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Medicit: Renesanssivaltiaat Firenzessä
Medicit – renesanssivaltiaat Firenzessä kertoo eräistä Euroopan kaikkien aikojen näkvimmistä hahmoista. Medicit olivat menestyjiä, 1400-luvun trendinluojia taloudessa, politiikassa ja kulttuurissa: nerojen ystäviä ja hyväntekijöitä.
Myös Italian renesanssi – ja eurooppalainen pankkijärjestelmä – oli suuressa määrin heidän ansiotaan. He laajensivat kansainvälistä vaikutusvaltaansa vähitellen paavinistuimen kautta ja avioitumalla kuninkaallisten kanssa.
Ylistyksen ja rienauksen välillä tasapainoillen Ulla Britta Ramklint luonnestelee hauskasti eri henkilöiden persoonat. Hänen kirjansa muistuttaa viihdyttävää näytelmää, jossa henkilöhahmot tulevat ja menevät, vievät tapahtumia eteenpäin ja herättävät näyttämön eloon. Kirjailija piirtää samalla nokkelasti kokonaisen perhekronikan sekä esittelee meille huomattavat kulttuurihenkilöt ja heitä ympäröivän yhteiskuntaan.
Myös Italian renesanssi – ja eurooppalainen pankkijärjestelmä – oli suuressa määrin heidän ansiotaan. He laajensivat kansainvälistä vaikutusvaltaansa vähitellen paavinistuimen kautta ja avioitumalla kuninkaallisten kanssa.
Ylistyksen ja rienauksen välillä tasapainoillen Ulla Britta Ramklint luonnestelee hauskasti eri henkilöiden persoonat. Hänen kirjansa muistuttaa viihdyttävää näytelmää, jossa henkilöhahmot tulevat ja menevät, vievät tapahtumia eteenpäin ja herättävät näyttämön eloon. Kirjailija piirtää samalla nokkelasti kokonaisen perhekronikan sekä esittelee meille huomattavat kulttuurihenkilöt ja heitä ympäröivän yhteiskuntaan.
222 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 9, 2023
Helt ok.
September 6, 2024
Förstår inte heller hur man hittar ett förlag som publicerar det här. Så spännande ämne och så förvirrande skrivstil att man bara baxnar. Var är korrekturläsare som ska korrigera inkonsekvenser, upprepningar, syftningsfel, felaktiga ord, rätta till grammatiken och placera meningar i rätt ordning om författaren inte klarar av det själv?
June 8, 2015
What is inside the covers is interesting, but hardly a credit to the author. The structure is off, and I mean OFF like did they even read-through it before publishing off, and the author's writing is annoying. Not excessively so so you can't read it but annoying still. Partly story telling all mixed in sort of kinda research type of thing, it all gives off feeling of badly written tourist guide posing as a historical account.
There was a lot of the stories that needed pre-knowledge and that knowledge was somewhere in the book. Maybe. Hopefully. At first you hope and then you are so annoyed you know. Just, somewhere. In the book. Heavens knows where, and the book supposes you read it ten pages ahead and now you are here all-knowing, except for that tiny little bit that it is just now telling you. On a page very-little and that tiny little bit has absolutely no significance to you, -yet or would have had some, but by the time the real story or one part of that story comes along it's all forgotten past. Or mostly just meh.
Yes. Indeed by the time one part of that story. As it is the method of this awful author not to tell the whole story and all aspects of it. Insisting on segmenting itself quasi-like a tourist guide. Which it CAN NOT be as the author states not to go to Florence at any point in your life at the beginning of the book. At the end of the book the author teases the reader as to the reactions all viewers have to certain pieces of art that are ONLY viewable in all their glory and impression in Florence.
Besides it would make a poor tourist guide. Yes, there's the index and the back of the book search thing, but fat lot of good it is for subtitles aren't indexed at all(consequently the names of the mansions, houses and what not that seemed so important to introduce separately and not connect them right away to a story they'd appear in)! And the back of the book is just the names of people mentioned and on what pages. True, there's that chronology and map at the back of the book I so desperately needed at points, but I did not notice it until the very end.
