers--which, it so happens, he didn't invent--Fibonacci's greatest contribution was as an expositor of mathematical ideas at a level ordinary people could understand. In 1202, Liber abbaci--the "Book of Calculation"--introduced modern arithmetic to the Western world. Yet Fibonacci was long forgotten after his death, and it was not until the 1960s that his true achievements were finally recognized. Finding Fibonacci is Devlin's compelling firsthand account of his ten-year quest to tell Fibonacci's story. Devlin, a math expositor himself, kept a diary of the undertaking, which he draws on here to describe the project's highs and lows, its false starts and disappointments, the tragedies and unexpected turns, some hilarious episodes, and the occasional lucky breaks. You will also meet the unique individuals Devlin encountered along the way, people who, each for their own reasons, became fascinated by Fibonacci, from the Yale professor who traced modern finance back to Fibonacci to the Italian historian who made the crucial archival discovery that brought together all the threads of Fibonacci's astonishing story. Fibonacci helped to revive the West as the cradle of science, technology, and commerce, yet he vanished from the pages of history. This is Devlin's search to find him.

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A sweeping new history that reveals how British, African, and American merchants developed the transatlantic slave trade “This is a landmark study given its clear status as easily the best researched and most comprehensive book on the British slave trade to date.”—David Eltis, coauthor of Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade “A masterful account of one of the most brutal moments in the history of capitalist modernity. Radburn brilliantly details all aspects of the process of commodification of human beings in the Liverpool slave trade, vividly depicting the long journeys endured by Africans in Africa, across the Atlantic, and in the Americas.”—Leonardo Marques, Universidade Federal Fluminense During the eighteenth century, Britain’s slave trade exploded in size. Formerly a small and geographically constricted business, the trade had, by the eve of the American Revolution, grown into a transatlantic system through which fifty thousand men, women, and children were enslaved every year. In this wide-ranging history, Nicholas Radburn explains how thousands of merchants collectively transformed the slave trade by devising highly efficient but violent new business methods. African brokers developed commercial infrastructure that facilitated the enslavement and sale of millions of people. Britons invented shipping methods that quelled enslaved people’s constant resistance on the Middle Passage. And American slave traders formulated brutal techniques through which shiploads of people could be quickly sold to colonial buyers. Truly Atlantic-wide in its vision, this study shows how the slave trade dragged millions of people into its terrible vortex and became one of the most important phenomena in world history.

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In an age where it has never been easier to fritter away time with a steady stream of distractions, we still feel the oppressive tick of the almighty clock. But what if instead of scolding ourselves from indulging in distraction, we rebelled against deadlines and indulged in dawdling in order to achieve greater creative success? In Soon, writer and self-proclaimed procrastinator Andrew Santella explores the universal habit of procrastination and gives it, at last, a vigorous defense. As Santella argues, procrastination is not pure sloth, nor is it even "bad" at its core. It can be, as a matter of fact, pleasurable and enriching. By putting ourselves in charge of our limited time-be it choosing to sweep the stairs before finishing a painting, or reading a novel instead of doing our taxes-we find ourselves unlocking new creative potential and success. Through the lessons of history, philosophy, psychology and science, and the stories of notable procrastinators like Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright and Moses, Santella makes a compelling case for the power of procrastination.

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An all-in-one guide to the human body!Anatomy 101 offers an exciting look into the inner workings of the human body. Too often, textbooks turn the fascinating systems, processes, and figures of anatomy into tedious discourse that even Leonardo Da Vinci would reject. This easy-to-read guide cuts out the boring details, and instead, provides you with a compelling lesson in anatomy. Covering every aspect of anatomical development and physiology, each chapter details the different parts of the human body, how systems are formed, and disorders that could disrupt bodily functions. You'll unravel the mysteries of anatomy with unique, accessible elements like: Detailed charts of each system in the body Illustrations of cross sections Unique profiles of the most influential figures in medical history From cell chemistry to the respiratory system, Anatomy 101 is packed with hundreds of entertaining facts that you can't get anywhere else!

