
Botticelli's Secret
The Lost Drawings and the Rediscovery of the Renaissance
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $11.87
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Keith Szarabajka
-
By:
-
Joseph Luzzi
About this listen
A true historical “detective story” full of insight about how we look at art―and the artists and eras that produced it.
Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished. Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity, and his illustrations went missing for 400 years.
The nineteenth-century rediscovery of Botticelli’s Dante drawings brought scholars to their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come to mean. Today, Botticelli’s Primavera adorns household objects of every kind. This book is essential to explain not only how and why this artist became iconic, but why we need still need his work―and the spirit of the Renaissance―today.
©2022 Joseph Luzzi (P)2022 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
-
The Great Air Race
- Death, Glory, and the Dawn of American Aviation
- By: John Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible, untold story of the men who risked their lives in the first transcontinental air contest—and put American aviation on the map.
-
-
Very entertaining/informative book
- By D. Littman on 12-09-22
By: John Lancaster
-
Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
-
-
Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
-
Into the Great Emptiness
- Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1930, no place in the world was less well explored than Greenland. The native Inuit had occupied the relatively accessible west coast for centuries. The east coast, however, was another story. In August 1930, Henry George Watkins (nicknamed “Gino”), a twenty-three-year-old British explorer, led thirteen scientists and explorers on an ambitious expedition to the east coast of Greenland and into its vast and forbidding interior to set up a permanent meteorological base on the icecap, 8,200 feet above sea level.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Sandy L Fleming on 12-02-22
By: David Roberts
-
The Dark Queens
- The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World
- By: Shelley Puhak
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe.
-
-
Fascinating & Long Overdue
- By Mary E Birdsong on 10-22-22
By: Shelley Puhak
-
Have You Eaten Yet?
- Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World
- By: Cheuk Kwan
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Haifa, Israel, to Cape Town, South Africa, Chinese entrepreneurs and restaurateurs have brought delicious Chinese food across the globe. Unraveling a complex history of cultural migration and world politics, Cheuk Kwan describes a fascinating story of culture and place, ultimately revealing how an excellent meal always tells an even better story.
-
-
wonderful history of Chinese diaspora and food
- By Victoria on 03-06-23
By: Cheuk Kwan
-
Satellite Boy
- The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communication Age
- By: Andrew Amelinckx
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On April 6, 1965, Georges Lemay was relaxing on his yacht in a south Florida marina following one of the largest and most daring bank heists in Canadian history. For four years, the roguishly handsome criminal mastermind hid in plain sight, eluding capture and the combined efforts of the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His future appeared secure. What Lemay didn't know was that less than two hundred miles away at Cape Canaveral, a brilliant engineer named Harold Rosen was about to usher in the age of global live television.
-
-
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED — this is a gripping history!!
- By Deborah R. Castleman on 03-22-23
By: Andrew Amelinckx
-
The Great Air Race
- Death, Glory, and the Dawn of American Aviation
- By: John Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The incredible, untold story of the men who risked their lives in the first transcontinental air contest—and put American aviation on the map.
-
-
Very entertaining/informative book
- By D. Littman on 12-09-22
By: John Lancaster
-
Con/Artist
- The Life and Crimes of the World's Greatest Art Forger
- By: Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone, Tony Tetro, Giampiero Ambrosi
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.
-
-
Incredibly interesting!
- By Carole Wooten on 12-07-22
By: Tony Tetro, and others
-
Into the Great Emptiness
- Peril and Survival on the Greenland Ice Cap
- By: David Roberts
- Narrated by: Julian Elfer
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1930, no place in the world was less well explored than Greenland. The native Inuit had occupied the relatively accessible west coast for centuries. The east coast, however, was another story. In August 1930, Henry George Watkins (nicknamed “Gino”), a twenty-three-year-old British explorer, led thirteen scientists and explorers on an ambitious expedition to the east coast of Greenland and into its vast and forbidding interior to set up a permanent meteorological base on the icecap, 8,200 feet above sea level.
-
-
Wonderful!
- By Sandy L Fleming on 12-02-22
By: David Roberts
-
The Dark Queens
- The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World
- By: Shelley Puhak
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet - in sixth-century Merovingian France, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport - these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms, changing the face of Europe.
-
-
Fascinating & Long Overdue
- By Mary E Birdsong on 10-22-22
By: Shelley Puhak
-
Have You Eaten Yet?
