Renaissance Lives

The Tudor period conjures up images of queens and noblewomen in elaborate court dress, of palace intrigue and dramatic politics. But if you were a woman, it was also a time when death during childbirth was rife, when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education you could hope to receive was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and dynamic women in a way that no era had been before.

These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.

On the heels of her triumphant How to Be a Victorian, Ruth Goodman travels even further back in English history to the era closest to her heart, the dramatic period from the crowning of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I. Drawing on her own adventures living in re-created Tudor conditions, Goodman serves as our intrepid guide to 16th-century living. Proceeding from daybreak to bedtime, this charming, illustrative work celebrates the ordinary lives of those who labored through the era.

Ramie Targoff's Renaissance Woman tells of the most remarkable woman of the Italian Renaissance: Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa of Pescara. Vittoria has long been celebrated by scholars of Michelangelo as the artist's best friend - the two of them exchanged beautiful letters, poems, and works of art that bear witness to their intimacy - but she also had close ties to Charles V, Pope Clement VII and Pope Paul III, Pietro Bembo, Baldassare Castiglione, Pietro Aretino, Queen Marguerite de Navarre, Reginald Pole, and Isabella d'Este, among others.

In The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, Jeffrey C. Stewart offers the definitive biography of the father of the Harlem Renaissance, based on the extant primary sources of his life and on interviews with those who knew him personally. He narrates the education of Locke, including his becoming the first African American Rhodes Scholar, earning a PhD in philosophy at Harvard University, and his long career as a professor at Howard University. And yet he became most closely associated with the flowering of Black culture in Jazz Age America.

Some ladies who served at the Tudor court are only faceless silhouettes lost to the sands of time, but there are those who dedicated their lives to please their royal mistresses and left documentation, allowing us to piece their life stories together and link them to the stories of Tudor queens. These female attendants saw their queens and princesses up close and often used their intimate bonds to their own benefit. Some were beloved, others hated. This is the story of the ladies of the Tudor court like you've never heard it before.

You ever wonder how things really work in life. I never did, but the events of my life have led me without intending to, find out. As a child, I had dyslexia and all I ever wanted to do was write. After trying every possible method of overcoming it known to teachers and other professionals, I unintentionally stumbled upon the unconventional. My journey led me to Taoism and into a world that perhaps many know about but very few really understand or have had the opportunity to experience firsthand. In the beginning, the process was as uncertain as it was unexpected. Life has a way of taking ...

This is the story of the life of Gracia Mendes Nasi, who was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1510. Gracia's family was Jewish and lived in Castile, Spain, for almost a century before being compelled to renounce their Jewish identity and convert to Catholicism due to the strict laws imposed by the Inquisition in 1478. The Mendes family, like many other Jewish converts known as conversos or new Christians, accepted the forced conversion but maintained their religious practices in secret due to the risk of death if discovered. Gracia's work undeniably and significantly impacted the lives of ...

How does a man change the world with laughter and love? Philip Neri, the Apostle of Joy, redefined holiness in the streets of Renaissance Rome, proving that humility and humor could be just as powerful as sermons and scripture. This book invites you into his extraordinary life, showing how one man’s joy transformed a city—and left a legacy that continues to inspire today. Step into the life of a saint who believed that faith should be lived with a smile. Philip’s charisma drew people from all walks of life, from beggars to scholars, uniting them in a shared love of God and neighbor. ...

Jacob Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the 16th century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly 2 percent of European GDP. Not even John D. Rockefeller had that kind of wealth. Most people become rich by spotting opportunities, pioneering new technologies, or besting opponents in negotiations. Fugger did all that, but he had an extra quality that allowed him to rise even higher: nerve.

The Harlan Renaissance is an intimate remembrance of kinship and community in eastern Kentucky’s coal towns written by one of the luminaries of Appalachian studies, William Turner. Turner reconstructs Black life in the company towns in and around Harlan County during coal’s final postwar boom years, which built toward an enduring bust as the children of Black miners, like the author, left the region in search of better opportunities.

The history books have cast Katherine of Aragon, the first queen of King Henry VIII of England, as the ultimate symbol of the Betrayed Woman, cruelly tossed aside in favor of her husband’s seductive mistress, Anne Boleyn. Katherine’s sister, Juana of Castile, wife of Philip of Burgundy and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, is portrayed as “Juana the Mad,” whose erratic behavior included keeping her beloved late husband’s coffin beside her for years.

The very name Lucrezia Borgia conjures up everything that was sinister and corrupt about the Renaissance: incest, political assassination, papal sexual abuse, poisonous intrigue, unscrupulous power grabs. Yet, as best-selling biographer Sarah Bradford reveals in this breathtaking new portrait, the truth is far more fascinating than the myth.

Born into the English Wars of the Roses, educated in the European Renaissance, enthralled by the Age of Exploration and ultimately destroyed by Henry VIII, Thomas More is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Thomas More: A Life is the definitive biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure. Overturning many received interpretations of the sixteenth century, Joanne Paul shows Thomas More to have been an intellectual and political giant of his age, central to the making of modern Europe.

Venture into the evolving world of remote work with "The Remote Renaissance". This dynamic resource unpacks everything you need to know about succeeding in a digitally enhanced workplace. Enjoy an in-depth exploration into the advantages and challenges of remote work, offering crucial insights and applicable strategies to optimize your work-from-home experience. Imagine mastering work-life balance from the comfort of your home, and organizing a workspace that aligns with your individual needs and work style. Establish a healthy routine to prevent burnout and organize an effective remote ...

Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) was a man of many talents - a sculptor, painter, architect, writer, and scholar - but he is best known for Lives of the Artists, which singlehandedly established the canon of Italian Renaissance art. Before Vasari's extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari's visionary writings that Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift.

Alchemist, occultist, magician, astrologer, writer, physician, lawyer, theologian, philosopher, and mercenary soldier - Henry Cornelius Agrippa was the quintessential Renaissance Man. In this fresh translation of Joseph Orsier's concise 1911 biography of the mercurial author of Occult Philosophy we are given an overview of his tumultuous existence at a time when Europe was shaking off the long sleep of the Middle Ages and the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo were creating masterworks. At the same time that Erasmus was giving the Catholic Church a gentle nudge and Martin...

When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather's painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That's great news for Theo, who's struggling to hang on to her family's 200-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather's legacy of $463. There's just one problem: Theo's grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.

"And they lived happily ever after." In fairy tales, that's always how things end. The prince and princess ride away on his white horse and from then on, all's right with the world. But what if it wasn't? What if the prince's life didn't suit the princess? What if she felt stifled by life inside the castle walls? Could she tell him? And if she loved him - really loved him - how could she ask him to give up his kingdom?

Georgio Vasari's original vision of the arts was to see the artist as divinely inspired. He describes the lives of 45 artists, including Giotto, Brunelleschi, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Titian, with striking immediacy conveyed through character sketches, anecdotes, and detailed recording of conversations.