Yet I don't think the chronology would have made my reading experience much better. Somewhat better. In a way of like which pope was it that signed the thing Leo or other one, but that doesn't really matter. What was the matter was the same story could be told to you several times without you really knowing who she was talking about! Yes, you may have a vague idea but when she starts inter-referencing you first may not know if you are just experiencing deja vu, or the family's history is, and was that really that person's name? Let's find that page this person, place or house may or may not have been mentioned before.
See, it's not all that simple when a family is filled with Cosimos, Lorenzos, Pieros, Lucrezias and Contessinas.
The placements of the several supposedly detached profiles on artists and creators are no good either. As they indeed are not at a disconnection to the stories, and they are scattered around and reader will be unable to read the "main story" and the bios in the right order. Ever. In all actuality there's no main story. Only small stories. All coming from the author's head-space and interlocking in a non-chronological non-logical way. Slightly contradicting conclusions can be made of the same person on the same story but at different parts of the book, all signed by the author as her opinion. I must assume.
I must assume she herself was witness to all these events and happenings as she does cite things and reference stuff, but there's hardly a mention of them. Where does all this information come from? Yes, I understand that she has read all this about the topic, but to speculate and tell different speculations and versions of the events without pointing exactly where she did get this information or speculation from! Almost outrageous. The author inserts herself so many times to the seat of the reader it is rude and yet she doesn't tell the real reader, me, how she came about all this. It wouldn't matter if she admitted they were the re-told stories to tourists since the 16th century! Or if she listened to the tourist guide saying thus.
Just tell us how! Where! What! The way the stories all are scattered does start to give of the ugly feeling of copy pasting someone else's tales and she is just adding some remarks here and there.
Most statements she does make are either weirdly stating with no uncertainty, finesse or room for argument or very very alluring and subtle-like.
There's a reading list at the back as well, and this high school level work on a popular subject has done well to name them at least there. I for one got great interest to persons like Lucrezia Tornabuoni and Alfonsina Orisiri and will be reading more about women in effect being the real political driving force in rich families.
All in all and by the end of the story of Medici the reader is supposed to feel sympathy for them. Yet I did not particularly. I felt the same sympathy for much more deserving characters with a larger tragedies than them, but got only a very small and uncaring mention. What does my heart care if someone was very popular? Or gained admirers? Or was generous to the strategically right people? It does not win any prizes from me. Still the book expects awe.
Much more admiration, from my part, got Cosimo il Vecchio for being cunning, and knowing that art, knowledge and education is everything. For building big enough snow ball for it to keep on tumbling down for generations to come and all they needed was to act the part (which some were mostly stupid not to do and the people were supine enough not to get democracy for themselves).
Also much wonder from me was awoken by author's naivety. Just when is she from with her modern times with no ignored and ignorant cruelty and injustice or any slavery. She is talking from a magical land of true humanity finding it inconceivable how the humanists of a time right after middle ages didn't stand up as a social justice warriors in the midsts of their back-scratching system to success.
Yes, she is right these issues and actual mentions of slaves are horridly lacking in historical texts and are still avoided. Inexcusably. Facing up to things that are ugly is hard, then and now. Even ugliness in the past is terrifying to people. There's that same illusion of ignoring a stinging bill is making it go away. When it is ignoring it that's making it a real problem.
It's all about what we call things. Slavery is slavery. Even when it wasn't acknowledged by the people of that time. People who loved statistics didn't state them as anything but merch and only at times. Even the author in her writing makes the same mistake she is criticizing she glosses over a French army raping uncounted number of Florence citizens. By saying that the French army continued on after the conquering leaving behind an epidemic of syphilis.
