The Lives of the Popes & Emperors

THIS BOOK was written in Italian and offers the lives of 230 popes and 117 emperors from Julius Caesar to Pope Clement VII and the year 1526. It combines the medieval chronicle’s narrative of people, events, natural and celestial wonders with the grand themes of papal and imperial history and of sacred and secular authority. Working from the 1534 edition, renowned translators Aldo S. Bernardo and Reta A. Bernardo offer a fresh, elegant and contemporary English translation . Tania Zampini’s introduction describes the book and discusses its genre and possible sources. She places the Lives into the larger context of Renaissance society and culture, focusing on the work’s major themes and its interest in papal, imperial and central Italian politics as well as on the newly emerging lay textual communities and religious cultures . The text is fully annotated with historical, cultural and biographical details and accompanied by a select bibliography and complete index.— Google Books