THE MONTEFELTRO CONSPIRACY: A RENAISSANCE MYSTERY DECODED
Book ID/图书代码： 03540008B22182
English Summary/英文概要： A brutal murder, a nefarious plot, a coded letter. After five hundred years, the most notorious mystery of the Renaissance is finally solved.
The Italian Renaissance is remembered as much for intrigue as it is for art, with papal politics and infighting among Italy’s many city-states providing the grist for Machiavelli’s classic work on take-no-prisoners politics, The Prince. The attempted assassination of the Medici brothers in the Duomo in Florence in 1478 is one of the best-known examples of the machinations endemic to the age. While the assailants were the Medici’s rivals, the Pazzi family, questions have always lingered about who really orchestrated the attack, which has come to be known as the Pazzi Conspiracy.
More than five hundred years later, Marcello Simonetta, working in a private archive in Italy, stumbled upon a coded letter written by Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino, to Pope Sixtus IV. Using a codebook written by his own ancestor to crack its secrets, Simonetta unearthed proof of an all-out power grab by the Pope for control of Florence. Montefeltro, long believed to be a close friend of Lorenzo de Medici, was in fact conspiring with the Pope to unseat the Medici and put the more malleable Pazzi in their place.
In The Montefeltro Conspiracy, Simonetta unravels this plot, showing not only how the plot came together but how its failure (only one of the Medici brothers, Giuliano, was killed; Lorenzo survived) changed the course of Italian and papal history for generations. In the course of his gripping narrative, we encounter the period’s most colorful characters, relive its tumultuous politics, and discover that two famous paintings, including one in the Sistine Chapel, contain the Medici’s astounding revenge.
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 一个凶残的刽子手，一个邪恶的阴谋，一封编成密码的信。500年后，文艺复兴时期最臭名昭著的谜团最终被解开。
阴谋与艺术是意大利文艺复兴留给世人的两大印象。在罗马教宗的统治下，意大利各城邦明争暗斗。马基雅维利以这些为素材，著成政治经典《君王论》。1478年在佛罗伦萨大教堂对梅第奇兄弟的暗杀行动是那个时代阴谋横行的缩影。刺杀者来自帕齐家族，尽管帕齐家族是梅第奇家族的死敌，但究竟谁是那次暗杀的策划者仍旧是个谜。这个谜被称为帕齐阴谋。
500年之后，在意大利一家私人档案室工作的马赛罗·西蒙内塔发现了一封乌尔比诺公爵费德里科·达·蒙特菲尔特罗写给教皇西克斯图斯四世的密码信。西蒙内塔利用家传的译码簿破译了信中的密码，发现了教皇竭尽全力企图控制佛罗伦萨的证据。长久以来，蒙太费尔特罗一直被视作洛伦佐·德·梅迪奇的亲密朋友，事实上却是他与教皇合谋设计除去梅第奇，从而让更易摆布的帕齐取而代之。
在《蒙特菲尔特罗阴谋》中，西蒙内塔详述了这个阴谋，从阴谋的来源到它的失败（朱利安诺罹难，而洛伦佐生还）对意大利发展和历代教宗的影响。在扣人心弦的叙述中，有血有肉的历史人物和当时混乱不堪的政治都得以重现；读者还将发现两幅名画（其中一幅在西斯廷教堂）包含了梅第奇惊人的复仇行动。
Awards/获奖情况：“Conspiracies, assassinations, Botticelli frescoes, a coded letter—Marcello Simonetta encapsulates both the glory and the violence of the Italian Renaissance in this remarkable book. He has also made a truly astonishing discovery of the kind that most writers can only dream about. The history of one of the most thrilling episodes in the history of the Renaissance will never be seen in the same way again.”
--Ross King, author of New York Times bestseller Brunelleschi’s Dome
金恩 ，《圓頂的故事》、《米開朗基羅與教宗的天花板》作者
“The Montefeltro Conspiracy is narrative history at its best. Simonetta tells a terrific story that illuminates the dark side of the Renaissance. Readers will look at Piero della Francesco’s famous portrait of Federico da Montefeltro with new eyes.”
--Robert Hellenga, author of The Sixteen Pleasures
About the Author/作者介绍： MARCELLO SIMONETTA, Ph. D., received his doctorate in Renaissance Studies from Yale and has taught at Wesleyan University. He has been featured on The History Channel, and in 2007 he curated an exhibition on Federico da Montefeltro’s library at the Morgan Library & Museum. He lives in New York.
马赛罗·西蒙内塔从耶鲁大学获得文艺复兴研究的博士学位，在威斯里安大学任教。是历史频道的招牌人物。2007年在摩根图书博物馆举办了费德里科·达·蒙特菲尔特罗藏书的展览。现居纽约。
Format:HARDCOVER
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