Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age

By Theodore K. Rabb

Book Overview

With Renaissance Lives, Theodore K. Rabb revives a tradition of writing that was often practiced by the historians of that astounding era: to tell the story of an age by examining the lives of those who lived it. Rabb's subjects are all people who felt change gather speed around them: from Titian and Galileo to Catherine de' Medici and John Milton. In their stories we see, above all, the powers of ideas to liberate, to enthrall, to provoke, and to resolve conflict.Renaissance Lives shows us the struggle -- with its grave disappointments but also its extraordinary achievements that accompanied the creation of the world we recognize as our own.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465068006
• ISBN13: 9780465068005
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

get to know the Renaissance & the people

Rabb picked a great selection of people to write about in this book and presents them all in such a way -- erudite, smart -- that changes in European society are detailed very well. This great book gives in-depth information about these people who characterize aspects of the changing Renaissance society & gives a very workable outline of major changes that happened among the people throughout the Renaissance centuries, from Petrarch who lived through the 1256 Plague to 17th Century poet & academic John Milton. He uses letters from the people & incidents from their lives that tell more not only about who they were as people but also describe changes in the society that he uses these people as a portal to.

a nicely done book

Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age by Theodore K Rabb. This nicely done book, based on the PBS Series, is an excellent reference for the understanding the important people during the renaissance. It gives the reader a clear picture of the famous folk (and some not so famous) that an educated person living during the sixteenth century would be familiar with. Renaissance Lives: Portraits of an Age gives a synopsis of the lives of 15 men and women from Galileo Galilee to a merchant named Gluckel of Hameln. Covering England and Western Europe, the living history aficionado is provided with yet another great aid for the performance of their art.