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Fifty-two readings on living in intentional Christian community to spark group discussion.Gold Medal Winner, 2017 Illumination Book Awards, Christian LivingSilver Medal Winner, 2017 Benjamin Franklin Award in Religion, Independent Book Publishers AssociationWhy, in an age of connectivity, are our lives more isolated and fragmented than ever? And what can be done about it? The answer lies in the hands of God’s people. Increasingly, today’s Christians want to be the church, to follow Christ together in daily life. From every corner of society, they are daring to step away from the status quo and respond to Christ’s call to share their lives more fully with one another and with others. As they take the plunge, they are discovering the rich, meaningful life that Jesus has in mind for all people, and pointing the church back to its original calling: to be a gathered, united community that demonstrates the transforming love of God.Of course, such a life together with others isn’t easy. The selections in this volume are, by and large, written by practitioners—people who have pioneered life in intentional community and have discovered in the nitty-gritty of daily life what it takes to establish, nurture, and sustain a Christian community over the long haul.Whether you have just begun thinking about communal living, are already embarking on sharing life with others, or have been part of a community for many years, the pieces in this collection will encourage, challenge, and strengthen you. The book’s fifty-two chapters can be read one a week to ignite meaningful group discussion.Contributors include: John F. Alexander, Eberhard Arnold, J. Heinrich Arnold, Johann Christoph Arnold, Alden Bass, Benedict of Nursia, Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Leonardo Boff, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Joan Chittister, Stephen B. Clark, Andy Crouch, Dorothy Day, Anthony de Mello, Elizabeth Dede, Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jenny Duckworth, Friedrich Foerster, Richard J. Foster, Jodi Garbison, Arthur G. Gish, Helmut Gollwitzer, Adele J Gonzalez, Stanley Hauerwas, Joseph H. Hellerman, Roy Hession, David Janzen, Rufus Jones, Emmanuel Katongole, Arthur Katz, Søren Kierkegaard, C. Norman Kraus, C.S. Lewis, Gerhard Lohfink, Ed Loring, Chiara Lubich, George MacDonald, Thomas Merton, Hal Miller, José P. Miranda, Jürgen Moltmann, Charles E. Moore, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Elizabeth O’Connor, John M. Perkins, Eugene H.Peterson, Christine D. Pohl, Chris Rice, Basilea Schlink, Howard A. Snyder, Mother Teresa, Thomas à Kempis, Elton Trueblood, and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

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Robots exist for so many different reasons. Many robots replace humans, whether it’s because a situation is dangerous or just tedious. There are rover robots to explore space and drone robots that play a part in our military today, but then there are also vacuum robots available for the average household’s chores. In Japan, there is a robot teacher that can mimic a wide range of human emotions—including anger at uncooperative students—thanks to eighteen small motors hidden beneath the latex skin covering her face. The Japanese government hopes to use robots to fill jobs left vacant by an anticipated labor shortage due to an aging population. In the United States, robots even help with surgery, allowing for incisions to be cut much smaller than they would be otherwise—meaning fewer complications and faster recovery times.This fascinating book in the Fact Atlas series explores the history of robots, from the very first robot designed by Leonardo da Vinci to predictions of the roles robots will play in our future. Kids will learn about how robots are often modeled after real life-forms, such as bees, sharks, and, of course, humans. Robots also takes into account the robots in pop culture—robots we have imagined could be a part of our future. Readers can decide for themselves whether or not they think robots should be developed to their fullest potential or kept in check by safety limitations.

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The visual arts enrich our lives in many ways: bringing innovative ideas and the pleasures of beauty and emotion, but they can also confound. How To Understand Art sets out to enhance the viewer’s experience by breaking down the elements of art and sculpture to provide a firm basis for simple enjoyment as well as further investigation. With 100 visual examples drawn from across the globe, the stress is on how to assess art objectively – a key skill for any art student, museum visitor or cultural enthusiast. Janetta Rebold Benton guides the reader to re-evaluate their experiences of looking at art by learning to move beyond ‘I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like,’ and shift towards an understanding of ‘why I like it’. Materials and techniques are discussed – drawing, painting, printing, photography, sculpture and decorative art – making it possible to assess what can (and cannot) be done in certain media. The book also features a section devoted to six key artists who have had a particularly notable and innovative influence on the history of art: Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Perfectly aimed at students and the general reader, this indispensable guide to the subject is well-placed to encourage questions and discussion, especially in the light of current debates surrounding class, ethnicity, gender and race.With 111 illustrations in colour

