Guardians of Republicanism: The Valori Family in the Florentine Renaissance (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780199204489)

Guardians of Republicanism analyses the political and intellectual history of Renaissance Florence-republican and princely-by focusing on five generations of the Valori family, each of which played a dynamic role in the city's political and cultural life. The Valori were early and influential supporters of the Medici family, but were also crucial participants in the city's periodic republican revivals throughout the Renaissance. Mark Jurdjevic examines their political struggles and conflicts against the larger backdrop of their patronage and support of the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino, the radical Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola, and Niccolò Machiavelli, the premier political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Each of these three quintessential Renaissance reformers and philosophers relied heavily on the patronage of the Valori, who evolved an innovative republicanism based on a hybrid fusion of the classical and Christian languages of Florentine communal politics. Jurdjevic's study thus illuminates how intellectual forces-humanist, republican, and Machiavellian-intersected and directed the politics and culture of the Florentine Renaissance.

Author: Mark Jurdjevic
ISBN-10: 0199204489
ISBN-13: 9780199204489
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Language: English
Published: 05/11/2008
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.63d