Renaissance History

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 16th century, Galileo contributed to the era's great rebirth of knowledge. He invented a telescope to observe the heavens. From there, not even the sky was the limit! He turned long-held notions about the universe topsy turvy with his support of a sun-centric solar system.

Michelangelo created some of the world's most recognizable art, from the statue of David to the intricate ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel. Beyond his well-known painting and sculpting, he was a gifted poet and architect.

When Portuguese sailor Ferdinand Magellan set sail from Spain in 1519, he believed he could get to the Spice Islands by sailing west through or around the New World. He was right, but what he didn't know was that the treacherous voyage would take him three years and cost him his life.

New York City in the Jazz Age was host to a pulsating artistic and social revolution. Uptown, an unprecedented explosion in Black music, literature, dance, and art sparked the Harlem Renaissance. While the history of this African-American awakening has been widely explored, one chapter remains untold: The story of a group of women collectively dubbed “Miss Anne.” Kaplan’s formidable work remaps the landscape of the 1920s, and alters our perception of this historical moment.

Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.

Five Tudor monarchs sat on the throne of England and Ireland from 1485 to 1603. The family earned their royal rights through strategic planning and battlefield prowess, and kept them because of intellect, strength, and sheer determination. The Tudors, one of England’s most powerful and famous royal dynasties, knitted together a fragmented and small island nation that became one of the world’s financial, colonial, and technological superpowers.

In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and best-selling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites listeners on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace. He leads us through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life.

Leonardo da Vinci has long been celebrated for his consummate genius. He was the painter who gave us the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and the inventor who anticipated the advent of airplanes, hot air balloons, and other technological marvels. But what was the connection between Leonardo the painter and Leonardo the scientist?

A controversial examination of the influence and presence of the Norse god Odin in contemporary history and culture.

The fifth in the new Naxos Audiobooks series "In a Nutshell", The Renaissance is a short and accessible introduction to the era that gave us Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Palestrina. The Renaissance swept across Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, heralding intellectual revolutions in science, art, philosophy and politics, and marking a decisive shift towards modern thinking.

Esta Historia de las mujeres responde a la necesidad de ceder la palabra a las mujeres. Alejadas, desde la Antigüedad, del escenario donde se enfrentan a los dueños del destino, reconstruir su historia significa describir su lento acceso a los medios de expresión y su conversión en persona que asume un papel protagonista. Este análisis implica, asimismo, que las relaciones entre los sexos condicionan los acontecimientos, o la evolución de las sociedades. No se buscan conclusiones tajantes sino que las mujeres encuentren, al fin, su espacio propio.

Listen to this audiobook now and unlock the door to Europe's magnificent past, vibrant present, and promising future!

At the heart of the extraordinary ferment of the High Renaissance stood a distinctive, strange and beguiling figure: the magus. An unstable mix of scientist, bibliophile, engineer, fabulist and fraud, the magus ushered in modern physics and chemistry while also working on everything from secret codes to siege engines to magic tricks. Anthony Grafton's wonderfully original book discusses the careers of men who somehow managed to be both figures of startling genius and - by some measures - credulous or worse.

In four decades, bookended by the Pope’s visits to Ireland in September 1979 and August 2018, Ireland has become one of the wealthiest and most progressive nations in the world. Characteristically brilliant and timely, Renaissance Nation is a thrilling account of Ireland’s vertiginous rise and a timely exploration of its conflicted present, where stark decisions await the next generation of would-be revolutionaries.

If ever a catharsis in Western European Civilization occurred, it had to have been the period we refer to as the Renaissance. After a thousand years of theocracy, manorialism, feudalism and narrow economic development, Europe was ripe for change. She got it with a vengeance.

Who was the real Mary Queen of Scots? The most enigmatic ruler of England lived a life of incredible drama and turmoil: crowned Queen of Scotland at nine months old, and Queen of France at 16 years, she grew up in the crosshairs of Europe's political battles to become Queen Elizabeth's archrival.

The Greek Dark Ages, sometimes referred to as the Homeric Age or the Geometric Period, spans the era of Greek history from the end of the Mycenaean civilization around 1100 BCE and the emergence of the Greek poleis in the 9th century BCE.

Claudie Wells wants more than anything to be a person whose imagination can fly, instead of a person whose feet are stuck on the ground. She believes everyone has a talent except for her. She’s growing up in the neighborhood of Harlem in New York City during the 1920s, surrounded by writers and poets, painters and sculptors, actors and dancers, singers and musicians. When an eviction notice threatens her family, friends, and the beloved boardinghouse they share, Claudie has an idea that just might save the day.

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.

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.