Isabella de'Medici: The Glorious Life and Tragic End of a Renaissance Princess - Softcover

Murphy, Caroline P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571230318 ISBN 13: 9780571230310

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2009

Synopsis

Isabella de' Medici was the hostess of a glittering circle in Renaissance Florence. Beautiful and liberated, she not only matched the intellectual accomplishments of her male contemporaries, but sought sexual parity also, engaging in an adulterous affair with her husband's cousin. It was this affair - and her very success as First Lady of Florence - that led to her death at the hands of her husband at the age of just thirty-four. She left behind a remarkable story, and as her legacy a son who became the best of the Orsini Dukes, immortalised by Shakespeare as Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night. Caroline P. Murphy illuminates this often misunderstood figure, and in the process brings to life the home of creativity, the city of Florence itself.

About this title

Book Description:

Isabella de'Medici: The Glorious Life and Tragic End of a Renaissance Princess, by Caroline P. Murphy, tells the magnificent, alluring and ultimately tragic life of Isabella, the most brilliant woman of the Medici.

About the Author:

Caroline P. Murphy is a cultural historian and biographer. She is the author of Lavinia Fontana: A Painter and Her Patrons in Sixteenth-century Bologna, praised by Sarah Bradford in the Literary Review for 'shed[ding] new light on the ground-breaking career of a brave and talented woman.' Her second book, The Pope's Daughter, was described as a "remarkable biography" by the Daily Telegraph. Her most recent book is Isabella de'Medici. She grew up in Reading, studied art history at University College London, and now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0571230318
• ISBN 13: 9780571230310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432