We are, as the author said the Florencians were, influenced by tradition and political pragmatism. Nothing makes us as uncomfortable as isolation from other human beings, our nearest, our dearest. Standing up and noticing and saying things and not letting things slide or be forgotten is not only admirable and hard but also considered faux pas. And renaissance would have been nothing without a tight city within city walls admiring each other, educating each other and everything being fantastico!
To issue a real humanitarian change judging unjustness must be, collectively and each personally, realised it is not about judging a whole person but that allowance of that unjustness. To do that it must come from the root, from the education. Educated realisation of human rights, of noticing unjustness and educated courage to say 'no' to peers and authorities on reasoned issues. To those who have and are standing up with or without support, I have nothing but admiration.
There was a lot of the stories that needed pre-knowledge and that knowledge was somewhere in the book. Maybe. Hopefully. At first you hope and then you are so annoyed you know. Just, somewhere. In the book. Heavens knows where, and the book supposes you read it ten pages ahead and now you are here all-knowing, except for that tiny little bit that it is just now telling you. On a page very-little and that tiny little bit has absolutely no significance to you, -yet or would have had some, but by the time the real story or one part of that story comes along it's all forgotten past. Or mostly just meh.
Yes. Indeed by the time one part of that story. As it is the method of this awful author not to tell the whole story and all aspects of it. Insisting on segmenting itself quasi-like a tourist guide. Which it CAN NOT be as the author states not to go to Florence at any point in your life at the beginning of the book. At the end of the book the author teases the reader as to the reactions all viewers have to certain pieces of art that are ONLY viewable in all their glory and impression in Florence.
Besides it would make a poor tourist guide. Yes, there's the index and the back of the book search thing, but fat lot of good it is for subtitles aren't indexed at all(consequently the names of the mansions, houses and what not that seemed so important to introduce separately and not connect them right away to a story they'd appear in)! And the back of the book is just the names of people mentioned and on what pages. True, there's that chronology and map at the back of the book I so desperately needed at points, but I did not notice it until the very end.
Yet I don't think the chronology would have made my reading experience much better. Somewhat better. In a way of like which pope was it that signed the thing Leo or other one, but that doesn't really matter. What was the matter was the same story could be told to you several times without you really knowing who she was talking about! Yes, you may have a vague idea but when she starts inter-referencing you first may not know if you are just experiencing deja vu, or the family's history is, and was that really that person's name? Let's find that page this person, place or house may or may not have been mentioned before.
See, it's not all that simple when a family is filled with Cosimos, Lorenzos, Pieros, Lucrezias and Contessinas.
The placements of the several supposedly detached profiles on artists and creators are no good either. As they indeed are not at a disconnection to the stories, and they are scattered around and reader will be unable to read the "main story" and the bios in the right order. Ever. In all actuality there's no main story. Only small stories. All coming from the author's head-space and interlocking in a non-chronological non-logical way. Slightly contradicting conclusions can be made of the same person on the same story but at different parts of the book, all signed by the author as her opinion. I must assume.
I must assume she herself was witness to all these events and happenings as she does cite things and reference stuff, but there's hardly a mention of them. Where does all this information come from? Yes, I understand that she has read all this about the topic, but to speculate and tell different speculations and versions of the events without pointing exactly where she did get this information or speculation from! Almost outrageous. The author inserts herself so many times to the seat of the reader it is rude and yet she doesn't tell the real reader, me, how she came about all this. It wouldn't matter if she admitted they were the re-told stories to tourists since the 16th century! Or if she listened to the tourist guide saying thus.
Just tell us how! Where! What! The way the stories all are scattered does start to give of the ugly feeling of copy pasting someone else's tales and she is just adding some remarks here and there.
Most statements she does make are either weirdly stating with no uncertainty, finesse or room for argument or very very alluring and subtle-like.
There's a reading list at the back as well, and this high school level work on a popular subject has done well to name them at least there. I for one got great interest to persons like Lucrezia Tornabuoni and Alfonsina Orisiri and will be reading more about women in effect being the real political driving force in rich families.
