Search results for ""author james gardner""

Almost nine million people from all over the world flock to the Louvre in Paris every year to see its incomparable art collection. Yet few, if any, are aware of the remarkable history of that location and of the buildings themselves, and how they chronicle the history of Paris itself-a fascinating story that historian James Gardner elegantly tells for the first time.Before the Louvre was a museum, it was a palace, and before that a fortress. But much earlier still, it was a place called le Louvre for reasons unknown. People had inhabited that spot for more than 6,000 years before King Philippe Auguste of France constructed a fortress there in 1191 to protect against English soldiers stationed in Normandy. Two centuries later, Charles V converted the fortress to one of his numerous royal palaces. After Louis XIV moved the royal residence to Versailles in 1682, the Louvre inherited the royal art collection, which then included the Mona Lisa, given to Francis by Leonardo da Vinci; just over a century later, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly established the Louvre as a museum to display the nation's treasures. Subsequent leaders of France, from Napoleon to Napoleon III to Francois Mitterand, put their stamp on the museum, expanding it into the extraordinary institution it has become.With expert detail and keen admiration, James Gardner links the Louvre's past to its glorious present, and vibrantly portrays how it has been a witness to French history - through the Napoleonic era, the Commune, two World Wars, to this day - and home to a legendary collection whose diverse origins and back stories create a spectacular narrative that rivals the building's legendary stature.

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Marco Girolamo Vida (1485–1566), humanist and bishop, came to prominence as a Latin poet in the Rome of Leo X and Clement VII. It was Leo who commissioned his famous epic, the Christiad, a retelling of the life of Christ in the style of Vergil, which was eventually published in 1535. It was by far the most popular Christian epic of the Renaissance, appearing in almost forty editions before 1600. It was translated into many languages, including Croatian and Armenian, and was widely imitated by vernacular poets such as Abraham Cowley and John Milton. This translation, accompanied by extensive notes, is based on a new edition of the Latin text.

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