Miles J. Unger

Además de brillante pensador político, casi creador de una ciencia, Nicolás de Maquiavelo se ha convertido en un sinónimo de la maquinación y ambición. Su nombre designa, según la circunstancia, un pecado o un rasgo de astucia envidiable. Inspira respeto y un cierto temor, y expresa tambien una fatalidad: la del pragmatismo que regula la escena del poder. Su gran obra, El Principe, se puede leer como una guia practica para el aspirante a politico. Lo que suele tenerse menos presente es el periodo en que ese texto se escribio. Diplomatico y funcionario en Florencia, Maquiavelo fue contemporaneo de Leonardo da Vinci, de Miguel Angel y de tiranos brutales. La violenta carrera de Cesar Borgia le sirvio de modelo. Analizo sus exitos y sus fracasos y los contrasto con la carrera de otros reyes, papas y emperadores. Esa fue la base real de su filosofia politica. Habitualmente se la considera cinica o inmoral, un prejuicio que impide comprender la profundidad y la vigencia de los textos. Esta biografia toma un camino diverso. Sostiene que Maquiavelo fue, ante todo, un estudioso de la naturaleza humana y un escritor brillante. Sus teorias fueron una respuesta a la violencia y la corrupcion de su epoca. Al mismo tiempo, puede ser considerado el primer moderno: contempla un mundo sin dios y reflexiona sobre las consecuencias que esta ausencia tiene en la relacion entre politica y sociedad.

The fascinating story of Vincent van Goghs two groundbreaking years in Paris, where he transformed himself from a provincial unknown into one of the worlds great visionary artists.Vincent Van Gogh arrived in the French capital on the last day of February 1886, a month short of his thirty-third birthday. He was a man beaten down by life, half-starved, and nearly broken psychologically. He was saved by his brother Theo, who provided him with room, board, and, most crucially, emotional support while he attempted to master the difficult craft of painting. Thus far, Vincents crude scenes of peasant life rendered in murky shades of brown and gray were both hackneyed and amateurish. Theo, a successful art dealer at a prestigious Parisian firm, dismissed them as gloomy, unappealing, and, worst of all, unmarketable. By the time Vincent left Paris, almost exactly two years later, hed transformed himself into one of the most original artists of the age, turning out works of hallucinatory intensity in vivid hues and stamped with his own distinctive personality. A Fire in His Soul chronicles this remarkable transformation. Its a tale filled with tragedy and triumph, personal anguish and creative fulfillment, as Vincent, through sheer force of will, reinvents himself as a painter of unparalleled expressive power. Along the way, the reader will discover an unfamiliar Van Gogh: not the solitary genius of the popular imagination, shunned by an uncomprehending world and conjuring masterpieces from the depths of his lonely soul. In Paris, he was at the center of a community of like-minded seekers. Here, Van Gogh was able to engage in a lively dialogue with fellow artists almost as daring as he was, expanding his notion of what art could and should be. It was in the cafes and studios of Montmartre and in the grand galleries of the Louvre and Luxembourg, that Van Gogh received his artistic educationa crash course that at first disoriented him but ultimately sparked his creative breakthrough. Working alongside such legendary figures as Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, and Signac, he found his voice and launched an artistic revolution.

A vividly colorful portrait of one of the greatest and most fascinating figures of the Renaissance, Lorenzo de Medici, focusing on his role as a brilliantsometimes ruthlessstatesman who was responsible for the artistic flowering of Florence, the city where the Renaissance first blossomed.Lorenzo de Medicia leading statesman, the uncrowned ruler of Florence during its golden age, a true Renaissance man known to history as Il Magnifico (the Magnificent). Lorenzo was not only the foremost patron of his day but also a renowned poet, equally adept at composing philosophical verses and obscene rhymes to be sung at Carnival. He befriended the greatest artists and writers of the timeLeonardo, Botticelli, Poliziano, and, especially, Michelangelo, whom he discovered as a young boy and invited to live at his palaceand, in the process, turned Florence into the cultural capital of Europe. Though Lorenzos grandfather Cosimo had converted the vast wealth of the family bank into political power, Lorenzos position was precarious. Bitter rivalries among the leading Florentine families and competition among the squabbling Italian states meant that Lorenzos life was under constant threat. Those who plotted his death included a pope, a king, and a duke, but Lorenzo used his legendary charm and diplomatic skillas well as occasional acts of violenceto navigate the murderous labyrinth of Italian politics. Florence in the age of Lorenzo was a city of contrasts, of unparalleled artistic brilliance and unimaginable squalor in the citys crowded tenements; of both pagan excess and the fire-and-brimstone sermons of the Dominican preacher Savonarola. Florence gave birth to both the otherworldly perfection of Botticellis Primavera and the gritty realism of Machiavellis The Prince. Nowhere was this world of contrasts more perfectly embodied than in the life and character of the man who ruled this most fascinating city.

