Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast. I'm your host, Heather Tesco.

Last episode, I did a little introduction to music in Renaissance England,

and this week I want to do something on visual arts. Don't worry, we'll get back to the timeline

and the ascent of Queen Elizabeth here in a little bit, I promise. Well, actually, first we'll

spend some time on the juicy details of her personal life before

she became Queen, which really could be a story straight out of TMZ. How's that for a teaser?

But while we have this little break between monarchs, I want to focus on some of the cultural

aspects of 16th century England. Also, I will be putting up some of the images

by the artists on the blog over the next few days. So feel free to check it out at http,

colon slash, www.com. So, most of us know that the Renaissance was a time of flowering of the arts world, starting in

Italy, where Jado was painting frescoes, and as I learned in high school, the teenage mutant

ninja turtles were prolific. I guess that dates me a little bit, huh? But what about Northern Europe

and England specifically? Did the powers of

Donatello and Leonardo extend across the English Channel? The Renaissance was later in coming to England,

migrating north from warmer climates. So what flowering of art there was took off later in the

16th century under the reign of Elizabeth. Also, the

Reformation and all of the political upheaval that went along with that made it difficult for artists

to work in the traditional places like monasteries and cathedrals. So during the age of the tutors,

art didn't follow the same trajectory as it did in Italy, where there were very few radicals around protesting the Pope.

Henry VIII was well known for supporting the arts, especially early in his reign, and there was a sort of artist colony around the court, which was enhanced by the fact that many of the artists knew each other.

Lucas Horimbal was an early Flemish artist who moved to England in the 1520s to become the

king's painter, and was one of the founders of the practice of painting miniatures, which would

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