Renaissances

Travel east and west to explore the connections and rivalries between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic empires that experienced their own cultural flowering in the 15th and 16th centuries. Both spheres were open to influences flowing both ways.

Mimar Sinar became the greatest military engineer of his day, but he always felt himself destined for something greater than being the builder of bridges and fortresses.

At the Church of San Agostino in Rome, Caravaggio breaks the social and aesthetic rules of his generation.

University of London scholar Jerry Brotton discusses how the the Renaissance creates a contrast between ars and invenio.

Rebelling against any notion that women shouldn't speak until spoken to, Artemisia refuses to shut her portrait up.