- Stories from Chinese Restaurants Around the World
- By: Cheuk Kwan
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From Haifa, Israel, to Cape Town, South Africa, Chinese entrepreneurs and restaurateurs have brought delicious Chinese food across the globe. Unraveling a complex history of cultural migration and world politics, Cheuk Kwan describes a fascinating story of culture and place, ultimately revealing how an excellent meal always tells an even better story.
-
-
wonderful history of Chinese diaspora and food
- By Victoria on 03-06-23
By: Cheuk Kwan
-
Satellite Boy
- The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communication Age
- By: Andrew Amelinckx
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On April 6, 1965, Georges Lemay was relaxing on his yacht in a south Florida marina following one of the largest and most daring bank heists in Canadian history. For four years, the roguishly handsome criminal mastermind hid in plain sight, eluding capture and the combined efforts of the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His future appeared secure. What Lemay didn't know was that less than two hundred miles away at Cape Canaveral, a brilliant engineer named Harold Rosen was about to usher in the age of global live television.
-
-
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED — this is a gripping history!!
- By Deborah R. Castleman on 03-22-23
By: Andrew Amelinckx
-
A History of the Human Brain
- From the Sea Sponge to CRISPR, How Our Brain Evolved
- By: Bret Stetka
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just over 125,000 years ago, humanity was going extinct until a dramatic shift occurred—Homo sapiens started tracking the tides in order to eat the nearby oysters. Before long, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink of extinction. The human brain, and its evolutionary journey, is unlike anything else in history. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes listeners through that far-reaching journey. He also tackles the question of where the brain will take us next, exploring the burgeoning concepts of epigenetics and new technologies like CRISPR.
-
-
Fascinating survey of the evolution of the human brain
- By Cosmos on 03-30-21
By: Bret Stetka
-
The Islander
- My Life in Music and Beyond
- By: Chris Blackwell
- Narrated by: Bill Nighy
- Length: 11 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since its founding in 1959, Island Records has been home to legendary artists representing wildly divergent musical styles, yet who share the same maverick, outsider spirit of its founder, Chris Blackwell. Time and again, Blackwell and his Island cohorts identified and nurtured musicians overlooked by other labels, including Bob Marley, U2, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones, Roxy Music, Traffic, Nick Drake, Tom Waits, Robert Palmer, Free, the B-52’s, John Martyn, and Jimmy Cliff.
-
-
A Record Label Boss in Flip Flops Tells His Story
- By Ann Arbor on 12-15-22
By: Chris Blackwell
-
Also a Poet
- A Memoir
- By: Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started 40 years earlier. As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.
-
-
Pretty Interesting
- By Michele A. Cacano-Green on 08-02-22
By: Ada Calhoun
-
Powers and Thrones
- A New History of the Middle Ages
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 24 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the once-mighty city of Rome was sacked by barbarians in 410 and lay in ruins, it signaled the end of an era—and the beginning of a thousand years of profound transformation. In a gripping narrative bursting with big names—from St Augustine and Attila the Hun to the Prophet Muhammad and Eleanor of Aquitaine—Dan Jones charges through the history of the Middle Ages. Powers and Thrones takes listeners on a journey through an emerging Europe, the great capitals of late Antiquity, as well as the influential cities of the Islamic West.
-
-
Hard to take a break from it!
- By Mariano's Music on 12-09-21
By: Dan Jones
-
The Hope
- By: Herman Wouk
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Starting in 1948 and reaching its climax during the Six-Day War of 1967, The Hope begins the story of Israel, a country fighting for its life - outmatched and surrounded by enemies. Zev Barak, Sam Pasternak, Don Kishote, and Benny Luria are all officers in the Israeli Army, caught up in the sweep of history, fighting the desperate desert battles and meeting the larger-than-life personalities that shaped Israel’s fight for independence.
-
-
One of my favorite books along with The Gory!
- By Deborah on 10-26-18
By: Herman Wouk
-
The Game of Kings
- Book One in the Legendary Lymond Chronicles
- By: Dorothy Dunnett
- Narrated by: David Monteath
- Length: 21 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1547, and Scotland has been humiliated by an English invasion and is threatened by machinations elsewhere beyond its borders, but it is still free. Paradoxically, her freedom may depend on a man who stands accused of treason. He is Francis Crawford of Lymond, a scapegrace nobleman of crooked felicities and murderous talents, possessed of a scholar's erudition and a tongue as wicked as a rapier. In The Game of Kings, this extraordinary antihero returns to the country that has outlawed him to redeem his reputations even at the risk of his life.
