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Post by timothylane on Sept 17, 2019 19:28:05 GMT -8
One of my grade-school history books mentioned Tamerlane. There was a certain amount of joshing over the name in class ("Tame 'er, Lane"). The Marlowe version is Tamburlaine. The actual version was Timur-i-lenk, which meant Timur the Lame but is often given as Tamerlane. (I've seen other versions, too.)
Basil II had a lot of money, too. As a prince he was a wastrel, but once he became emperor he began to save money, building new storerooms for all the gold. (I did a biographical article on him for a Salem Press volume on wealthy people through history.) As usual, his heirs quickly blew it all, and then a few decades later came Manzikert. (The original Videssos series was set around an equivalent, with an equivalent of Anna Comnena as a major character. She was a historian famed for her bio of her brother, the Alexiad, which my friends the Majors adopted as the name of their SF fanzine. He also did one on one or more of the Basils.)
We had a set of Norwich's trilogy, and also Gibbon's.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 9, 2019 20:51:20 GMT -8
"The Renaissance" by Will Durant
I have finally finished this volume which lays out as much about the Italian Renaissance as one could wish. The single greatest accomplishment of this era was probably its art, and specifically its painting. Durant spends much time on this and on the artists who we remember. Leonardo, Raphael, Giotto, Titian and others are given a great amount of ink, but it is clear that Durant considers Michelangelo the greatest of them all. In summation of Michelangelo Durant writes: The last word must be one of humility. We middling mortals, even while presuming to sit in judgment upon the gods, must not fail to recognize their divinity. We need not be ashamed to worship heroes, if our sense of discrimination is not left outside their shrines. We honor Michelangelo because through a long and tortured life he continued to create, and produced in each main field a masterpiece. We see these works torn, so to speak, out of his flesh and blood, out of his mind and heart, leaving him for a time weakened with birth. We see them taking form through a hundred thousand strokes of hammer and chisel, pencil and brush; one after another, like an immortal population, they take their place among the lasting shapes of beauty or significance. We cannot know what God is, nor understand a universe so mingled of apparent evil and good, of suffering and loveliness, destruction and sublimity; but in the presence of a mother tending her child, or of a genius giving order to chaos, meaning to matter, nobility to form or thought, we feel as close as we shall ever be to the life and mind and law that constitute the unintelligible intelligence of the world.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 9, 2019 22:23:18 GMT -8
"The Renaissance" by Will Durant
While reading Durant's books, I have learned of many very interesting characters, both good and evil. One who is particularly interesting was a Florentine historian born in the late 15th century by the name of Guicciardini. Durant maintains he is the greatest historian of the 16th century. He was from a noble family and had been a successful ambassador and governor at a young age. He decided to get out of politics and started writing history. He succeeded in this endeavor as well. Even Charles V, the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, etc, etc kept lords and generals waiting in order to meet and speak with Guicciardini. Upon reading of this man, I felt a distant kindred spirit. Durant writes; One must recall these observations are taking place around the time of Luther's condemnation of the Catholic Church, because of its corruption. I particularly liked Guicciardini's observations regarding the various political parties in Florence shouting "liberty" but only wanting power. As regards the "people" he states; Durant closes writing; I have three points to make.
1. That last sentence explains very well why faith is necessary for civilization.
2. We in America were relatively lucky in our society, for a while.
3. Is mankind truly any different today than it was in the 16th century?
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 9, 2019 22:35:10 GMT -8
Durant explodes the myth that the Church was a large obstacle to the advancement of science during the Renaissance. He writes,
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Post by timothylane on Nov 10, 2019 7:01:12 GMT -8
Very interesting points. Galileo considered himself a good Catholic and his daughter was a nun who supported his work. Blaise Pascal, according to a short bio of him in my high-school geometry text, once decided the relief he felt working on certain mathematical puzzles showed that God wanted him to do that. And of course Copernicus was a cleric. So, for that matter, was Georges LeMaitre, who first came up with the Big Bang theory. Isaac Newton devoted more of his writing to theology than to science and mathematics.
