‘Catherine de’ Medici’ by Mary Hollingsworth review
In Catherine de’ Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen, Mary Hollingsworth helps the pragmatic queen escape her ‘black legend’.
Renaissance
An Ottoman Winter in Toulon
The unholy alliance between France and the Ottoman Empire in 1530 caused great concern but had little military success.
Gustav Vasa: The Father of Modern Sweden?
A bloody massacre in Stockholm’s city square set Sweden on a course for independence under the leadership of Gustav I Vasa. A master of the ethos of 16th-century monarchy, his legacy is complicated.
‘The Tame and the Wild’ by Marcy Norton review
In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492, Marcy Norton shows through Indigenous American practices and beliefs that colonisation was a catastrophe for the natural world.
A Dangerous Game on the Jacobean Stage
For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The Ethiopians Who Changed Rome
A community of Ethiopian monk-scholars in Renaissance Rome brought their learning, language and liturgy into the heart of the Roman Church.
‘Spice’ by Roger Crowley review
In Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World, Roger Crowley explains how Spain and Portugal turned up the heat in the age of imperialism.
Sabbatai Sevi: The Lost Messiah
In the 17th century news spread that the Jewish messiah had finally arrived. Within a year he had converted to Islam. Who was he, and what had happened?
Bad Omens: When the Astrologers Got it Wrong
Europe panicked when astrologers predicted a huge flood in 1524. When it failed to appear, astrology had to defend itself.
Convents as a Refuge in Early Modern Lisbon
Lisbon’s convents were not just religious houses, but safe havens for the noblewomen of Portugal offering refuge from abusive husbands, unhappy marriages and a city swarming with ‘dogs and devils’.