-
-
Be prepared to be completely enthralled
- By Meta Spirit on 07-20-19
By: Dorothy Dunnett
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
Cleopatra
- A Life
- By: Stacy Schiff
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order.
-
-
Approach this book with caution
- By GolfZilla on 12-02-10
By: Stacy Schiff
-
The Romanovs
- 1613-1918
- By: Simon Sebag Montefiore
- Narrated by: Simon Beale
- Length: 28 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence, and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries, and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin.
-
-
Scholarly but gripping
- By William on 06-16-16
-
Consider This
- Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different
- By: Chuck Palahniuk
- Narrated by: Chuck Palahniuk, Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, best-selling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing. With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more.
-
-
Poetic Justice
- By Dave Green on 01-20-20
By: Chuck Palahniuk
-
The Fall of Númenor
- And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-Earth
- By: J.R.R. Tolkien, Brian Sibley - editor
- Narrated by: Samuel West, Brian Sibley
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ‘dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told’. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron.
-
-
A dry compilation of old material, minus images
- By SC on 11-12-22
By: J.R.R. Tolkien, and others
-
The Razor's Edge
- By: W. Somerset Maugham
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Great War changed everything and everyone, and Larry Darrell is no exception. Though his physical wounds from the war heal, his spirit is changed almost beyond recognition. He leaves his betrothed, the beautiful and devoted Isabel; studies philosophy and religion in Paris; lives as a monk, and witnesses the exotic hardships of Spanish life. All of life that he can find - from an Indian Ashrama to labor in a coal mine - becomes Larry's spiritual experiment as he spurns the comfort and privilege of the Roaring 20s.
-
-
An Classic of Love and the Desire for Meaning
- By Eric on 01-06-17
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
In a Dark Wood
- What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love
- By: Joseph Luzzi
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante's Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning - a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss.
By: Joseph Luzzi
-
Hilma af Klint
- A Biography
- By: Julia Voss, Anne Posten - translator
- Narrated by: Doria Bramante
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic.
-
-
Ruined by narration
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-23-23
By: Julia Voss, and others
-
The Lives of the Artists
- By: Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conway Bondanella - Translated by, Peter Bondanella - Translated by
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
-
-
Awesome
- By Daniel on 05-17-19
By: Giorgio Vasari, and others
-
Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
-
-
Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
-
Brunelleschi's Dome
- How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes to carry an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction.
-
-
Great history with terrible narration
- By Whiskey Mike on 12-16-21
By: Ross King
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
In a Dark Wood
- What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love
- By: Joseph Luzzi
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the aftermath of a heartbreaking tragedy, a scholar and writer uses Dante's Divine Comedy to shepherd him through the dark wood of grief and mourning - a rich and emotionally resonant memoir of suffering, hope, love, and the power of literature to inspire and heal the most devastating loss.
By: Joseph Luzzi
-
Hilma af Klint
- A Biography
- By: Julia Voss, Anne Posten - translator
- Narrated by: Doria Bramante
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Swedish painter Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was forty-four years old when she broke with the academic tradition in which she had been trained to produce a body of radical, abstract works the likes of which had never been seen before. Today, it is widely accepted that af Klint was one of the earliest abstract academic painters in Europe. But this is only part of her story. Not only was she a working female artist, she was also an avowed clairvoyant and mystic.
-
-
Ruined by narration
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-23-23
By: Julia Voss, and others
-
The Lives of the Artists
- By: Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conway Bondanella - Translated by, Peter Bondanella - Translated by
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
-
-
Awesome
- By Daniel on 05-17-19
By: Giorgio Vasari, and others
-
Leonardo and the Last Supper
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Early in 1495, Leonardo da Vinci began work in Milan on what would become one of history's most influential and beloved works of art - The Last Supper. After a dozen years at the court of Lodovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, Leonardo was at a low point personally and professionally: at 43, in an era when he had almost reached the average life expectancy, he had failed, despite a number of prestigious commissions, to complete anything that truly fulfilled his astonishing promise.