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· · A Daily Mail Book of the Week · ·The sensational story of the rise and fall of one of the most notorious families in history.____________________ 'A wickedly entertaining read' The Times____________________The Borgias have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthlessness, avarice and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. But the story of this remarkable family is far more than a tale of sensational depravities - it also marks the golden age of the Italian Renaissance and a decisive turning point in European history. From the family's Spanish roots and the papacy of Rodrigo Borgia, to the lives of his infamous offspring, Lucrezia and Cesare - the hero who dazzled Machiavelli, but also the man who befriended Leonardo da Vinci - Paul Strathern tells the captivating story of this great dynasty and the world in which they flourished.'A vivid insight into the hothouse world of papal politics in the tumultuous years before the Reformation.' Daily Telegraph'Authoritative and well-written' Wall Street Journal

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Alexander Ponomarev is one of Russia s most widely known contemporary artists, renowned both at home and abroad. In 2014, he was featured in Time magazine as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers thanks to the vast range of devices he employs to express his ideas, such as drawings, vast, complex installations, and a variety of technologies. He also captures some of the planet s most extreme and least accessible landscapes, symbolizing what he views as a world that is culturally and morally adrift. The themes he tackles are those he considers of critical relevance to today s world: the rapport between science and art, the exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic, the retrieval of ancient engineering traditions vs. today s advanced technologies, and the crucial and urgent issue of climate change. The volume includes two ample introductory essays describing his position in the Russian context of art production over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and his roots in the artistic and humanist culture of the early modern era (Vitruvius, Leonardo, Titian, and the major geographical explorations, etc.).

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The collection of pictures at Wilton has been celebrated since the seventeenth century; and its historic arrangement is uniquely well documented in a series of catalogues of which the first, issued in 1731, was the earliest such publication about any private collection in England. Of successive owners of the house, three made significant contributions: William, 4th Earl of Pembroke, who commissioned van Dyck’s monumental portrait of his family that dominates the Double Cube Room he had created; his grandson, Thomas, 8th Earl of Pembroke who assembled what was in some respects a pioneering collection of old master pictures for the house; and his grandson, Henry, 10th Earl of Pembroke, patron of Reynolds and Wilson, among others. Such masterpieces as Lucas van Leyden’s Card Players, Cesare da Sesto’s Leda – long attributed to Leonardo – and Ribera’s Democritus are matched by remarkable portrait drawings by Raphael and Holbein. These are complemented by a substantial deposit of family portraits and other pictures that attest to the tastes and interests of successive generations of the Herbert family.

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A distinct symbol of the desert and the Middle East, the camel was once unkindly described as half snake, half folding bedstead. But in the eyes of many the camel is a creature of great beauty. This is most evident in the Arab world, where the camel has played a central role in the historical development of Arabic society. Beauty pageants are still held for camels in some Arabic countries, and an elaborate vocabulary and extensive literature have been devoted to them. In "Camel", Robert Irwin explores why the camel has fascinated so many cultures, including those in places where camels are not indigenous. He traces the history of the camel from its origins millions of years ago to the present day, discussing such matters of contemporary concern as the plight of camel herders in the Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the alarming increase in the population of feral camels in Australia, and the endangered status of the wild Bactrian in Mongolia and China. Throughout history, the camel has been appreciated worldwide for its practicality, resilience and legendary abilities of survival. As a result it has been featured in the works of Leonardo da Vinci, Poussin, Tiepolo, Flaubert, Kipling and Rose Macaulay, among others. From East to West, Irwin's "Camel" is the first survey of its kind to examine the animal's role in society and history throughout the world. Not just for camel aficionados, this highly illustrated book is sure to entertain and inform anyone interested in this fascinating and exotic animal.

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Enjoying art is all about responding to what you are seeing. Parents often lack confidence about how to look at art with children, however, there is no magic secret and there are no right or wrong answers. Old Masters Rock: How to Look at Art with Children demystifies western art and demonstrates that it is accessible to all of us – adults and children alike. Old Masters Rock is a book for parents and children to look at together. It introduces the type of questions that help us discover things about a work of art and how we feel about it. Whether you are an adult or a child curiosity should be your starting point as it reveals what interests you in a painting. Features such as ‘Art Detectives’ encourage children to solve clues and 'Fun Facts' help them remember the pictures. Throughout, the emphasis is on looking at the paintings and drawing one’s own conclusions about what one is seeing. Grouped into thirteen themes such as Animals, the Natural World, Action Heroes, Myth & Magic, Fabulous Faces and others, 50 paintings from the fourteenth century through to the early twentieth century are featured. Different styles, from the early Renaissance, through Baroque, Mannerist, Realist and Impressionist, are included. Well-known artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Holbein, Rubens, Velasquez, Constable, Degas, Manet, Van Gogh and Munch are featured, as well as less familiar artists who will quickly become favourites.

