To Wake the Dead: A Renaissance Merchant and the Birth of Archaeology - Hardcover

Belozerskaya, Marina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393065545 ISBN 13: 9780393065541

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009

Synopsis

How Cyriacus of Ancona―merchant, spy, and amateur classicist―traveled the world, fighting to save ancient monuments for posterity.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century, a young Italian bookkeeper fell under the spell of the classical past. Despite his limited education, the Greeks and Romans seemed to speak directly to him―not from books but from the physical ruins and inscriptions that lay neglected around the shores of the Mediterranean.As an international merchant, Cyriacus of Ancona was accustomed to the perils of travel in foreign lands―unlike his more scholarly peers with their handsome libraries and wealthy patrons, who benefited greatly from the discoveries communicated in his widely distributed letters and drawings. Having seen firsthand the destruction of the world’s cultural heritage, Cyriacus resolved to preserve it for future generations. To do so he would spy on the Ottomans, court popes and emperors, and even organize a crusade.25 illustrations

About this title

About the Author

Marina Belozerskaya is the author of The Medici Giraffe: And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power, The Arts of Tuscany from the Etruscans to Ferragamo, and Luxury Arts of the Renaissance. She lives with her husband in Los Angeles.

Reviews

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Matthew Shaer Most medieval Europeans cared not a whit for the vestiges of antiquity. Back then, a stone arch was just a stone arch, regardless of its provenance, and in cities such as Siena and Rome thousands of valuable statues were left to fade and fracture under the sun. The policy of indifference extended even to the most majestic old buildings, many of which were incorporated into new churches and fortresses. After all, as Marina Belozerskaya writes in her fine history "To Wake the Dead," it was easier to add on to an existing structure than to build one from the ground up. Belozerskaya's hero is Cyriacus of Ancona, an Italian merchant, spy, writer and diplomat who, in the 15th century, began to travel through the Mediterranean and the Middle East in search of "distant civilizations and the ghosts of their denizens." His successes were many: He catalogued sites in Damascus, Eretria, Thessalonica and Beirut, and he worked tirelessly with local leaders to help preserve historical treasures that might have otherwise been destroyed. He pushed for more thorough examinations of primary sources and left behind sheaves of studies from far-flung corners of the globe. Less happily, Cyriacus also lobbied for a crusade against the Turks, which he hoped would help wrest important pieces of antiquity from foreign hands. But in his eagerness he overlooked the explosive political realities of the age, and many relics were lost in the resulting war. To Belozerskaya, Cyriacus was a tragic figure: a founder of modern archaeology and a man whose passion for the past "was both his strength and weakness."
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Cyriacus Pizzecolli of Ancona was the first to travel solely to discover, observe and analyze historic monuments and, Belozerskaya convincingly argues in this charming and intriguing book, a key figure in the birth of archeology. A clerk in the bustling Renaissance port city, Pizzecolli's business trips took him to Greece and Asia Minor. He was unrelentingly curious and restless and while fascination with classical texts was widespread in the mid-15th century, few investigated the ancient physical remains. Pizzecolli educated himself in classical civilization in order to understand and preserve thousands of artifacts from ancient Greece and Rome, his true profession being, according to Cyriacus himself, to wake the dead of antiquity. Art historian Belozerskaya (The Medici Giraffe) writes with verve and aplomb, transporting us to 15th-century Rome, Constantinople, Florence, Greece and its islands, where he made sketches of antiquities later used by Raphael and da Vinci. Belozerskaya has written a well-researched history of an important yet relatively unknown figure that deftly integrates Renaissance social, cultural and political history. 25 illus. (Aug.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393065545
• ISBN 13: 9780393065541
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320