Frederic Ober eBooks

Amerigo Vespucci. E-book. Formato EPUB Frederic Ober   -  Perennial Press, 2018  - 

Cradled in the valley of the Arno, its noble architecture fitly supplementing its numerous natural charms, lies the Tuscan city of Florence, the birthplace of immortal Dante, the early home of Michael Angelo, the seat of the Florentine Medici, the scene of Savonarola's triumphs and his tragic end. Fame has come to many sons of Florence, as poets, statesmen, sculptors, painters, travellers; but perhaps none has achieved a distinction so unique, apart, and high as the subject of this volume, after whom the continents of the western hemisphere were named. Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred and fifty years after Dante was banished from the city in which both first saw the light. The Vespucci family had then resided in that city more than two hundred years, having come from Peretola, a little town adjacent, where the name was highly regarded, as attached to the most respected of the Italian nobility. Following the custom of that nobility, during the period of unrest in Italy, the Vespuccis established themselves in a stately mansion near one of the city gates, which is known as the Porta del Prato. Thus they were within touch of the gay society of Florence, and could enjoy its advantages, while at the same time in a position, in the event of an uprising, to flee to their estates and stronghold in the country...

Ponce de Leon. E-book. Formato EPUB Frederic Ober   -  Perennial Press, 2018  - 

That great deeds and a broad field of action are not always commensurate is exemplified in the lives of the Ponces de Leon, Juan and Rodrigo, noteworthy names of a family famed in the annals of America and Spain. Of the two, doubtless the latter was the more distinguished in the land of his birth for bravery and military skill; but the former achieved a still wider celebrity by linking his name with the discovery of Florida and the search for the fountain of youth.   These two famous sons of Spain were not closely related, although they bore the same patronymic, as Juan came from an ancient family of Aragon, and Rodrigo from an equally ancient, and in the fifteenth century more flourishing, house of Andalusia, or the south of Spain. Both belonged to the hidalguia, or Spanish nobility; but the northern, or Aragon branch, was in decadence at the time Juan was born, in or about the year 1460, while the Andalusian was then rapidly approaching the zenith of its glory. This, indeed, culminated with the career of Rodrigo Ponce de Leon (born 1443, died 1492), who, while possessing vast territory in Spain, with scores of castles, towns, and villages, passed the greater part of his life in camp...