-
-
Informative yet creative
- By Isabellabasil on 05-27-15
By: Ross King
-
Brunelleschi's Dome
- How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 6 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brunelleschi's Dome is the story of how a Renaissance genius bent men, materials, and the very forces of nature to build an architectural wonder we continue to marvel at today. Denounced at first as a madman, Brunelleschi was celebrated at the end as a genius. He engineered the perfect placement of brick and stone, built ingenious hoists and cranes to carry an estimated 70 million pounds hundreds of feet into the air, and designed the workers' platforms and routines so carefully that only one man died during the decades of construction.
-
-
Great history with terrible narration
- By Whiskey Mike on 12-16-21
By: Ross King
-
The Upside-Down World
- Meetings with the Dutch Masters
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Beyond the sainted Rembrandt—who harbored a startling darkness—and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was.
-
-
Great Book
- By PaulB on 02-29-24
By: Benjamin Moser
-
A Degree in a Book: Art History
- Everything You Need to Know to Master the Subject
- By: John Finlay
- Narrated by: Ruth Ollman
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Spanning from the classical sculpture of Ancient Rome to contemporary performance art, this guide provides a rich overview of art history, covering many topics explored in a history of art degrees.
-
-
Better for Beginners
- By Bonnie Mommy on 03-12-24
By: John Finlay
-
Mad Enchantment
- Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness.
-
-
Wonderful book. Awful awful narration.
- By StphnyC on 06-23-17
By: Ross King
-
The Florentines
- From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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 completely new aspect. Sciences would be born - or emerge in an entirely new guise.
-
-
Narrator ruins the narrative
- By amavita on 03-24-22
By: Paul Strathern
-
The Passion of Artemisia
- By: Susan Vreeland
- Narrated by: Gigi Bermingham
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, and Genoa, and Naples, peopled with historical characters and filled with the details of the life of a 17th-century painter, The Passion of Artemisia is the story of Gentileschi's struggle to find love, forgiveness, and wholeness through her art.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Kay on 05-21-03
By: Susan Vreeland
-
The Golden Ratio
- The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number
- By: Mario Livio
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, thinkers from mathematicians to theologians have pondered the mysterious relationship between numbers and the nature of reality. In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: phi, or 1.6180339887.... This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio", was discovered by Euclid more than 2,000 years ago. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places.
-
-
Tedious Listen
- By Amanda Halsdorff on 10-25-14
By: Mario Livio
-
Michelangelo
- By: George Bull
- Narrated by: Nadia May
- Length: 18 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was recognized in his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a succession of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. In all his work, Michelangelo impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with terribilita, or intense emotional power.
-
-
Excellent biography for those with some background
- By Penelope on 08-13-13
By: George Bull
-
Last Light
- How Six Great Artists Made Old Age a Time of Triumph
- By: Richard Lacayo
- Narrated by: Mack Sanderson
- Length: 13 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the nation’s top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers—and, in some cases, changing the course of art history. Though these six artists differed in many respects, they shared one thing: a determination to go on creating, driven not by the bounding energies of youth but by the ticking clock that would inspire them to produce some of their greatest masterpieces.
-
-
An art history course in one slim book
- By LC on 02-19-23
By: Richard Lacayo
-
The Modern Scholar: In Michelangelo’s Shadow
- The Mystery of Modern Italy
- By: Prof. Joseph Luzzi
- Narrated by: Joseph Luzzi
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The director of Italian studies at Bard College, Professor Joseph Luzzi leads a comprehensive overview of Italian culture. Beginning in the fabled realm of Renaissance art and concluding with the sweeping transformations of present-day Italy, Professor Luzzi examines the Italian mystique and answers a number of intriguing questions: Is there a distinctly “Italian” way of looking at the world? To whom do Italian Renaissance treasures truly belong? Could the United States as known today exist without the contributions of Italian culture?
-
-
Disappointing delivery
- By CB on 01-21-11
-
Twilight Cities
- Lost Capitals of the Mediterranean
- By: Katherine Pangonis
- Narrated by: Katherine Pangonis
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Katherine Pangonis explores five forgotten cities of the Mediterranean: Syracuse, Antioch, Ravenna, Tyre and Carthage. Each of these of these ancient cities has a claim to have been the centre of the world in its own time. Their fascinating entwined history takes in Alexander the Great, the Byzantine general Maniakes, and the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman conquests. All were once major power centres that have declined into relative obscurity - but their glory still lingers for those who seek it out.
