Browse Items (202 total)

Casta paintings were family portraits displaying different Spanish colonial couples and their children that were often crafted around the 1700s. The paintings are important for a number of reasons related to race and status. The first is how they…

This manuscript was an anatomical manual drawn by Juan Valverde de Amusco, a Spaniard born in 1525. Very few of the images were Valverde’s originals, only 4 of 42, but all were corrected to create a more accurate image of the dissected human body…

As the Spanish colonial endeavour to the New World began, so did the spread of Spanish culture, power, and influence on these new lands. As the Spaniards arrived at the Caribbean, their main objectives included carrying the Spanish flag into new…

While strategic marriages for either resources or power have always been present in European history, their importance during the renaissance cannot be understated. The marriages of Maximilian the I (top left) and subsequent marriages that he planned…

Protestantism had taken Germany by storm in the early 1500s. The Edict of Worms decreed in 1521 at the behest of Charles V declared Martin Luther a heretic and forbade anyone from supporting him, yet this did little to stop the rampant spread of…

While Charles V may have been the Holy Roman Emperor in the 1500s, the German princes were nearly completely autonomous with regards to rule over their own holdings. This political structure left the peasants and serfs essentially no opportunity to…

Minted five years after the marriage of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, this Spanish gold coin represents the increasingly unified economy of the Iberian peninsula. The marriage of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile was perhaps…

Within The Republic, Plato sought to answer questions regarding ethics and to design an ideal government. For this item, The Republic will largely be discussed in terms of its political theory. His conception of justice, morality, and metaphysics can…

An item of crucial importance to the Protestant Reformation was the printing press. The Reformation was a popular movement, which meant that people had to know about it and be taught what the reformers stood for. Bringing this information to the…

The bust (pictured above) depicts Plato. Regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of Classical Greece, the study of Plato and his works was prevalent throughout the Renaissance (one example can be seen in "The School of Athens," an item found in the…

16th century Europe saw the rise of the nation-state in many kingdoms. Monarchs across Europe sought to consolidate their power and develop large centralized institutions (Wiesner-Hanks 88). Additionally, New military technology led to an increase…

Hernán Cortes was a prominent Spanish Conquistador who went on an expedition against the Aztec empire. The attached image is of the armor he used during the trip. It was placed in a Spanish museum to honor his legacy and represents some of the mythos…