Showing titles in Renaissance

This magnificent biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court - the most spectacular court ever seen in England - and the splendour of his many sumptuous palaces. An entertaining narrative packed with colourful description and a wealth of anecdotal evidence, but also a comprehensive analytical study of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history.

The Borgia family have become a byword for evil. Corruption, incest, ruthless megalomania, avarice, and vicious cruelty - all have been associated with their name. And yet, paradoxically, this family lived when the Renaissance was coming into its full flowering in Italy. Examples of infamy flourished alongside some of the finest art produced in western history.

The papal tiara has been worn by a number of infamous men through the course of its history. Some have been accused of murder, many have had mistresses, while others sold positions in the church to their followers or gave land and wealth to their illegitimate children. E. R. Chamberlin examines the lives of eight of the most controversial popes, from the reign of Pope Stephen VI, who had his predecessor exhumed, put on trial and thrown in the Tiber, in the ninth century, through to Pope Clement VII, whose failed international policy led to the Sack of Rome in 1527.

Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642 something happened that transformed the entire culture of Western civilisation. Painting, sculpture and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born or emerge in an entirely new guise. The ideas that broke this mould largely began, and continued to flourish, in the city of Florence in the province of Tuscany.

What was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time? In this book Ian Mortimer answers the key questions that a visitor to late 16th-century England would ask.

Anne Boleyn is a subject of enduring fascination and by far the most famous of Henry VIII's six wives. For the most part, she is considered in the context of her relationship with Tudor England's monarch. Dramatic though this story is, of even greater interest - and significance - is the relationship between Anne and her daughter, the future Elizabeth I, who was less than three years old when her mother was executed. Given that she could have held precious few memories of Anne, it is assumed that her mother exerted little influence over her. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Mary Boleyn was the mistress of two kings, Francois I of France and Henry VIII of England, and sister to Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife. In this astonishing and riveting biography, Alison Weir’s extensive research gives a new and detailed portrayal, in which she recounts that, contrary to popular belief, Mary was entirely undeserving of her posthumous notoriety as a great whore.

Europe is an astonishingly successful place. In this dazzling new history, best-selling author Simon Jenkins grippingly tells the story of its evolution from warring peoples to peace, wealth and freedom - a story that twists and turns from Greece and Rome, through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and the French Revolution, to the Second World War and up to the present day. Jenkins takes in leaders from Julius Caesar and Joan of Arc to Wellington and Angela Merkel as well as cultural figures from Aristotle to Shakespeare and Picasso.

On the 500th anniversary of Luther's rebellion, this spectacular global history traces the revolutionary faith that shaped the modern world. Five hundred years ago, Protestant Christianity began with one stubborn monk. Today it includes a billion people across the globe. The upheaval Martin Luther triggered inspired one of the most creative and destructive movements in human history. Protestants is the story of the men and women who made and remade this quarrelsome faith.

History has pictured Elizabeth I as Gloriana, an icon of strength and power - and has focused on the early years of her reign. But in 1583, when Elizabeth is 50, there is relentless plotting among her courtiers - and still to come is the Spanish Armada and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. We have not, until now, had the full picture.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Thomas Cromwell by Diarmid MacCulloch, read by David Rintoul. Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, and by the end of the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King.

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.

Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster, lived through an astonishingly threatening period in English history. Queen Elizabeth had no clear successor and enemies both external and internal threatened to destroy England as a Protestant state, most spectacularly with the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot. All His Spies is a wonderfully engaging and original work of history. Many listeners are familiar with the great events of this tumultuous time, but All His Spies shows how easily these dramas could have turned out very differently.

This is a landmark in science writing. It resurrects from the vaults of neglect the polymath Jerome Cardano, a Milanese of the 16th century. Who is he? A gambler and blasphemer, inventor and chancer, plagued by demons and anxieties, astrologer to kings, emperors and popes. This stubborn and unworldly man was the son of a lawyer and a brothel keeper but also a gifted physician and the unacknowledged discoverer of the mathematical foundations of quantum physics.

Volume Three of 2,000 Years of Christ's Power, in showing the progression of the Reformation era and the daring bravery of its figures, presents a period of history from which there are many lessons to be learnt—not least of all, the vibrancy of people's lives and the courage with which they faced death.

Few families in history are as renowned as the Habsburgs, one of the principal sovereign dynasties of Europe from the 13th to the 20th century. This enthralling audio provides glimpses into the lives of their esteemed members. The lessons that their lives teach will help guide your family in faith and will help you live in peaceful prosperity and grow in holiness. Their maxims could also provide a road map for healing the world we live in.

The Reformation was a long struggle of ideas between the established Catholic Church and the questioning of faith brought about by the Renaissance in Western Europe. Started by Martin Luther in 1517, religious dissidence spread across Europe throughout the sixteenth century, causing wars, migration and disunity.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Henry VIII: The Quest for Fame by John Guy, read by John Banks. Henry VIII's reign transformed the physical and spiritual landscape of England. Magnificent, tyrannical, a strong ruler, a 'pillager of the commonwealth', this most notorious of kings remains a figure of extreme contradictions: a devout traditionalist who oversaw a cataclysmic rupture with the church in Rome, a talented, charismatic, imposing figure who nevertheless could not bear to meet people's eyes when he talked to them.

Crescent Dawn features some of the legendary figures of the era – from Mehmet the Conqueror, and Suleiman the Magnificent on the Ottoman side, to Charles V and Vasco de Gama on the other – and some of the most exotic locales on Earth – from the sumptuous palaces of Constantinople to the bloody battlefields of the Balkans to the awe-inspiring mountains of Ethiopia. This is a colorful history that brings the great battles of the age to life and clearly shows how the western struggle against the Ottomans constituted the first truly world war.

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.