The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization

A sweeping and magisterial four-hundred-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance.



Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a complete...