I wonder if Gucciardini was still remembered later. A friend of mine once noted that Hamilton, discussing political ideas with Jefferson (who favored democracy, albeit with a well-informed populace), saying that "The people are a great beast." Of course, Hamilton was smart enough to come up with that on his own, and as "the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar" he perhaps knew more of "the people" than a wealthy planter and large slave-holder.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 11, 2019 17:08:17 GMT -8
"The Renaissance" by Will Durant
Early in the book, Durant introduces the reader to the eruption (my word) of humanism in Italy in the late 14th and 15th centuries. These men were obsessed with ancient Greek and Roman texts and culture. One suspects this is because they were not happy with the restrictions Christianity imposed on their minds and bodies.
I like one of Durant's comments on their influence.
The bit about stressing erudition rather than observation and original thought is still with us and dominant in our institutions of higher learning.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 11, 2019 17:27:30 GMT -8
"The Renaissance" by Will Durant
I found Durant's coverage of Savonarola and his Bonfire of the Vanities quite interesting. He wraps up his thoughts of this reformer who was, in the end, burned to death by those he wished to reform, thusly;
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Post by timothylane on Nov 11, 2019 17:50:24 GMT -8
One way Savonarola influenced art was by eliminating much of it in the Bonfire of the Vanities. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro covered this in her St. German novel The Palace, which was set during Savonarola's time.
Decadence is a problem for any society, or major branch of society, that has a very comfortable life. In that sense, we have a very unfortunate problem in that a good economy based on the free market leads to enough prosperity to result in a comfortable society, which becomes decadent -- which is deleterious (for various reasons) to the free market that generates wealth.
This, no doubt, is a major factor (maybe even the primary one) leading to the cycle by which societies go from slavery through several phases back to slavery.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 11, 2019 21:32:01 GMT -8
"The Renaissance" by Will Durant
When discussing Machiavelli, Durant writes:
Machiavelli assumed men are by nature
He writes,
Machiavelli scorned Christianity as enfeebling a state. But Durant has a very sharp reply to this.
Perhaps this is not surprising as he lived during one of the most morally rotten times in Italian history. And that is saying a lot.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 11, 2019 21:51:48 GMT -8
Of course, Christianity in the time of Machiavelli, particularly to a Florentine, basically meant the Catholic Church -- run by the Borgias. Rodrigo was just self-indulgent, but Cesare was the epitome of what would come to be called Machiavellianism. Lucrezia is harder to rate, since there many who think the murders people attributed to her were more likely the work of Cesare. (Come to think of it, given that they were the children of Alexander VI, I wonder if they were full siblings.)
I've read that The Prince is actually the opposite of what Machiavelli had done in the service of the Republic of Florence. Perhaps he was an idealist who (like so many do) became cynical and embittered by the hard knocks of reality.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 11, 2019 22:05:38 GMT -8
Durant debunks much of the sexual slander aimed at the Borgias, particularly Lucrezia. In fact, he believes Lucrezia was a good woman, by in large.
Caesare was Machiavelli's model for The Prince. I was surprised to learn that Leonardo worked for Caesare and a military engineer for some time.
Rodrigo (Alexander VI) may have been one of the most immoral popes in history, but according to Durant, Clement VII, a Medici, was probably the worst all round, or at least his pontificate was the most damaging to the Catholic Church.
Machiavelli's problem was that with all the tumult of the times, once he got involved in politics, he was inevitably on the wrong side some times and paid for it. He was an idealist of sorts, and was a proponent of Italian unification long before it came about. I agree he was another disappointed idealist who was disappointed with the world as it actually was.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 12, 2019 6:59:20 GMT -8
Mario Puzo's final book was a historical novel about the Borgias. He definitely portrays Lucrezia very favorably and sympathetically. She may have been the most sincere and moral Catholic of the family. I think Will Cuppy had a similar portrayal in The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody.
