The Beauty and the Terror: The Italian Renaissance and the Rise of the West

A new account of the birth of the West through its birthplace—Renaissance Italy

The period between 1492—resonant for a number of reasons—and 1571, when the Ottoman navy was defeated in the Battle of Lepanto, embraces what we know as the Renaissance, one of the most dynamic and creatively explosive epochs in world history. Here is the period that gave rise to so many great artists and figures, and which by its connection to its classical heritage enabled a redefinition, even reinvention, of h...