-
-
Well researched literature
- By Bob H on 05-14-24
-
The Shortest History of Italy
- 3,000 Years from the Romans to the Renaissance to a Modern Republic―A Retelling for Our Times
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A concise, star-studded retelling of Italy's past, from Caesar and Augustus to da Vinci and Michelangelo, tracing the story of a country with prodigious global influence—from a foremost author of historic Italy.
-
-
Why not hire a reader who has any idea how to pronounce Italian?
- By Miguel on 08-18-24
By: Ross King
-
The House of Medici
- Its Rise and Fall
- By: Christopher Hibbert
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This enthralling book charts the family's huge influence on the political, economic, and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence's slide into decay and bankruptcy, and the end, in 1737, of the Medici line.
-
-
Laundry list of names
- By Elizabeth W on 01-02-17
-
What the Ermine Saw
- The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait
- By: Eden Collinsworth
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. Sforza was a brutal and clever man who was mindful that Leonardo’s genius would not only capture Cecilia’s beguiling beauty but also reflect the grandeur of his title. But when the portrait was finished, Leonardo’s brush strokes had conveyed something deeper by revealing the essence of Cecilia’s soul.
-
-
So Many Names
- By Sue Solomon on 12-13-22
What listeners say about Botticelli's Secret
Highly rated for:
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James R. Modrall
- 06-07-23
Not so secret
The two halves of the book are very different - the first is an entertaining but not especially original intro to Renaissance Florence in which Botticelli doesn't play a very prominent role. The second is an overview of Western attitudes towards Renaissance art. Many interesting characters appear, including Burckhardt, Pater, Ruskin, Horne and Berenson. This would be a great topic for a standalone book but the effort to tie everything back to Botticelli in general and his Dante drawings especially is unconvincing. The reader is generally fine but his habit of putting on fake accents for translated quotations is annoying.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Monhegan Monarch
- 05-02-23
The reader doesn’t get it…
Content is interesting so I listened to the end. The reader used a variety of accents to evidently add interest, and or credibility to the text. It became very annoying because his accents are not that great, and it interrupted the flow of the story. It may be that he assumed the listeners were novices to this type of story?
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ellen Nicole Allen
- 04-04-23
Dry style. Except for the epilogue
Interesting and well researched information but presented in a fairly dry way. Until I got to the epilogue. It made me wish he had written the entire book with a more personal style. Really made it come alive like a majority of the book did not. But it’s still worth the listen I think.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lina
- 05-13-23
Interesting
The story is really interesting, but naration trying to make accents is really unnecesary and irritating sometimes.
Overall, I learned new things about Dante and Botticelli
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eileen
- 06-09-24
A deeper understanding of that period of history
Learning more of those times and the impact of the politics of art and how the powerful few controlled it. And interesting to follow the circuitous route that artists and their work takes throughout history, and only surviving by those individuals passionate to share art with the world. I appreciated the authors epilogue, but saddened that so many great works of art are still kept from the public and are being hyper controlled within the vast riches of the Roman Catholic Church. So hypocritical and elitist. Real shame.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JR from Dallas
- 12-09-22
Highly Recommend
Great book by an outstanding author. Serves both as an overview of the time period and in-depth look at Botticelli, his art and his illustrations of Dante's wondrous poem, La Divina Commedia.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
9 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- w.l.
- 04-04-23
Unevenly interesting
I found the beginning of the book interesting, after that, the author dug into side roads to trace the provenance of Botticelli. When he placed things in the Florentine Renaissance, offering up tales of people that were part of the scene around Botticelli, I was interested. When he traced the scholars, I was not interested and could barely pay attention.
I guess it depends on what you are looking for.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Julia
- 09-13-24
Misleading title and poor narrator
Despite the title of my review I enjoyed this and learned a lot. While the title of the book does nothing to show its true scope (only about half the book concerns Botticelli), my real quibble is with the narrator. He does comically stereotypical accents when quoting historical people (I doubt a XVth-century Florentine would sound like a first-generation Italian immigrant to the US; just read the quote normally!) and keeps randomly pausing mid-sentence, probably to catch his breath. Shame because his timbre of voice is lovely.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- B. Thompson
- 04-11-23
Loved it!
Really enjoyed this. Art history is a hobby and learned a great deal. Might be a bit dry but still very enjoyable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- giovani
- 08-03-23
Disappointing
There are some jewels here. However they are embedded within a sea of trivialities. The writing is good but full of sloppy redundancy. Above all the phony accents are pathetic and distracting.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!