La belleza y el terror

We know the Mona Lisa by her enigmatic smile, but hardly anyone knows that she was married to a slave trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few today are aware of the importance of his ingenious weaponry designs. We also rarely hear about the women writers, Jewish merchants, engineers, prostitutes, and farmers who lived through the day-to-day lives of this period. Many of the most famous artists and thinkers of the Renaissance (such as Michelangelo, Raphael or Machiavelli) did not emerge during the famous 15th century rebirth, but in the 16th, a time dominated by a series of power struggles and savage wars throughout Europe. These led to the rise of great fortunes and the creation of some of the best works of art ever seen, but they also devastated the town. At the same time, the birth of Protestantism, the Spanish colonization of America, and the expansion of the Ottoman Empire posed serious threats to Italian power, sparking debates on political ethics, slavery, religious beliefs, and sexual morality that resonate with many debates. current. In this extraordinary book, a high-quality narrative story and brimming with life, Catherine Fletcher reveals the dark side of the Renaissance, whose connections with the present are far more interesting than those offered by the simple vision, dominated by beautiful images, that we has told the conventional story.