Italian Renaissance Quotes

“Glancing round to see that no one was watching, I sniffed at it. The leather binding, soft and supple, was pungent, but it was the pages that interested me. They smelt nourishing, like new-baked bread”
― Linda Proud, A Tabernacle for the Sun

“...Michelangelo transformed both the practice of art and our conception of the artist's role in society.”
― Miles J. Unger, Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces

“Duke Ercole’s condition deteriorated and he lay listening to the gentle music on his favorite clavichord. Sinking slowly, with the family gathered about his bed, Ercole beat time to the music with his hand.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Both husband and wife looked regal and perfect for the part life had chosen for them to play.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Lucrezia’s Borgia instincts and experience had taught her that these moments do not last long, and she lent herself to the festivities wholeheartedly.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“When any new monarch ascends his throne some changes are made due to the exigencies of the time, others merely because of different interests, beliefs, friends, and favourites.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The marchioness would have done better to consider her immense strengths: her commanding personality, her majestic attitudes, and above all, her keen political sense would have allowed for a more even result between herself and her sister-in-law.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The duchess approached her health, her style, and her entire presentation with all that she had learned at the far more exotic Vatican court, and the practices of her father’s homeland.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Angela had become the spoiled monster created by a loving Lucrezia.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Back in Mantua, Isabella’s visit had reportedly caused her to lose weight, but not enough to prevent the makeshift stage erected outside the convent at Porta Pradella, where Isabella attended a play about Mary Magdalene, from collapsing under the burden of her bulk. Unfortunately the stage had been built over a lake, though Isabella reported cheerfully that no one had been killed. The lake was shallow, but Isabella’s presence in it may have made alarming waves as, despite her attendants’ oliginous praises, she was now quite obese-so much so that when she was obliged to vacate her apartments in widowhood, she prudently moved to the ground floor. No staircase was safe from the mighty Marchioness.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“It is a peculiarly Renaissance conundrum that each and every deadly sin could happily join hands with the virtues, that the crimes of the body could coexist with a sincere desire for purity of soul.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“His mother might claim to be a loyal light in the shadows, but he was determined to shove her even further into the shadows.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Isabella, Ferrante, and Alessandro quickly identified an opportunity to compassion with commerce.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“She had watched Rome burn down, taking with it her own world.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Although still driven by curiosity and ambition, she did not realize quite how much she had herself become viewed as a curiosity of her time. Still less could she know how, much later, she would come to be seen as the paradigmatic woman of the High Renaissance.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“The Italian Renaissance was as much an age of culture and learning as of violence and deceit.”
― Leonie Frieda, The Deadly Sisterhood: Eight Princesses of the Italian Renaissance

“Italy is not so much a country, but an epic poem continuously being written.”
― Pietros Maneos