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New Yorker magazine staff writer Paige Williams delves into the surprisingly perilous world of fossil collectors in this riveting true tale. In 2012, a New York auction catalogue boasted an unusual offering: ‘a superb Tyrannosaurus skeleton’. In fact, Lot 49135 consisted of a nearly complete T. bataar — a close cousin to the more-famous T. rex — that had been unearthed in Mongolia. At 2.4 metres high and 7.3 metres long, the specimen was spectacular, and the winning bid was over $1 million. Eric Prokopi, a 38-year-old Floridian, had brought this extraordinary skeleton to market. A one-time swimmer who’d spent his teenage years diving for shark teeth, Prokopi's singular obsession with fossils fuelled a thriving business, hunting for, preparing, and selling specimens to clients ranging from natural-history museums to avid private collectors like Leonardo DiCaprio. But had Prokopi gone too far this time? As the T. bataar went to auction, a network of paleontologists alerted the government of Mongolia to the eye-catching lot. An international custody battle ensued, with Prokopi watching as his own world unravelled. The Dinosaur Artist is a stunning work of narrative journalism about humans' relationship with natural history, and about a seemingly intractable conflict between science and commerce. A story that stretches from Florida's Land O' Lakes to the Gobi Desert, The Dinosaur Artist illuminates the history of fossil collecting — a murky, sometimes risky business, populated by eccentrics and obsessives, where the lines between poacher and hunter, collector and smuggler, and enthusiast and opportunist can easily blur.

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The tenth anniversary edition of the book that changed lives in profound ways. In 2005, a groundbreaking feature-length movie revealed the great mystery of the universe -- The Secret. In 2006, Rhonda Byrne followed with a book that became a worldwide bestseller. Everything you have ever wanted - unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth - is now at your very fingertips. The Secret is an enigma that has existed throughout the history of mankind. It has been discovered, coveted, suppressed, hidden, lost, and recovered. It has been hunted down, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. A number of exceptional men and women discovered The Secret and went on to become regarded as the greatest human beings who ever lived. Among them: Plato, Leonardo, Galileo, Napoleon, Hugo, Beethoven, Lincoln, Edison, Einstein and Carnegie, to name but a few. Fragments of The Secret have been found in oral traditions, literature, religions, and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible, life-changing revelation. The riveting, practical knowledge leads readers to a greater understanding of how they can be the masters of their own lives. The Secret offers guidance on how to apply this powerful knowledge to your life in every area from health to wealth, to success and relationships, so you can obtain everything you've always wanted. No matter who you are, no matter where you are right now, no matter what you want--when you realize The Secret you can have anything.

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Battleground is the first illustrated history of contemporary African American art. The volume offers an in-depth examination of twenty-five Black artists, discussing their artworks, practices, and philosophies, as expressed in their own words. Celeste-Marie Bernier has done extensive archival work in sources that have not been studied before, and her research provides a foundation for an intellectual and cultural history of contemporary African American artists and art movements from 1990 to the present. The wealth of quoted material-published interviews, artist statements, and autobiographical essays-should inform and inspire additional research in the years to come.Battleground examines the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installation, digital, and performance art produced by twenty-five Black artists living and working in the United States over the last three decades. The artists studied in this book include Emma Amos, Radcliffe Bailey, Mary Lee Bendolph, Chakaia Booker, Beverly Buchanan, Willie Cole, Leonardo Drew, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Myra Greene, Lyle Ashton Harris, Ronald Lockett, Whitfield Lovell, Kerry James Marshall, Lorraine O'Grady, Jefferson Pinder, Debra Priestly, Winfred Rembert, Nellie Mae Rowe, Alison Saar, Dread Scott, Clarissa T. Sligh, LaShawnda Crowe Storm, Mickalene Thomas, Nari Ward, and Pat Ward Williams.

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