Browse Items (202 total)

Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), one of the most prominent architects of early Renaissance, designed Ospedale degli Innocenti. The "Hospital of the Innocents" was built in mind for infants who had been abandoned by their parents and is one of the…

Italian politics throughout the early modern period are a complex matter with city states constantly trying to gain more prestige and power. Throughout this constant power struggle, princes were adapting various political ideas to create a more…

In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Spain didn’t develop a major Protestant sect. Instead, many Protestant ideas were erased from public consciousness by the Spanish Inquisition, which encouraged the censure of texts and the murder or…

Sir Thomas More’s Utopia is one of the most astounding, influential, and unique works of political satire and inquiry in early modern Europe. More, through the use of fictional prose, imagines an island, Utopia, where society has evolved…

During much of the period known as the Middle Ages, it has often been believed that Europeans focused inwards, foregoing a knowledge of the outside world in the harsh years of plague and religious intolerance. This misconception, however, greatly…

In 1516, English humanist Thomas More published one of his most famous and controversial works, a novel called Utopia. In it, More described an independent, law-abiding community living on an island. His community was devoid of crime and…

Any discussion on the impact of the Protestant reformation on the study of the body, and medicine as a whole, must begin with a discussion of Protestant education. Melanchthon, a contemporary and friend of Luther’s, is widely considered to be…

Written in 1302, Pietro de Crescenzi’s famous “Ruralia Commodia” offers a unique perspective on rural peasant life in the early modern era. This particular illustration depicting two peasant men mowing hay was included in the book’s first publication…

Fort Bourtange (Vesting Bourtange in Dutch) is a textbook example of the “star fort” or “bastion” fortification type which grew to prominence in the later Renaissance. Construction began during the Dutch Revolt in 1580 under the orders of William of…

Westminster Abbey is certainly not a structure built during the Protestant Reformation, nor the English Reformations, but its history is inextricably entangled with Protestantism and Anglicanism, so it has earned its spot in this era. The original…

William I of Nassau, Prince of Orange, who was also known as William the Silent, was an important figure in the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Empire. The Dutch Revolt had its roots in the spread of Calvinism to the region and the subsequent…

The Queen Elizabeth I “Armada Portrait” is a distinct indicator of her monarchical rule in 16th century England. She is portrayed sitting in a lavish gown, adorned in pearls (a symbol of divine chastity and virginity), in front of two tableaus…