History - Europe - Renaissance

A spellbinding portrait of Queen Elizabeth's conjuror - the great philosopher, scientist and magician, Dr John Dee (1527-1608) and a history of Renaissance science that could well be the next 'Longitude'.John Dee was one of the most influential philosophers of the Elizabethan Age. A...

The Renaissance holds an undying place in our imagination, its great heroes still our own, from Michelangelo and Leonardo to Dante and Chaucer. This period of profound evolution in European thought is credited with transforming the West from medieval to modern and producing the...

A uniquely personal account of the life and enduring legacy of the Renaissance library With the advent of print in the fifteenth century, Europe's cultural elite assembled personal libraries as refuges from persecutions and pandemics. Andrew Hui tells the remarkable story of the Renaissance...

Discover the remarkable birth of modern medicine... and how not to die in the Renaissance 'An entertaining history of medicine... Skuse brings a deep familiarity with the contemporary sources and a dry wit.' Dan Jones, The Sunday Times The cliched view medicine in the...

In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a dusty shelf in a remote monastery, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. He was Poggio...

From the creators of Colouring History: The Tudors comes their next compilation of intricately hand-drawn illustrations featuring key players and places from the Tudor court. Included in this book are scenes and portraits featuring the kings and queens of Tudor and Elizabethan England. Add...

The first authorized copy of this mysterious, much-speculated-upon, one-of-a-kind, centuries-old puzzle "For the first time, a complete reproduction [of] The Voynich Manuscript, has been published, featuring essays exploring what is known about the book and extra-wide margins so readers can record their responses to...

A magisterial history of the Renaissance and the birth of the modern world The cultural epoch we know as the Renaissance emerged at a certain time and in a certain place. Why then and not earlier? Why there and not elsewhere? In The World...

From the author of the best-selling A Venetian Affair ("A narrative of novelistic resonance . . . Astonishing" --The Washington Post), the story of an Italian Renaissance book editor who introduced European minds to the wider world through his passion for geography In the...

From the author of the best-selling A Venetian Affair ("A narrative of novelistic resonance . . . Astonishing" --The Washington Post), the story of an Italian Renaissance book editor who introduced European minds to the wider world through his passion for geography In the...

The definitive biography of the man who dominated political and intellectual circles in England during the sixteenth century: Thomas More. Born into the era of the Wars of the Roses, educated during the European Renaissance, rising to become Chancellor of England, and ultimately destroyed...

In this groundbreaking biography of Queen Anne Boleyn, learn how the ill-fated second wife of Renaissance England's Henry XVIII met her downfall-and how she came to be so vilified and misunderstood. Anne Boleyn has mesmerized the general public for centuries. Her tragic execution at...

The stories of early modern Protestant women, including Rose Thurgood, Anna Trapnel, and Jane Lead, who defied the religious authority of their age. Voices of Thunder illuminates the stories and beliefs of a dozen seventeenth-century radical Protestant women, including a Colchester woman who feared...

A revelatory account of sexual nonconformity and radical religious dissent in Renaissance Italy, drawing on never-before-studied Inquisition trials. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, a series of highly controversial Inquisition trials took place throughout the Italian peninsula. The defendants were all accused of the...

Like Michelangelo, Galileo is another Renaissance great known just by his first name--a name that is synonymous with scientific achievement. Born in Pisa, Italy, in the sixteenth century, Galileo contributed to the era's great rebirth of knowledge. He invented a telescope to observe the...

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Travel to the age of the Renaissance and learn why Henry VIII is one of the most famous kings in English history. Mainly remembered for his six marriages and his self-appointment as the "Supreme Head of the Church of England,"...

A compelling, authoritative history of how women shaped the Reformations and transformed religious life across the globe An Engelsberg Ideas "Book of the Year" A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title The Reformations, both Protestant and Catholic, have long been told as stories of men. But...

Finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Biography)One of the New Yorker's Best Books of 2023One of BookRiot's Best Biographies of 2023Longlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize in Nonfiction The boldly original, dramatic intertwined story of Catherine de' Medici, Elisabeth de Valois, and...