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Versailles
- The History and Legacy of France's Most Famous Royal Palace
- Narrated by: Scott Clem
- Length: 1 hr and 20 mins
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Versailles
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Publisher's summary
In every nation, in every era of history, there are inevitably one or two places that become the symbol of the times. Mention Valley Forge to an American and it will immediately conjure up visions of a hard won fight for freedom. Likewise, the word Dunkirk said to a Briton will elicit a sense of both pride and horror at the lives lost and saved at that desperate point in World War II. For the French, and those who study their history, Versailles is a symbol of, as Charles Dickens once put it, "the best of times...the worst of times." It was here that the Sun King, Louis XIV, built a palace worthy of a great nation during a time when peace was, at best, short-lived. It was at Versailles that Russian Tsar Peter the Great to study the palace's architecture and gardens so that he could recreate them in his home country. Indeed, the greatest minds and artistic geniuses of the later stages of the Renaissance came to Versailles to build and paint, and it was here that Madame de Pompedour and her successor, Madame du Barry, used their wit and beauty to charm a king into doing their bidding.
However, as history constantly demonstrates, nothing good lasts forever, and so it was with Versailles. From the royal palace, Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette frittered away the goodwill of their people, leading to the French Revolution and their executions.
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By: Ross King
-
Taj Mahal
- Passion and Genius at the Heart of the Moghul Empire
- By: Diana Preston, Michael Preston
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 151
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 117
While Galileo was suffering under house arrest at the hands of Pope Urban VIII, the 30 Years War was ruining Europe, and the Pilgrims were struggling to survive in the New World, work began on what would become one of the Seven Wonders of the World: the Taj Mahal. Built by the Moghul emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal, its flawless symmetry and gleaming presence have for centuries dazzled all who have seen it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A broad perspective
- By Neil on 11-01-09
By: Diana Preston, and others
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The Judgment of Paris
- The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Tristan Layton
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 469
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 338
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 333
While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris. The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amid scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Try this!
- By Robert on 10-28-08
By: Ross King
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Paris Reborn
- Napoléon III, Baron Haussmann, and the Quest to Build a Modern City
- By: Stephane Kirkland
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 80
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
Traditionally known as a dirty, congested, and dangerous city, 19th Century Paris was transformed in an extraordinary period from 1848 to 1870, when the government launched a huge campaign to build streets, squares, parks, churches, and public buildings. The Louvre Palace was expanded, Notre-Dame Cathedral was restored and the French masterpiece of the Second Empire, the Opra Garnier, was built.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Why Paris looks the way it does today
- By Neil Chisholm on 11-28-13
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Basilica
- The Splendor and the Scandal: Building St. Peter's
- By: R.A. Scotti
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 104
It was the splendor and the scandal of the age. In 1506, the ferociously ambitious Renaissance Pope Julius II tore down the most sacred shrine in Europe, the millennium-old St. Peter's Basilica built by the Emperor Constantine over the apostle's grave, to build a better basilica.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Spell binding
- By Margaret on 10-17-07
By: R.A. Scotti
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The House of Medici
- Its Rise and Fall
- By: Christopher Hibbert
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4 out of 5 stars 135
This enthralling book charts the family's huge influence on the political, economic, and cultural history of Florence. Beginning in the early 1430s with the rise of the dynasty under the near-legendary Cosimo de Medici, it moves through their golden era as patrons of some of the most remarkable artists and architects of the Renaissance, to the era of the Medici Popes and Grand Dukes, Florence's slide into decay and bankruptcy, and the end, in 1737, of the Medici line.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Laundry list of names
- By Elizabeth W on 01-02-17
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Castles, Customs, and Kings
- True Tales by English Historical Fiction Authors
- By: Debra Brown, M.M. Bennetts
- Narrated by: Ruth Golding
- Length: 25 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4 out of 5 stars 60
A compilation of essays from the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, this book provides a wealth of historical information from Roman Britain to early 20th-century England. Over 50 different authors share hundreds of real life stories and tantalizing tidbits discovered while doing research for their own historical novels.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Historical Tidbits
- By Troy on 08-03-15
By: Debra Brown, and others
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Koh-i-Noor
- The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond
- By: Anita Anand, William Dalrymple
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 105
On 29 March 1849, the 10-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company in a formal act of submission not only swathes of the richest land in India but also arguably the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Jean on 07-08-17
By: Anita Anand, and others
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The Mistresses of Cliveden
- Three Centuries of Scandal, Power, and Intrigue in an English Stately Home
- By: Natalie Livingstone
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 141
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 124
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Story4 out of 5 stars 122
Overlooking the Thames, the Cliveden mansion is flanked by two wings and surrounded by lavish gardens. Throughout its storied history, Cliveden has been a setting for misbehavior, intrigue, and passion - from its salacious, deadly beginnings in the 17th century to the 1960s Profumo affair, the sex scandal that toppled the British government. Now, in this immersive chronicle, the manor's current mistress, Natalie Livingstone, opens the doors to this prominent house and lets the walls do the talking.
