Volume VIII comprises 2 parts. Part 1 includes an introduction to Gregorovius and his work by David S. Chambers of the Warburg Institute, London, and Book Thirteen, chapters 1-4 of Gregorovius’ History.
Book Thirteen covers the years 1421 to 1503. It treats the Renaissance; Martin V, Eugenius IV, and the Conciliar movement; the mercenaries Fortebraccio and Sforza; Cardinal Vitelleschi and Ludovico Scarampo, tyrants of Rome; Stefano Porcaro and the Republic; Nicholas V, the Council of Basle, the Jubilee of 1450; the rise of the Borgia; Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini becomes Pope Pius II; the Humanists in Rome; the Tiburziani; the crusade against the Turks; the Caraffa, Riario, Rovere, the Medici; the Orsini and Colonna in the Renaissance; Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII; Roderigo Borgia becomes Alexander VI; Cesare Borgia; Charles VIII of France invades Italy. It also treats Italy after Charles VIII’s invasion; Alexander VI and the Papal States; Caesar and Lucrezia Borgia; the Jubilee of 1500; the Colonna and Orsini; Louis XII of France invades Italy; the Renaissance in Rome: the Vatican Library, printing, philology; Poggio, Bruni, Filelfo, Beccadelli and Valla; Greek studies: Chrysoloras, George of Trebizond, Theodore of Gaza, Cardinal Bessarion; destruction of the monuments; epigraphy and archaeology; the historians and biographers: Biondo, Pius II, Ammanati, Vespasiano, Manetti, Platina, Infessura; poets and playwrights; theater and spectacle; the Academies; architecture, sculpture and the decorative arts; painting; the city of Rome surveyed by region c. 1500.