One of The Christian Science Monitors Best Nonfiction Books of the YearAn engrossing reada historically and psychologically rich account of the young Picasso and his coteries in Barcelona and Paris (The Washington Post) and how he achieved his breakthrough and revolutionized modern art through his masterpiece, Les Demoiselles dAvignon.In 1900, eighteen-year-old Pablo Picasso journeyed from Barcelona to Paris, the glittering capital of the art world. For the next several years he endured poverty and neglect before emerging as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Here he met his first true love and enjoyed his first taste of fame. Decades later Picasso would look back on these years as the happiest of his long life.Recognition came first from the avant-garde, then from daring collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein. In 1907, Picasso began the vast, disturbing masterpiece known as Les Demoiselles dAvignon. Inspired by the painting of Paul Cezanne and the inventions of African and tribal sculpture, Picasso created a work that captured the disorienting experience of modernity itself. The painting proved so shocking that even his friends assumed hed gone mad, but over the months and years it exerted an ever greater fascination on the most advanced painters and sculptors, ultimately laying the foundation for the most innovative century in the history of art.In Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World, Miles J. Unger combines the personal story of Picassos early years in Parishis friendships, his romances, his great ambition, his fearswith the larger story of modernism and the avant-garde (The Christian Science Monitor). This is the story of an artistic genius with a singular creative gift. It is rivetingThis engrossing book chronicles with precision and enthusiasm a painting with lasting impact in todays art world (Publishers Weekly, starred review), all of it played out against the backdrop of the worlds most captivating city.

A suberb biography" (USA TODAY) of Italian philosopher and playwright Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, whose writings have outraged and inspired generations of readers.Niccolo Machiavelli is the most infamous and influential political writer of all time. His name has become synonymous with cynical scheming and the selfish pursuit of power, but the real Machiavelli, says Miles Unger, was a deeply humane and perceptive writer whose controversial theories were a response to the violence and corruption he saw around him. Machiavellis philosophy was shaped by the tumultuous age in which he lived, an age of towering geniuses and brutal tyrants. His first political mission was to spy on the fire-and-brimstone preacher Savonarola. He was on intimate terms with Leonardo and Michelangelo. As a diplomat, he matched wits with the corrupt Pope Alexander VI and his son, the infamous Cesare Borgia, whose violent career served as a model for The Prince. Analyzing their successes and failures, Machiavelli developed his revolutionary approach to power politics. His famous book is a guide that is based on the world as it is, not as it should be. Miles Unger has relied on original Italian sources as well as his own deep knowledge of Florence in writing this fascinating and authoritative account of a genius whose work remains as relevant today as when he wrote it.

This is the life of one of the most revolutionary artists in history, told through the story of six of his greatest masterpieces: The one indispensable guide for encountering Michelangelo on his home turf (The Dallas Morning News).Michelangelo stands alone as a master of painting, sculpture, and architecture, a man who reinvented the practice of art itself. Throughout his long career he clashed with patrons by insisting that he had no master but his own demanding muse. Michelangelo was ambitious, egotistical, and difficult, but through the towering force of genius and through sheer pugnaciousness, he transformed the way we think about art.Miles Unger narrates the life of this tormented genius through six of his greatest masterpieces. Each work expanded the expressive range of the medium, from the Pieta carved by a brash young man of twenty-four, to the apocalyptic Last Judgment, the work of an old man weighed down by the unimaginable suffering he had witnessed. In the gargantuan David he depicts Man in the glory of his youth, while in the tombs he carved for his Medici overlords he offers perhaps historys most sustained meditation on death and the afterlife of the soul. In the vast expanse of the Sistine Chapel ceiling he tells the epic story of Creation. During the final decades of his life, his hands too unsteady to wield the brush and chisel, he exercised his mind by raising the soaring vaults and dome of St. Peters in a final tribute to his God.A deeply human tribute to one of the most accomplished and fascinating figures inthe history of Western culture (The Boston Globe), Michelangelo brings to life the irascible, egotistical, and undeniably brilliant man whose artistry continues to amaze and inspire us after five hundred years.