Search results for ""Author Catherine Fletcher""

‘A spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 1531 – after years of brutal war and political intrigue, the bastard son of a Medici Duke and a ‘half-negro’ maidservant rides into Florence. Within a year, he rules the city as its Prince. Backed by the Pope and his future father-in-law the Holy Roman Emperor, the nineteen-year-old Alessandro faces down bloody family rivalry and the scheming hostility of Italy’s oligarchs to reassert the Medicis’ faltering grip on the turbulent city-state. Six years later, as he awaits an adulterous liaison, he will be murdered by his cousin in another man’s bed.‘Nothing in sixteenth-century history is more astonishing’ Hilary Mantel

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*A THE TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020*'Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness' Simon Sebag MontefioreThe Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century.The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the reality of this astonishing era, and its meaning for today.'Terrifying and fascinating' Sunday Times'Enlightening...exactly the alternative history you might wish for' Daily Telegraph

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Brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of European history through one the greatest imperial networks ever built''A delightful, novel and authoritative history from the ground up'' JUDITH HERRIN''Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour'' TOBIAS JONES, Observer''Fletcher is a rare thing: an academic who writes beautifully and accessibly about big subjects ... utterly riveting, filled with golden nuggets'' CHARLIE CONNELLY, New European''All roads lead to Rome.'' It''s a medieval proverb, but it''s also true: today''s European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire, as Rome's extraordinary legacy continues to grip our imaginations.Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and di

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Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe and the author of several previous books, including most recently The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance, which was a Book of the Year (2020) in The Times. Catherine is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and broadcasts regularly for the BBC.

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