MONTEFELTRO: A CODED CONSPIRACY, THE MEDICI,AND THE SISTINE CHAPEL

Book ID/图书代码： 03540007B12625

English Summary/英文概要： Simonetta solves one of the most scandalous crimes of the Renaissance: the attempted assassination of the celebrated Medici brothers, rulers of Florence, during a High Mass in the city’s cathedral in April, 1478. On that fateful day, Giuliano was stabbed to death in mid-service at the Duomo, his brother Lorenzo escaped, and the people of Florence rallied, killing off any remaining conspirators and setting off a two-year war with the papacy. In the process, Lorenzo de Medici was rendered even more powerful than before--cementing a legacy that effectively altered the course of the way Renaissance history has unfolded, as we know it.
Historians have always deemedthat the attack, known as the Pazzi Conspiracy, was engineered by Francesco de Pazzi of the rival banking family, with assistance from Pope Sixtus IV, who sought power for his nephew. But in 2004, Simonetta cracked the 500-year-old case by discovering and deciphering an encrypted letter buried in a private archive in Italy that proves the mercenary Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino actually orchestrated the coup. When Marcello published the text of this letter, it not only caused a sensation in scholarly circles, the news made international headlines.
Simonetta not only solves this ancient drama and addresses the resonance and meaning of his discovery within a larger historical context, he invokes a lively tale of intrigue that shapes a timeless intersection of art, politics, power and corruption. The author has seamlessly woven together a wide range of long-lost documents, reconstructing the back-stage of the "real" Italian Renaissance, giving us a fresh glimpse into its bloody plots and its spectacular masterpieces.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 提到義大利，就不能不提到麥迪奇家族 (Medici Family)，從 1434 ~ 1737 年，富有的麥迪奇家族曾先後統治過佛羅倫斯和後來的托斯卡尼，300年間該家族出現多位殘暴統治者和教宗，他們大力贊助藝術，資助波提且利、達文西和米開朗基羅等許多藝術家。如果沒有這個影響深遠的家族，文藝復興可能永遠不會發生。
西元 1478 年，麥迪奇家族在佛羅倫斯大教堂望彌撒時遭到刺殺，弟弟 Giuliano de’ Medici 當場身亡，哥哥 Lorenzo de’ Medici 受傷。之後佛羅倫斯市民聚集在麥迪奇家族旗下，處死了許多參與陰謀者，Lorenzo代表的麥迪奇家族勢力大張、更盛於前，並對教宗展開長達兩年的戰爭。
500 多年來，歷史皆稱這次暗殺行動為帕齊陰謀Pazzi Conspiracy，認為策劃者是敵對的帕齊家族以及教宗 Sixtus IV，但是 2004 年，一封被挖掘出來的密函使得這個說法遭到檢視，破解這封密碼信的 Marcello Simonetta 教授是麥迪奇家族的後代，他公佈Lorenzo的好友烏比諾公爵 (Duke of Urbino) Federico da Montefeltro 才是真正的主使者。英國獨立報報導：http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20040217/ai_n12771965
這個發現受到全世界的討論，2008 年，美國 Doubleday和義大利 Rizzoli將率先出版 Simonetta 教授的完整研究成果，剖析這樁文藝復興時期刺殺案件背後的陰謀與企圖。

Awards/获奖情况：

About the Author/作者介绍： Marcello Simonetta was born in 1968 in Italy. He studied literature and history of ideas at the University of Rome La Sapienza. In the mid-nineties he worked as a documentary filmmaker before accepting fellowship at Yale University, where he spent six years obtaining his Ph.D in Italian literature and history, before going on to teach this subject at Wesleyan University, where he now commutes from his home in New York city. The story of Simonetta’ s code-cracking discovery about the Pazzi Conspiracy has also been featured in a documentary first aired by the History Channel in 2005. The author will curate an exhibition on Montefeltro at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City this summer.

Format:HARDCOVER

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