More On Mallett

After diving deep into Mallett's book I've uncovered some interesting points. In his introduction he discusses the Borgias, the Popes and other significant historical figures/events around that time, the Italian Renaissance and his Intention, which he quotes: "It is my intention therefore in this book to present as wide a spectrum as possible of recent views about the Borgias in an attempt not to rehabilitate them but to explain them. To explain why they were so hated, so feared and so maligned; to explain what they were doing which so upset the Renaissance Italians as to bring down the whole weight of contemporary humanistic and later historical censure upon them."
However, he later writes: "It is often difficult for the historian to accept that the public image, however distorted it is, may be of more historical significance than the real, often more complex, situation.
These are some of the pitfalls which confront the Borgia historian and which can easily frighten him into the abyss of unrealistic rehabilitation on the other side of the narrow path of objective historical truth. This path is even narrower and harder to find than usual on this subject, and it would be optimistic and pretentious to imagine that this modest contribution has succeeded entirely in finding it." These quotes give us abit of insight into Mallett, he seems to want to be objective and to "explain" why the Borgias are greatly disliked, I'm quite intrigued as to how he's going to go about/manage that. The quote above also gives brief insight into how Mallett views the difficulty historians come across concerning the acceptance of the "distorted public image" over the "real, more complex situation", Mallett seems to want the objective truth, but accepts that is often difficult to find it with this subject. Mallett commenting on how historians find diffculty concerning the distorted image over the real, more complex one gives the impression that he himself believes he has uncovered that truth. As I progress more throughly in Mallett's book, more should be found, specifically what he uncovers and truly thinks/expresses.

In other news my computer has crashed, impeding my work progress, but it should be hopefully fixed within the week. Meanwhile, I've had to use this spare laptop which is painfully slow, I should cope though.