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Vendetta: High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance
Vendetta High Art and Low Cunning at the Birth of the Renaissance Author:Hugh Bicheno In Italy, the Renaissance was more than a time of sweeping cultural advancement; it was also an age of nearly continuous military conflict and vicious personal feuds between powerful public figures. A lifelong vendetta pitted two of Italy?s most prominent condottieri, or mercenary warlords, against each other in a struggle that moved from... more » the battlefield to the political halls of power to the papacy itself. Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and Sigismondo Malatesta, ?the Wolf of Rimini,? were more than ruthless generals; they were cultured patrons of the arts who nonetheless took their rivalry to bloody excess. Here their story is set against the rich backdrop of 15th-century Italy, a sweeping epic of nobility and war, betrayals and vengeance.« less