ISBN: 9781479260843

Summary: August 11, 1492, thanks to the maneuvers of his son Caesar, Roderic Borgia was elected pope under the name of Alexander VI. His ambition is to restore political influence in … mais…

Summary: August 11, 1492, thanks to the maneuvers of his son Caesar, Roderic Borgia was elected pope under the name of Alexander VI. His ambition is to restore political influence in Rome, territories, an army and money. After installing his family in important positions, his power gradually becomes immense. Alongside the alliances that the pope made and unmade at the mercy of events, his son Caesar deviates from its path his enemies and those that hinder. Thus, by poison or the arm of his faithful henchman Micheletto, he gets rid of his older brother Francesco, successive husbands of his sister Lucrezia, his female conquests he gets tired, jealous husbands ... But the poison eventually turn against Alexander and Caesar who, by an unfortunate combination of circumstances, drink poisoned wine. Alexander dies but César survives, physically weakened and abandoned by its allies. To stay thanks, he sells the voices of cardinals at his disposal for the election of Pope Pius III and that of Julius II, which does not prevent him from being taken prisoner on behalf of the King of Spain and to die Following a skirmish after his escape orchestrated by Micheletto. PROLOGUE On the 8th of April, 1492, in a bedroom of the Carneggi Palace, about three miles from Florence, were three men grouped about a bed whereon a fourth lay dying. The first of these three men, sitting at the foot of the bed, and half hidden, that he might conceal his tears, in the gold-brocaded curtains, was Ermolao Barbaro, author of the treatise 'On Celibacy', and of 'Studies in Pliny': the year before, when he was at Rome in the capacity of ambassador of the Florentine Republic, he had been appointed Patriarch of Aquileia by Innocent VIII. The second, who was kneeling and holding one hand of the dying man between his own, was Angelo Poliziano, the Catullus of the fifteenth century, a classic of the lighter sort, who in his Latin verses might have been mistaken for a poet of the Augustan age. The third, who was standing up and leaning against one of the twisted columns of the bed-head, following with profound sadness the progress of the malady which he read in the face of his departing friend, was the famous Pico della Mirandola, who at the age of twenty could speak twenty-two languages, and who had offered to reply in each of these languages to any seven hundred questions that might be put to him by the twenty most learned men in the whole world, if they could be assembled at Florence. The man on the bed was Lorenzo the Magnificent, who at the beginning of the year had been attacked by a severe and deep-seated fever, to which was added the gout, a hereditary ailment in his family. He had found at last that the draughts containing dissolved pearls which the quack doctor, Leoni di Spoleto, prescribed for him (as if he desired to adapt his remedies rather to the riches of his patient than to his necessities) were useless and unavailing, and so he had come to understand that he must part from those gentle-tongued women of his, those sweet-voiced poets, his palaces and their rich hangings; therefore he had summoned to give him absolution for his sins-in a man of less high place they might perhaps have been called crimes-the Dominican, Giralamo Francesco Savonarola. It was not, however, without an inward fear, against which the praises of his friends availed nothing, that the pleasure-seeker and usurper awaited that severe and gloomy preacher by whose words all Florence was stirred, and on whose pardon henceforth depended all his hope for another world. Indeed, Savonarola was one of those men of stone, coming, like the statue of the Commandante, to knock at the door of a Don Giovanni, and in the midst of feast and orgy to announce that it is even now the moment to begin to think of Heaven. He had been born at Ferrara, whither his family, one of the most illustrious of Padua, had been called by Niccolo, Marchese d'Este,.... Trade Books>Trade Paperback>Reference>Practical & How-To Gdes>Prac,How-To Gdes, CreateSpace Publishing Core >1<

ISBN: 9781479260843

There are dreadful -- perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgias of renaissance Italy, and here Dumas, author of such classics as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, in his Celebrated Crimes series… mais…

There are dreadful -- perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgias of renaissance Italy, and here Dumas, author of such classics as THE THREE MUSKETEERS, in his Celebrated Crimes series, dishes up the dirt in all its ugly glory. This book was not written for children. Dumas has minced no words in describing the violent scenes of a violent time. In some instances facts appear distorted out of their true perspective, and in others the author makes unwarranted charges. The careful, mature reader -- for whom the books are intended -- will recognize and allow for this fact. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas, with the assistance of several friends, compiled Celebrated Crimes, an eight-volume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes from European history. He featured Beatrice Cenci, Martin Guerre, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia, as well as more recent events and criminals, including the cases of the alleged murderers Karl Ludwig Sand and Antoine François Desrues, who were executed.BiographyAlexandre Dumas (born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 - 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas père (where père is French for 'father', to distinguish him from his son Alexandre Dumas fils), was a French writer. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century into nearly 200 films.Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays, which were successfully produced from the first. He also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books; his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris.His father, General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) to Alexandre Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman, and Marie-Cessette Dumas, an African slave. At age 14, Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, where he was educated in a military academy and entered the military for what became an illustrious career.Dumas's father's aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, then as a writer, a career which led to early success. Decades later, after the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years, then moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy. In 1861, he founded and published the newspaper L'Indépendent, which supported Italian unification, before returning to Paris in 1864.Though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs (allegedly as many as 40). He was known to have had at least four illegitimate children, although twentieth-century scholars believe it was seven. He acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père ('father') and Alexandre Dumas fils ('son'). Among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress who was less than half his age and at the height of her career.The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his later life, described him as the most generous, large-hearted being in the world. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth. His tongue was like a windmill - once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself. (wikipedia.org) Trade Books>Trade Paperback>Reference>Practical & How-To Gdes>Prac,How-To Gdes, CreateSpace Publishing Core >1<

2008, ISBN: 9781479260843

Paperback, [PU: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform], Alexandre Dumas ( born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 - 5 December 1870) was a French writer, best known for his … mais…

Paperback, [PU: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform], Alexandre Dumas ( born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 - 5 December 1870) was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure. Translated into nearly 100 languages, these have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were originally published as serials. His novels have been adapted since the early twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas' last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005, becoming a bestseller. It was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. -wikipedia, Encyclopaedias & Reference Works<

ISBN: 9781479260843

The Borgias The-Borgias~~Alexandre-Dumas Reference>Practical & How-To Gdes>Prac/How-To Gdes Paperback, CreateSpace Publishing