Review by Choice Review
Although Florence has inspired generations of scholars, tourists, and students to contemplate its rich historical legacy, there have been surprisingly few English-language narrative histories of this iconic city's golden age. Najemy (Cornell) synthesizes the ever-increasing specialized scholarship on Florence to produce a detailed history of the significant individuals and events that shaped the city. His extensive archival experience, coupled with previous publications on Florentine political and intellectual history, provide him with the necessary background for this 400-year overview of the city by the Arno. The author relies principally upon a political narrative, tracing the rise and fall of feudal families, a guild republic, and the Medici principate from the age of the medieval commune to the entrenchment of the Tuscan duchy. Najemy complements this history of power politics with an examination of social and economic topics like sodomy, self-fashioning, the castasto, and marriage practices, which have been important areas of research in recent years. Along with recent publications like Carole Frick's Dressing Renaissance Florence (2002), Beyond Florence, ed. by Paula Findlen et al. (2003), and editors Roger Crum and John Paoletti's Renaissance Florence: A Social History (CH, Mar'07, 44-4081), Najemy's book suggests that the Anglo-American fascination with Florence and its environs is alive and well. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. C. Carlsmith University of Massachusetts--Lowell
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
