Pilgrims and Poverty in Renaissance Rome
Rome welcomed and tended to the vast numbers of pilgrims who arrived in the 16th century, but its attitude to its own poor could be very different.
Renaissance
The Longest-Running Newspaper
The ancestor of the London Gazette was launched on 16 November 1665, surviving its bitter rival to become the oldest newspaper in the English-speaking world still in print.
Bringing Down the Curtain on the Touring Theatre
For most of the late 16th and early 17th century, theatre companies touring England were welcomed in provincial towns. But as tastes changed, players found themselves take second billing to moral concerns.
Noah’s Ark and the Slave Trade
After the Flood, Noah’s sons were repurposed to support a new worldview justifying racial hierarchy and slavery.
The Race to Write a History of Naples
The lifelong rivalry of two early modern Neapolitan printers was a battle of books, power, and, ultimately, fire.
‘The Great Exchange’ by Joad Raymond Wren review
The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe by Joad Raymond Wren looks to the 15th century for the birth of the press.
The Hunt for Martin Marprelate
Who was Martin Marprelate, seditious pamphleteer and enemy of the Elizabethan Church and state? And, more importantly, how could he be stopped?
Mental Health and the 17th-Century Ship’s Doctor
Life at sea was hard. An early modern ship’s surgeon had to treat not just broken bones but distress and trauma.
The Speed of Early Modern News
How did Western Europe learn of the fall of Constantinople, the loss of Negroponte, and the Ottoman defeat at Lepanto? In the early modern era all news was slow news.
Renaissance Florence’s Missing Bronzes
The controversial outcome of a sculpture competition between Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti changed the urban fabric of Renaissance Florence – or so the story goes.