Leonardo was many things, which is one reason for his fame. But his primary occupation was probably being a military engineer. That may be why the designs in his notebooks included foreshadowings of helicopters, tanks, and parachutes.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 13, 2019 15:56:40 GMT -8
"The Reformation" by Will Durant
I have just started the sixth volume of Durant's series on civilization and he begins it with as good a synopsis of religion and its relationship to mankind as I have ever read.
From this brief piece, one should be able to understand why leftism, which has all the hallmarks of a religion, is so attractive to so many. The leftists understood that religion, particularly Christianity, stood in the way of the leftist agenda. That is why they have attacked it so vigorously over the last 250 years. I feel confident in saying that unless Christianity is reinvigorated in the USA, leftism will soon reign supreme. As Durant makes clear, mankind needs religion.
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Post by timothylane on Nov 13, 2019 16:25:11 GMT -8
Remember, we have another religion available besides Christianity (and Judaism) and leftism (worship of the bastard child of Moloch and Gaea). Islam is a growing fad, and a separate one despite its marriage of convenience with leftism. In the long run leftism can abide neither Christianity nor Islam. Which will win is hard to say given that leftism has numbers but Islam has the fear factor resulting from its propensity for violence. Christianity has even better numbers, but poor leadership often corrupted by leftism (e.g., the Peron Anti-Pope).
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 16, 2019 20:28:52 GMT -8
“The Age of Faith” by Will Durant
I have finally gotten the time to go back to Durant’s “The Age of Faith,” which covers the period from AD 325-1300, and reviewed the book marks I left throughout it. I will start quoting some of Durant’s thoughts that I found interesting.
Durant concludes his chapter IX with
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Post by timothylane on Nov 16, 2019 20:39:05 GMT -8
I hadn't realized that the Koran owed so much to Judaism, especially the Talmud. I knew they treated Jesus as the penultimate prophet Indeed, there have been instances in which christophobes mocking Jesus have faced pushback not from Christians but from Muslims.
In essence, both Judaism and Islam were intended as theocracies, though in the case of the Jews this would only apply to the Promised Land (Israel), whereas the Dar al-Islam was eventually to be the whole world. By contrast, Christianity was written as they were just a minor offshoot of a minor religion, and thus it was written for people living under non-Christian rule. The Jews more or less did the same thing, after the Bar Kochba revolt during Hadrian's reign led to the Diaspora, with the Talmud. Muslims need the same thing, but as long as they have their own nations this won't happen.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 16, 2019 20:41:32 GMT -8
Durant gives excellent advice to the student of the Middle Ages;
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 16, 2019 21:05:06 GMT -8
Much nonsense has been written about Christianity and slavery. Durant gives some necessary context to the subject.
As to the cultural and economic retreat made at the beginning of the Middle Ages, Durant says:
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Post by timothylane on Nov 16, 2019 21:53:04 GMT -8
There is a failure to differentiate the Dark Ages -- when societal collapse due to the barbarian conquests of the Roman Empire led to a temporary loss of technology and scholarship -- from the Middle Ages, when a largely illiterate population slowly made its way back, eventually progressing beyond where it had been and finally setting off the cultural explosion we call the Renaissance.
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Post by kungfuzu on Nov 18, 2019 21:16:40 GMT -8
"The Age of Faith" by Will Durant
The following excerpts deal with some zealous Christians who were under the rule of Moslems after they conquered Spain.
A monk went to the Moslem authorities and said,
He was asked if he was drunk but denied it. He got the chop.
Then there was the girl Flora, who had started the self-sacrificing-zealot uproar by becoming a Christian. She and another girl went before the Moslem authorities and;
They also were beheaded.
These particular actions took place around A.D.850.
Good thing we don't live in Andalusia of the 9th century.
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