Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the National Book Award • New York Times Bestseller

Renowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in what is at once a supreme work of scholarship, a literary page-turner, and a thrilling testament to the power of the written word.

In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old...

"Her Renaissance Faire is on the move, and Lulu and Dex are along for the ride, in the next utterly charming rom-com from Jen DeLuca. A high-powered attorney from a success-oriented family, Louisa "Lulu" Malone lives to work, and everything seems to be going right, until the day she realizes it's all wrong. Lulu's cousin Mitch introduced her to the world of Renaissance Faires, and when she spies one at a time just when she needs an escape, she leaps...

Some five hundred years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created works of unearthly beauty. A star of Florence's art world, he was commissioned by a member of the city's powerful Medici family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all one hundred cantos of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, the ultimate visual homage to that "divine" poet. This sparked a gripping encounter between poet and artist, between the religious...

A chronicle of the years between 1100 and 1453 describes the Crusades, the Inquisition, the emergence of the Ottomans, the rise of the Mongols, and the invention of new currencies, weapons, and schools of thought.

The Renaissance is one of the most celebrated periods in European history. But when did it begin? When did it end? And what did it include?0Traditionally regarded as a revival of classical art and learning, centred upon fifteenth-century Italy, views of the Renaissance have changed considerably in recent decades. The glories of Florence and the art of Raphael and Michelangelo remain an important element of the Renaissance story, but they are now only...

Art as we know it today could not exist had not the revolutionary work of the Renaissance artists paved the way. Widely considered the most important and influential movement in the history of fine arts, literature, architecture, and science, the Renaissance marked the emergence of Western civilization from the Middle Ages into the modern era. Beginning in the 14th century in Italy, the movement spread throughout Europe by the late 15th century, the...

Emily knew there would be strings attached when she relocated to the small town of Willow Creek, Maryland, for the summer to help her sister recover from an accident, but who could anticipate getting roped into volunteering for the local Renaissance Faire alongside her teenaged niece? Or that the irritating and inscrutable schoolteacher in charge of the volunteers would be so annoying that she finds it impossible to stop thinking about him? The faire...

An illustrated survey of the art and culture of Renaissance Europe.

Studies the culture which emerged in Italy during the Renaissance, focusing on developments in statecraft, art, and literature.