Chronicle (1315-1416)

About this book

"The world of Bindino da Travale (1356-1418) seethed with conflict: citizen fought citizen, city-state fought city-state, popes fought emperors, and claimants to sees and thrones fought one another-as eventually did rival popes. To understand the complex world of fifteenth-century Italy, we must dive into the many long-lived enmities and shifting loyalties that shaped the lives of its inhabitants. From this swirling mass of conflict, betrayal, and differences settled in the highest Church councils and in the streets, an otherwise obscure Tuscan artist, Bindino da Travale, crafted an amazingly colourful and exciting account of thirty crucial years in northern Italian history. His chronicle, for the most part dictated to his older son Giovanni, gathers Bindino's extensive knowledge of contemporary politics, diplomacy, and battles, and combines it with his self-reflective comments and vivid imagination to produce a highly idiosyncratic and lively account of his times."--