Vicenza, 321–322, 652
Basilica Palladiana, 652
Victoria, Tomas Luis de (1540?-1611), 601
Vida, Marco Girolamo (1490–1566), 494
Vienne, Council of, 50, 55
Vigevano, 185–186
Vignola (Giacomo Barozzi: 1507–73), 713, 714, 719
Villani, Giovanni (1275–1348), 28–29
Villani, Matteo (d. c. 1363), 29, 30
Villiers de la Groslaye, Jean (1430–99), 466
Vincent Ferrer, St. (1350–1419), 362
violin, 604
viols, 604
Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro: 70–19 B.C.), 5, 8, 9, 354, 355, 494–495, 696
virtù, 556, 559
Visconti, Bernabò lord of Milan (1355–85), 38, 57, 58, 61, 180
Visconti, Bianca Maria, Duchess of Milan (1423–68), 182, 183, 184, 185, 584, 610
Visconti, Filippo Maria, Duke of Milan (1412–47), 181–182, 183, 283, 349–350, 610
Visconti, Galeazzo II, lord of Milan (1355–78), 38, 42, 178, 179
Visconti, Gasparo (1461–99), 192
Visconti, Giangaleazzo, lord of Milan (1378–95) and Duke of Milan (1395–1402), 81, 178, 179–181, 186, 194–195, 280, 610
Visconti, Gianmaria, Duke of Milan (1402–12), 181
Visconti, Giovanni, lord of Milan (1349–54), 38, 39
Visconti, Matteo I, lord of Milan (1311–22), 37
Visconti, Matteo II, lord of Milan (1354–55), 38
Visconti, Valentina, Duchess of Orléans (1370–1409), 610, 614
Visconti, Violante, Duchess of Clarence (d. 1382), 38
Vite (Vasari), 67*, 704–705
Vitelleschi, Giovanni (d. 1440), 371
Vitelli, Vitellozzo (d. 1502), 421, 422, 423, 424, 569
Viti, Timoteo (1467–1523), 336, 452
Vitruvius Pollio (c. 25 B.C.), 129, 507
Vittoria, Alessandro (1525–1608), 650, 656, 679
Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446), 84, 249–251, 262, 269, 341, 571, 581, 600
Vivarini, Alvise (c. 1447-c. 1504), 302
Vivarini, Antonio (1415–70), 297
Vivarini, Bartolommeo (c. 1432-c. 1500), 301–302
Voltaire (François Marie Arouet: 1694–1778), 33, 558, 657
Volterra, 112
Volterra, Cardinal of, see Soderini, Francesco
voyages of discovery, 686, 688
Vulgate, 351
W
Wagner, Richard (1813–83), 295
Waldensians, 147
Waldseemiiller, Martin (c. 1470–1518), 530
war, 559, 562, 591
Watteau, Antoine (1684–1721), 683
wealth, 568
Webster, John (c. 1580-c. 1625), 698
wedding ceremonies, 579
Wenceslaus, Holy Roman Emperor (1378–1400), 181
Weyden, Rogier van der (1399?-1464), 134, 231, 241, 266
Whites, see bianchi
wife-beating, 582
Willaert, Adrian (1480–1562), 290, 601, 603
William III, King of England (1688–1702), 564
William of Occam (c. 1300–49), 363
Windsor, Treaty of, 624
witchcraft and witches, 526–527
Wittenberg, 688
Wolsey, Thomas (c. 1475–1530), 634
women, 568, 581–586
woodcarving, 314, 322
Wordsworth, William (1770–1850), 456
X
Xenophon (c. 435-c. 355 B.C.), 587
Ximenes (Francesco Jiménez de Cisneros: 1437–1517), 621
Y
Ysaac, Heinrich (c. 1450–1517), 602
Z
Zacearía, Antonio Maria, St. (1502–39), 574
Zenale, Bernardino (1436–1526), 205
Zeno, Battista (d. 1501), 429
Zuccaro, Taddeo (1529–66), 714
Zuccaro, Teberigo (1543–1609), 714
Zuccato, Sebastiano (15th cent.), 306
Zurbarán, Francisco de (1598–1664), 727
About the Authors
WILL DURANT was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, on November 5, 1885. He was educated in the Catholic parochial schools there and in Kearny, New Jersey, and thereafter in St. Peter’s (Jesuit) College, Jersey City, New Jersey, and Columbia University. New York. For a summer he served as a cub reporter on the New York Journal, in 1907, but finding the work too strenuous for his temperament;, he settled down at Seton Hall College, South Orange, New Jersey, to teach Latin, French, English, and geometry (1907–11). He entered the seminary at Seton Hall in 1909, but withdrew in 1911 for reasons he has described in his book Transition. He passed from this quiet seminary to the most radical circles in New York, and became (1911–13) the teacher of the Ferrer Modern School, an experiment in libertarian education. In 1912 he toured Europe at the invitation and expense of Alden Freeman, who had befriended him and now undertook to broaden his borders.
Returning to the Ferrer School, he fell in love with one of his pupils—who had been born Ida Kaufman in Russia on May 10, 1898—resigned his position, and married her (1913). For four years he took graduate work at Columbia University, specializing in biology under Morgan and Calkins and in philosophy under Wood-bridge and Dewey. He received the doctorate in philosophy in 1917, and taught philosophy at Columbia University for one year. In 1914, in a Presbyterian church in New York, he began those lectures on history, literature, and philosophy that, continuing twice weekly for thirteen years, provided the initial material for his later works.
The unexpected success of The Story of Philosophy (1926) enabled him to retire from teaching in 1927. Thenceforth, except for some incidental essays Mr. and Mrs. Durant gave nearly all their working hours (eight to fourteen daily) to The Story of Civilization. To better prepare themselves they toured Europe in 1927, went around the world in 1930 to study Egypt, the Near East, India, China, and Japan, and toured the globe again in 1932 to visit Japan, Manchuria, Siberia, Russia, and Poland. These travels provided the background for Our Oriental Heritage (1935) as the first volume in The Story of Civilization. Several further visits to Europe prepared for Volume 2, The Life of Greece (1939), and Volume 3, Caesar and Christ (1944). In 1948, six months in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, and Europe provided perspective for Volume 4, The Age of Faith (1950). In 1951 Mr. and Mrs. Durant returned to Italy to add to a lifetime of gleanings for Volume 5, The Renaissance (1953); and in 1954 further studies in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, and England opened new vistas for Volume 6, The Reformation (1957).
Mrs. Durant’s share in the preparation of these volumes became more and more substantial with each year, until in the case of Volume 7, The Age of Reason Begins (1961), it was so great that justice required the union of both names on the title page. And so it was on The Age of Louis XIV (1963), The Age of Voltaire (1965), and Rousseau and Revolution (winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1968).
The publication of Volume 11, The Age of Napoleon, in 1975 concluded five decades of achievement. Ariel Durant died on October 25, 1981, at the age of 83 Will Durant died 13 days later, on November 7, aged 96. Their last published work was A Dual Autobiography (1977).
*An excellent translation by Joseph Auslander:
In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant thought
Did Nature find the model whence she drew
That delicate dazzling image where we view
Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought?
What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad sought