FOLIO SOCIETY INVENTIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES Chiara Frugoni NEW SEALED

Description: Folio Society - INVENTIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES by Chiara Frugoni‘Brilliant… paints a portrait of an epoch that was anything but dark and immune to progress and that was everywhere rich with vital and important inventions’ – Jacques Le GoffThe Middle Ages have often been depicted as a period in which life had few comforts. Diet and health were poor, learning was preserved only for the select few through the monasteries and even the nobility had to do without.Nonsense, says the great medieval scholar Chiara Frugoni, in this delightful examination of the many inventions we owe to the Middle Ages. This ‘backward’ period gave us printed books, spectacles, anaesthetics, pets, chequebooks, glazed windows, clocks, underwear, playing cards, the fireplace, universities and the wheelbarrow – inventions, items and ideas without which our lives would be poorer, more painful and definitely less healthy.The evidence is provided by a rich seam of medieval art and letters. Eyeglasses, for example, turn up regularly on the noses of devotional figures in the corners of illuminated manuscripts, and a mechanical clock chimes sweetly in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Frugoni reveals charming, remarable stories of how each innovation began. The fork, considered an instrument of sin by 12th-century churchmen, found its salvation as a means of dealing with the hot and slippery Italian foodstuff – pasta, also invented at this time. From a father upbraiding his student son for playing dice and visiting ‘the most disreputable places’, to the way gunpowder enabled men ‘of base extraction and modest physical prowess’ to render years of training in the chivalric arts meaningless, what is revealed here is the unique character of the Middle Ages itself.‘This enchanting tale, masterfully recounted by a pre-eminent historian of the Middle Ages, reveals the fertile imagination and extraordinary inventiveness of [the] period’ – Patricia Brown, Princeton UniversityDESCRIPTION: Preface by Adam Hart-Davis. Quarter-bound in cloth, with Modigliani paper sides printed a design by Neil Gower. In set in Photina with Colmcille display. 200 pages with 83 colour and black & white illustrations. Red endpapers. Red slipcase. Book size: 81/2” x 61/2”CONDITION: Book is NEW and SEALED in the publisher’s original SHRINK WRAP. However, please note the very fine light wrinkle to the top of the spine (see photos 1 & 6)Postage will be by the the Royal Mail Tracked 48 service costing £3.95All items are sent at cost price whether purchasing a single or multiple items. Due to size, weight and value considerations it is not possible to accurately calculate combined postage automatically. Always feel free to ask or if purchases require immediate payment I will refund any difference. All items must be sent to the address stipulated during the payment process. All items are sent via recorded delivery unless they are of little monetary value.Virtually all my items are available through the global shipping program (GSP) to designated countries outside the UK. Please note I have no control over international postage costs. I do not set these, eBay's GSP does, I send the items to an address in the UK and am not even aware of the country for which they are destined. Items purchased through the GSP must be sent via the GSP shipping centre. For multiple purchases, I cannot combine postage after items are purchased but if you contact me before buying I can try combining multiple items into a single listing which is usually less expensive.Please ask any questions before buying70PC

Price: 16.99 GBP

Location: Ballymena

End Time: 2024-12-22T20:51:00.000Z

Shipping Cost: 32.33 GBP