Bianca Cappello PDF Download

Excerpt from Bianca Cappello Of all the cities which for centuries had maintained their independence there were, at that period of intellectual upheaval and striking contradictions known as the Renaissance, two of the utmost importance in the story of man's development in knowledge and power, namely Florence, the city of eternal movement, and Venice, the city of apparent inaction and political silence. These two stand out in vivid contrast to each other, and neither in their history nor in their outward aspect is there any other place in the world to compare with them. Florence, by the lovely flower-strewn banks of Arno, encircled by her hills, whose slopes were dark with evergreen woods and whose summits were covered for many months of the year with snow, was the centre, the very focus of all that was brilliant and new in literature, in art, in intellect, and the battlefield of strongly conflicting political parties. But advancement and learning, whether for her own especial benefit or that of universal humanity, was her most living interest, her chief, absorbing aim. Venice, silent and stately in her wide lagoons, protected from the fiercest storms of the open sea by her long chain of islands curving away north and south through the luminous Adriatic, was a great state by reason of her government and commerce, but her very pride kept her backward in that culture which was then held to be of paramount importance. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.