{"product_id":"9781801101141-retail-siena-the-life-and-afterlife-of-a-medieval-city","title":"Siena: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval City","description":"An authoritative, richly illustrated history, and affectionate celebration, of Siena, one of the best-loved and most-visited cities in Italy. Occupying a hilltop site in the midst of a vast, undulating landscape, Siena is as much a magnet for contemporary tourism as Florence. However, its proud republican past presents an intriguing contrast with its Medici-dominated northern Tuscan rival, with which it tussled for local supremacy for much of the High Middle Ages. From the twelfth century, profiting from its advantageous position on a major pilgrim route, the Republic of Siena developed into a major European power and remained an important commercial, financial and artistic centre for four centuries. Jane Stevenson charts the changing fortunes of a city that rose to an astonishingly productive cultural heyday in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, suffered a catastrophic late medieval decline in the aftermath of the Black Death, but transcended the loss of its wider political power to enjoy a prosperous civic afterlife. Siena today enjoys a cherished position as a uniquely well-preserved medieval city, crammed with world-class art and architecture, furnished with appealing and intriguing traditions, and set in a heavenly landscape.","brand":"Book Grocer","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49231943205083,"sku":"9781801101141-RETAIL","price":72.24,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/2925dfb5-3860-4e5a-ab70-b933c40f5694.jpg?v=1788782171","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/9781801101141-retail-siena-the-life-and-afterlife-of-a-medieval-city","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}