Showing titles in Renaissance

The dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore, the great cathedral of Florence, is among the most enduring symbols of the Renaissance, an equal to the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Its designer was Filippo Brunelleschi, a temperamental architect and inventor who rediscovered the techniques of mathematical perspective. Yet the completion of the dome was not Brunelleschi’s glory alone. He was forced to share the commission with his archrival, the canny and gifted sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.

For as long as language and communication have existed, humans have invented ways to mask their messages from prying eyes. One could be forgiven for assuming there are no ciphers left unsolved. On the contrary, a diverse array of both ancient and modern cryptographic challenges, which have stumped even the most seasoned code crackers of today, exist, and may exist for generations to come. Among the most famous of these memorandums is a 600-year-old document that continues to mystify: the Voynich Manuscript.

The Norman Conquest in English History, Volume 1: A Broken Chain? pursues a central theme in English historical thinking over seven centuries. Covering more than half a millennium, this first volume explains how and why the experience of the Norman Conquest prompted both an unprecedented campaign in the early 12th century to write (or create) the history of England, and to excavate (and fabricate) pre-Conquest English law.

Set in the court of Urbino in 1507, Castiglione’s The Book of the Courtier presents an invaluable look at court life and culture during the Renaissance. Over four nights of dialogue, the book explores the key question, ‘What should a courtier be like?’ and presents a deep and timeless discussion that is reminiscent of Plato’s Symposium and Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and invites comparisons with Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558, restoring the Protestant faith to England. At the heart of the new queen's court lay Elizabeth's bedchamber, closely guarded by the favoured women who helped her dress, looked after her jewels and shared her bed. Elizabeth’s private life was of public, political concern. Her bedfellows were witnesses to the face and body beneath the make-up and elaborate clothes, as well as to rumoured illicit dalliances with such figures as Robert Dudley. Their presence was for security as well as propriety, as the kingdom was haunted by fears of assassination plots and other Catholic subterfuge.

Perhaps no country has had such a lasting impact on Western culture as Italy. Whether it’s the frescoes of the Renaissance, the politics of ancient Rome, or the formation of the Catholic Church, Italy holds a central place on the world’s stage. This audiobook gives a quick but detailed overview of Italy’s grand, sweeping history, from ancient city-state to modern cultural mecca. Whether you’re a student of Italian history looking for a refresher or a brand-new learner looking for an introduction, this audiobook is a concise, easy-to-follow overview.

This audiobook provides an easy-to-understand overview of British history in 50 events.You will learn about the foundation of London, the Great Viking Invasion, the Battle of Hastings, the Black Death, the Battle of Waterloo, the last public hanging, and much more!

King of England, claimant King of France, Lord - and later King - of Ireland, Supreme Head of the Church of England and, perhaps most famously, six times a husband, Henry VIII is England's most notorious monarch. Succeeding his father, Henry VII, he allied with the Holy Roman Emperor and began his many obsessive invasions of France. From his childhood to his later years and famed appetites for food, sex and validation, Henry VIII: History in an Hour describes the life of a man whose desires and determination changed England and the world.

Born in the midst of the Wars of the Roses, Margaret Beaufort became the greatest heiress of her time. She survived a turbulent life, marrying four times and enduring imprisonment before passing her claim to the crown of England to her son, Henry VII, the first of the Tudor monarchs.

Illegitimate children, adulterous queens, impotent kings, and a whole dynasty resting on their shoulders. Sex and childbirth were quite literally a matter of life or death for the Tudors.

Great castles are invaluable historical artifacts, that give us an incredible window into the medieval world. Castles were part of the very fabric of medieval society, and profoundly influenced the political, economic, demographic, and social evolution of Europe. In the 24 compelling lectures of Great Castles of Europe, Professor Victoria L. McAlister, of Towson University guides you through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, highlighting outstanding and historically significant castles of these extraordinary times.

Five Tudor monarchs sat on the throne of England and Ireland from 1485 to 1603. The family earned their royal rights through strategic planning and battlefield prowess, and kept them because of intellect, strength, and sheer determination. The Tudors, one of England’s most powerful and famous royal dynasties, knitted together a fragmented and small island nation that became one of the world’s financial, colonial, and technological superpowers.

The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise by the Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Machiavelli wrote The Prince in 1513, after he was forced to leave Florence as a political exile. Dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the work is Machiavelli’s advice to the ruler of Florence on how to stay in power.

In 1610 Henry Stuart was a celebrity throughout Europe, at a momentous period for European history and culture. Eldest son of James VI and the epitome of heroic Renaissance princely virtue, his life was set against a period about as rich as any. The King James Bible, religious tension throughout Europe, the Gunpowder plot, Jacobean theatre and the dark tragedies pouring from Shakespeare's quill, innovation in learning and science, exploration and trade and the bloody traumas of the Thirty Years' War were his backdrop.

In this short book, Gardiner describes the famous battles and the daring generals: Mansfeld and Wallenstein, Tilly and Gustavus Adolphus, Bernard and Turenne. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, working through secret subsidies and wily diplomacy, frail but indomitable Cardinal Richelieu gained control of crucial supply lines, crippling Austria and Spain, and setting the stage for the golden age of France.

Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished.

Without libraries, what have we? We have no past and no future. This book tells for the first time in English the story of the first great universal library in the age of printing - and of the son of Christopher Columbus who created it. This is the scarcely believable - and wholly true - story of Christopher Columbus' bastard son Hernando, who sought to equal and surpass his father's achievements by creating a universal library. His father sailed across the ocean to explore the known boundaries of the world for the glory of God, Spain and himself. His son Hernando sought instead to harness the vast powers of the new printing presses to assemble the world’s knowledge in one place.

Bestselling author Leonard Shlain explores the life, art, and mind of Leonardo da Vinci, seeking to explain his singularity by looking at his achievements in art, science, psychology, and military strategy (yes), and then employing state of the art left-right brain scientific research to explain his universal genius. Shlain shows that no other person in human history has excelled in so many different areas as Da Vinci and he peels back the layers to explore the how and the why.

Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; military leaders waging endless wars. Their solution was simple and radical. They would rebuild their city, and their civilization, by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft.

Most historians credit the city-state of Florence as the starting place of the Italian Renaissance, a process carried out through the patronage and commission of artists during the late 12th century. If Florence is receiving its due credit, much of it belongs to the Medici family, a Florentine dynasty that ruled at the height of the Renaissance. Both Leonardo and Michelangelo were members of Lorenzo de Medici's court. The famous leader, who also considered himself an artist and poet, became known for securing commissions for the most famous artists of the age.