The Beauty and Violence of the Renaissance
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 12.9K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
The Renaissance was a time of radical change in Europe with an explosion in the production of art, new methods of waging war, Europeans discovering the new world, the printing press and religious strife with reformation. At the centre of all this tumult was Italy which was made up of competing princely states squabbling and fighting for cultural as well political supremacy. Ultimately it is this period that would come to shape what we know as the Western World. To help better understand this enthralling period Dan is joined by the author Catherine Fletcher to explore the politics, art, warfare and the amazing characters that make up what we think of as the Rennaissance
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi everyone, welcome to Dance No Cisteria, I am Dance No. On this podcast we're going |
| 0:05.3 | to talk about the Renaissance. I've got to say, you know me, I'm an 18th century kind |
| 0:09.0 | of guy, and I would tend to think that most things that matter in human history happen |
| 0:12.4 | in the 18th century, but recently I've been having some doubts because people like |
| 0:16.4 | Catherine Fletcher, who's my guest on this podcast, are brilliant historian of early modern |
| 0:20.3 | Europe. She's just written a majestic book, The Beauty and the Terror, all about the Renaissance |
| 0:25.3 | and the politics, the art, the warfare, and people like her have convinced me that, you |
| 0:30.4 | know what, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on in the 15th and 16th centuries. |
| 0:35.0 | You've got the explosion of art in Italy, but also plays out of low countries that we |
| 0:38.7 | associate with the Renaissance, but you've also got just radical transformations in the ability |
| 0:43.9 | of the state to make war. You've got a titanic clash between Islam and Christendom. You've |
| 0:51.1 | got Europeans discovering that the Americas existed. You've got Europeans opening up direct |
| 0:56.6 | trading routes with the East. You've got the printing press. You've got the Reformation. |
| 1:02.3 | These things matter, and you'll hear me talking to Catherine Fletcher about all of them. |
| 1:05.8 | Her book was so good that we wanted to launch our History Hit book club, yes? The History |
| 1:11.4 | Hit book club with her book. We've recorded the episode, there are lots of history hit subscribers, |
| 1:16.4 | joined us for that journey. We tested it all out. All the systems work, and by work, I mean, |
| 1:22.0 | didn't quite work, but we've tweaked it all, and we now have a fully operational book club. |
| 1:26.7 | If you like the sound of this book club, at the moment, because of Demar and I'm going to |
| 1:30.5 | make sure that we grow in a sustainable way, we're only opening up to subscribers of HistoryHit.tv. |
| 1:35.8 | So if you've got a subscription to HistoryHit.tv, check your email inbox, possibly your |
| 1:41.1 | joint mail as well, and you'll have an email inviting you to become a member on the HistoryHit book club. |
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