Biografier

The artistry, wit, and erudition of medieval Latin narrative poetry continued to thrive well into the middle of the thirteenth century. No better evidence of this survives than in the long and brilliantly successful career of Henry of Avranches (d...

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Written in the aftermath of the catastrophic sack of Rome in 1527, the historian Paolo Giovios dialogue provides an informed perspective on the event from an intimate friend of Pope Clement VII. The work is also remarkable for its discussions of l...

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Francesco Petrarca (13041374), one of the greatest of Italian poets, was also the leading spirit in the Renaissance movement to revive the cultural and moral excellence of ancient Greece and Rome. This two-volume set contains an ample, representat...

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The Renaissance popes were among the most enlightened and generous patrons of arts and letters in the Europe of their day. The diaries of Pius II give us an intimate glimpse of the life and thought of one of the greatest of the Renaissance popes. ...

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Gregory of Tours served as bishop of Tours, then a city in the Frankish kingdom, from 573 to 594. Acclaimed by the French as the father of our history on account of his History of the Franks, he also wrote stories about holy men and women and abou...

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The most complete translation available of these brief biographies of great European figures, written by one of the leading historians of the sixteenth century. Portraits of Learned Men provides a fascinating synopsis of the contours, mentality, a...

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A fresh English translation of five Alberti works that illuminate new aspects of the literary aims and development of the first Renaissance man. Leon Battista Alberti (14041472) was one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. His ex...

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Cyriac of Ancona (13911452) was among the first to study the physical remains of the ancient world in person and for that reason is sometimes regarded as the father of classical archaeology. This volume contains a life of Cyriac to the year 1435 b...

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Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) was the leading philologist of the first half of the fifteenth century, as well as a philosopher, theologian, and translator. His extant Latin letters are fewer than those of many of his contemporaries, since he never col...

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The artistry, wit, and erudition of medieval Latin narrative poetry continued to thrive well into the middle of the thirteenth century. No better evidence of this survives than in the long and brilliantly successful career of Henry of Avranches (d...

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Lives of the Milanese Tyrants brings together two biographies by the most important Milanese humanist of the early fifteenth century. Pier Candido Decembrio (13991477) served as secretary and envoy to the bizarre and powerful Filippo Maria Viscont...

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Two early works by the consummate Latin love poet. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCAD 17), born at Sulmo, studied rhetoric and law at Rome. Later he did considerable public service there, and otherwise devoted himself to poetry and to society. Fa...

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Correspondence from a distinguished and eventful life. The Younger Pliny was born in AD 61 or 62, the son of Lucius Caecilius of Comum (Como) and the Elder Plinys sister. He was educated at home and then in Rome under Quintilian. He was at Misenum...

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Meditative missives. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BC, of a prominent and wealthy family, spent an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunts care. He became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, and imperial ...

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Meditative missives. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, born at Corduba (Cordova) ca. 4 BC, of a prominent and wealthy family, spent an ailing childhood and youth at Rome in an aunts care. He became famous in rhetoric, philosophy, money-making, and imperial ...

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Letters of an imperial tutor. The literary remains of the rhetorician Marcus Cornelius Fronto (ca. AD 100176) first came to light in 1815, when Cardinal Mai, then prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, discovered that beneath an account of the...

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Epic history. Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus, AD 3965), son of wealthy M. Annaeus Mela and nephew of Seneca, was born at Corduba (Cordova) in Spain and was brought as a baby to Rome. In AD 60 at a festival in Emperor Neros honor Lucan praised him in a ...

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The young statesmans first major prosecution. Cicero (Marcus Tullius, 10643 BC), Roman lawyer, orator, politician and philosopher, of whom we know more than of any other Roman, lived through the stirring era that saw the rise, dictatorship, and de...

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Correspondence of a Church Father. Aurelius Augustine (AD 354430), one of the most important figures in the development of western Christianity and philosophy, was the son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste, and his Christian wife, Monnica. While st...

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Correspondence of a Church Father. Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), ca. 345420, of Stridon, Dalmatia, son of Christian parents, at Rome listened to rhetoricians, legal advocates, and philosophers, and in 360 was baptized by Pope Liberius. ...

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Adventurous history. Quintus Curtius was apparently a rhetorician who lived in the first century of the Roman empire and, early in the reign of Claudius (AD 4154), wrote a history of Alexander the Great in ten books in clear and picturesque style ...

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An unrivaled compendium of ancient Roman knowledge. Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 2379), a Roman of equestrian rank of Transpadane Gaul (N. Italy), was uncle of Pliny the letter writer. He pursued a career partly military in Germany,...

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A Church Fathers theological citadel. Aurelius Augustine (AD 354430), one of the most important figures in the development of western Christianity and philosophy, was the son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste, and his Christian wife, Monnica. While...

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Belles lettres. Sidonius Apollinaris, a Gallo-Roman, was born at Lugdunum (Lyon) about AD 430. He married Papianilla, daughter of the Emperor Avitus in whose honor he recited at Rome on 1 January 456 a panegyric in verse. Sidonius later joined a r...

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Fabulous verse. Babrius is the reputed author of a collection (discovered in the 19th century) of more than 125 fables based on those called Aesops, in Greek verse. He may have been a Hellenized Roman living in Asia Minor during the late first cen...

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Roman biographies of foreign commanders. Cornelius Nepos was born in Cisalpine Gaul but lived in Rome and was a friend of Cicero, Atticus, and Catullus. Most of his writings, which included poems, moral examples from history, a chronological sketc...

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The private correspondence of Romes most prolific public figure. To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his...

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Antiquitys imperial biographer par excellence. Suetonius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus, born ca. AD 70), son of a military tribune, was at first an advocate and a teacher of rhetoric, but later became the emperor Hadrians private secretary, 119121. He...

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Antiquitys imperial biographer par excellence. Suetonius (C. Suetonius Tranquillus, born ca. AD 70), son of a military tribune, was at first an advocate and a teacher of rhetoric, but later became the emperor Hadrians private secretary, 119121. He...

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The private correspondence of Romes most prolific public figure. To his dear friend Atticus, Cicero reveals himself as to no other of his correspondents except perhaps his brother. In Cicero's Letters to Atticus we get an intimate look at his...

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