The Other Renaissance

From Copernicus to Shakespeare

Paul Strathern

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781838955175
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Renaissance History
• Index: History

From art and astronomy to medicine and exploration, The Other Renaissance covers a lot of ground, and the author's biographical style is invariably engaging... Lively and wide-ranging.' Financial Times Through the lives of major figures from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, including Copernicus, Gutenberg, Luther, Catherine de Medici, Rabelais, van Eyck and Shakespeare, Paul Strathern tells the fascinating story of the northern European Renaissance, which rivalled its Italian counterpart.There is no denying that many of the first developments of the Renaissance took place in Italy. However, a revolution of similar magnitude was also occurring across northern Europe, which would forever alter European culture in its own unique fashion. Initially centred on the city of Bruges, its influence was soon felt in France, the German states, England and even in Italy itself.By vividly bringing to life the key players of the northern Renaissance, Paul Strathern explores some of the most significant advances of the whole era, revealing how they not only introduced new ways of thinking in art, literature, science, philosophy, mathematics and medicine, but also allowed for the evolution of an entirely different concept of life. In this compelling and original history, Strathern shows how the 'Other Renaissance' would play a role at least as significant as the Italian Renaissance in shattering the constraints of medieval life and bringing our modern world into being.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Map
• Timeline of Significant Events during the Northern Renaissance
• Prologue: Lifting the Lid
• 1 Gutenberg
• 2 Jan van Eyck
• 3 Nicholas of Cusa
• 4 Francis I and the French Renaissance
• 5 A New Literature: Rabelais
• 6 Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation
• 7 The Rise of England
• 8 The Rise and Rise of the Fuggers
• 9 Copernicus
• 10 Erasmus
• 11 Dürer
• 12 Straddling Two Ages: Paracelsus and Bruegel the Elder
• 13 Versions of the True: Mercator and Viète
• 14 Vesalius
• 15 Catherine de’ Medici
• 16 Montaigne
• 17 Elizabethan England
• 18 Brahe and Kepler
• 19 Europe Expands
• Conclusion: A Last Legacy
• Acknowledgements
• Notes and Further Reading
• List of Illustrations
• Index