Book

Renaissance mass murder : civilians and soldiers during the Italian wars

Bowd, Stephen D., author

Overview

Renaissance Mass Murder' explores the devastating impact of war on the men and women of the Renaissance. In contrast to the picture of balance and harmony usually associated with the Renaissance, it uncovers in forensic detail a world in which sacks of Italian cities and massacres of civilians at the hands of French, German, Spanish, Swiss, and Italian troops were regular occurrences. 0The arguments presented are based on a wealth of evidence - histories and chronicles, poetry and paintings, sculpture and other objects - which together provide a new and startling history of sixteenth-century Italy and a social history of the Italian Wars. It outlines how massacres happened, how princes, soldiers, lawyers, and writers justified and explained such events, and how they were represented in contemporary culture. 0On this basis, Renaissance Mass Murder reconstructs the terrifying individual experiences of civilians in the face of war and in doing so offers a story of human tragedy which redresses the balance of the history of the Italian Wars, and of Renaissance warfare, in favour of the civilian and away from the din of battle. This volume also places mass murder in a broader historical context and challenges claims that such violence was unusual or in decline in early modern Europe. Finally,0it shows that women often suffered disproportionately from this violence and that immunity for them, as for their children, was often partially developed or poorly respected.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Subject: Violence Italy History. / War and society Italy History To 1500. / Mass murder Italy History. / Italy History, Military 1268-1559. / Italy Politics and government 1268-1559. / Italy History 1492-1870.
• ISBN: 0198832613, 9780198832614

Item info:

1 item available

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Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
DG483.B69 2018	1	BOOK	AUTOSTORE