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2 out of 5 stars
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disappointed
- By Galina M. on 11-14-16
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Iberia
- By: James A. Michener
- Narrated by: Larry McKeever
- Length: 37 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 262
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 225
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Story4 out of 5 stars 227
Spain is an immemorial land like no other, one that James A. Michener, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author and celebrated citizen of the world, came to love as his own. Iberia is Michener’s enduring nonfiction tribute to his cherished second home. In the fresh and vivid prose that is his trademark, he not only reveals the celebrated history of bullfighters and warrior kings, painters and processions, cathedrals and olive orchards, he also shares the intimate, often hidden country he came to know, where the congeniality of living souls is thrust against the dark weight of history.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Outdated and no storyline.
- By john lundberg on 08-05-17
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Life in Ancient Rome
- By: Lionel Casson
- Narrated by: John Glouchevitch
- Length: 5 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 40
Lionel Casson paints a vivid portrait of life in ancient Rome - for slaves and emperors, soldiers and commanders alike - during the empire's greatest period, the first and second centuries AD.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good listen about early Rome.
- By Harry on 08-13-23
By: Lionel Casson
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Venice
- Pure City
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 14 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 73
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Story4 out of 5 stars 70
The Venetians' language and way of thinking set them aside from the rest of Italy. They are an island people, linked to the sea and to the tides rather than the land. This latest work from the incomparable Peter Ackroyd, like a magic gondola, transports its listeners to that sensual and surprising city. His account embraces facts and romance, conjuring up the atmosphere of the canals, bridges, and sunlit squares, the churches and the markets, the festivals and the flowers.
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2 out of 5 stars
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An endless droning list.....
- By jack on 03-15-11
By: Peter Ackroyd
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The Medici
- Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,471
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,281
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,275
Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence as well as the Italian Renaissance, which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Fun Story Bad History
- By Elizabeth Barrett on 05-09-16
By: Paul Strathern
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Henry VIII: King and Court
- By: Alison Weir
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 25 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 450
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 404
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 400
This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A concise focus with tremendous detail
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 05-24-17
By: Alison Weir
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The Louvre
- The Many Lives of the World's Most Famous Museum
- By: James Gardner
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
The fascinating and little-known story of the Louvre, from its inception as a humble fortress to its transformation into the palatial residence of the kings of France and then into the world's greatest art museum.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Enlightening
- By Jean on 10-29-20
By: James Gardner
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What the Ermine Saw
- The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait
- By: Eden Collinsworth
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 29
Five hundred and thirty years ago, a young woman sat before a Grecian-nosed artist known as Leonardo da Vinci. Her name was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the young mistress of Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan. Sforza was a brutal and clever man who was mindful that Leonardo’s genius would not only capture Cecilia’s beguiling beauty but also reflect the grandeur of his title. But when the portrait was finished, Leonardo’s brush strokes had conveyed something deeper by revealing the essence of Cecilia’s soul.
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4 out of 5 stars
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So Many Names
- By Sue Solomon on 12-13-22
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The Elgin Affair
- The True Story of the Greatest Theft in History
- By: Theodore Vrettos
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 120
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 106
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Story4 out of 5 stars 106
This story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full detail "the greatest art theft in history." Almost 200 years after they were "purchased" from Greece, the finest and most famous marbles of antiquity still remain a burning issue. This compelling, controversial story of the Elgin marbles re-creates in full and colorful detail "the greatest art theft in history", a steamy tale of obsession, intrigue, adultery, and ruin.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating
- By Robyn on 09-23-15
By: Theodore Vrettos
What listeners say about Versailles
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Dogs, Cats, and Kids
- 01-22-23
Great story of the palace.
Great to listen to if you have been to Versailles and want to know more. Especially good to listen if you are planning a visit. Great information!
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