All in all and by the end of the story of Medici the reader is supposed to feel sympathy for them. Yet I did not particularly. I felt the same sympathy for much more deserving characters with a larger tragedies than them, but got only a very small and uncaring mention. What does my heart care if someone was very popular? Or gained admirers? Or was generous to the strategically right people? It does not win any prizes from me. Still the book expects awe.
Much more admiration, from my part, got Cosimo il Vecchio for being cunning, and knowing that art, knowledge and education is everything. For building big enough snow ball for it to keep on tumbling down for generations to come and all they needed was to act the part (which some were mostly stupid not to do and the people were supine enough not to get democracy for themselves).
Also much wonder from me was awoken by author's naivety. Just when is she from with her modern times with no ignored and ignorant cruelty and injustice or any slavery. She is talking from a magical land of true humanity finding it inconceivable how the humanists of a time right after middle ages didn't stand up as a social justice warriors in the midsts of their back-scratching system to success.
Yes, she is right these issues and actual mentions of slaves are horridly lacking in historical texts and are still avoided. Inexcusably. Facing up to things that are ugly is hard, then and now. Even ugliness in the past is terrifying to people. There's that same illusion of ignoring a stinging bill is making it go away. When it is ignoring it that's making it a real problem.
It's all about what we call things. Slavery is slavery. Even when it wasn't acknowledged by the people of that time. People who loved statistics didn't state them as anything but merch and only at times. Even the author in her writing makes the same mistake she is criticizing she glosses over a French army raping uncounted number of Florence citizens. By saying that the French army continued on after the conquering leaving behind an epidemic of syphilis.
We are, as the author said the Florencians were, influenced by tradition and political pragmatism. Nothing makes us as uncomfortable as isolation from other human beings, our nearest, our dearest. Standing up and noticing and saying things and not letting things slide or be forgotten is not only admirable and hard but also considered faux pas. And renaissance would have been nothing without a tight city within city walls admiring each other, educating each other and everything being fantastico!
To issue a real humanitarian change judging unjustness must be, collectively and each personally, realised it is not about judging a whole person but that allowance of that unjustness. To do that it must come from the root, from the education. Educated realisation of human rights, of noticing unjustness and educated courage to say 'no' to peers and authorities on reasoned issues. To those who have and are standing up with or without support, I have nothing but admiration.
June 21, 2025
Hyfsat spännande bok som ger en bra överblick av familjen Medici och hur stor betydelse de hade för Florens under renässansen. I och med att de revolutionerande bokföringen och banksektorn så hade jag dock hoppats på en mer ingående beskrivning om detta. Men om du vill få en överblick över familjen Medici och höra några spännande historier så bör du läsa denna bok!
March 30, 2013
Odotin Ramklintin kirjalta paljon enemmän kuin se lopulta antoi, sillä jotain tuntui jääneen puuttumaan. Luulisi ainakin, että Euroopan historiaan oman sinettinsä painaneesta suvusta löytyisi materiaalia laajempaankin teokseen, sillä reilut kaksi sataa sivuisena kirja tuntui auttamattomasti vain pintapuoleisesti asioita käsitelleeltä.
Mikään ei jäänyt varsinaisesti kesken, mutta olisin kaivannut laajempia tietojen luomaa syvyyttä.
Mikään ei jäänyt varsinaisesti kesken, mutta olisin kaivannut laajempia tietojen luomaa syvyyttä.
July 10, 2013
Jag förstår inte hur den här kunde publiceras. Jag läste den på svenska och väntade mig en insikt i den färgstarka och inflytelserika familjen Medici. Det enda jag fann var lite sporadiskt plockad information om vad de lämnat efter sig i form av byggnader och arkitektur. Inte ens detta var särskilt informativt.
December 20, 2013
Luettu suomeksi, perusinfoa, kuten moni muukin odotin enemmän.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews