Books, Banks, Buttons
Books / Hardcover
ISBN: 0231128126 / Publisher: Columbia University Press, May 2003
Identifies the technological innovations of the middle ages, noting how such ubiquitous items as eyeglasses, books, arabic numbers, underwear, banks, the game of chess, clocks, and domesticated cats came into being during the period.
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This tribute to the Middle Ages attempts to correct its reputation as a period of intellectual stagnation by highlighting hundreds of useful cultural and technological innovations from the period. Accompanied by color reproductions of art from the Middle Ages, Frugoni's lighthearted and informative narrative portrays such essentials as pasta, eyeglasses, dinner forks, wheelbarrows, chess, underwear, trousers, glazed windows, fireplaces, compasses and rudders, clocks, domesticated felines, and Santa Clause. Frugoni is a professor of medieval history at the University of Rome II. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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