A merchant in fourteenth-century Naples has to relieve himself at night in an alley, a woodcarver in fifteenth-century Florence decides to ignore a dinner invitation, the poet Petrarch finally arrives in Rome for the first time, and a Roman servant returning to his native city can’t remember wher...

Renaissance noblewomen were responsible for maintaining the health and beauty of their families and themselves. Armed with knowledge passed down among women and assisted by servants, the Duchesses Caterina Cibo and Caterina Sforza experimented with herbs, oils, food and minerals to concoct new re...

Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516), one of the major artists of the Northern Renaissance, had a seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Known as the creator of disturbing demons and spectacular hellscapes, he also painted the Garden of Earthly Delights, where gleeful naked folk feast on giant strawberri...

This lecture will take you through one of the most fascinating streets of Baroque Rome, the Strada Pia. From the Entrance Gate, designed by Michelangelo, to Piazza del Quirinale, with its monumental central obelisk, this monumental axial avenue boasts some of the greatest buildings designed by Gi...

with Ross King

The fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE remains one of history’s most debated topics, with numerous theories attempting to explain the decline and collapse of the ancient world’s greatest power. This lecture will look at some of the most compelling reasons, from Christianity and ba...

This exclusive webinar will give a hard look to the less glamorous side of the world of the art market. Art crimes, such as art theft, looting, forgery, the production of fakes, insurance fraud, money laundering, illicit exportation, and the use of Free Ports as hideouts for stolen and/or looted ...

The Medici had two popes and two dukes, before becoming dukes of Florence. In this video lecture, Marcello Simonetta provides an overview of their spectacular successes and failures and traces the evolution of Medici royalty.

Marcello Simonetta earned his Ph.D. at Yale University. He has taught...

From 1397 to 1743, the Medici family was the most powerful family in Florence and one of the most influential in Europe. They produced bankers, politicians, rulers of Florence and Rome (four popes) and Pan-European aristocrats. Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici started things off by founding the Medic...

The last two years have seen the COVID 19 pandemic engulf the world, destroying old traditions and creating new ones in its inexorable wake. But our experience is not unique. Similar pandemics have challenged our ancestors throughout the arc of human history. The Renaissance suffered especially f...

In the 1500s the Arsenale was described as the foundation of Venice’s greatness and the bastion of Christendom. It was without doubt the most impressive and sophisticated industrial facility of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This lecture will look at how its engineers drew on newly discovered w...

During the course of the fifteenth century four generations of the Medici family moved from a relatively minor banking family to the de facto rulers of the city of Florence before being expelled in 1494. Among (sometimes quite ruthless) political and economic methods, male members of the family –...

If any work of art exemplifies artistic genius, it is this well-known masterpiece. No matter how familiar the work, no matter the trials of getting into that crowded space, few visitors have not felt awestruck standing under this titanic achievement. Like a handful of timeless monuments – the pyr...

The house of Temple St. Clair was founded in Florence in 1986.

From the beginning, a distinct vocabulary of design emerged.

35 years later, we are gathering and uniting the most signature jewels of our world into a collection of House Jewels referred to as Florence86.

In this video lecture, Te...

Through the patronage of Pope Urban VIII Barberini (1623-1644), Innocent X Pamphili (1644-1655), Alexander VII Chigi (1655-1667) and Clement IX Rospigliosi (1667-1669), Gian Lorenzo Bernini had created one of the biggest artistic workshops in the history of Rome. It must have been a true industry...

On September 16 in the year 1098, Mechthild of Merxheim was delivered of her 10th child. As was the custom, the little girl was given to the Church at the age of eight as an “oblate”, destined to become a nun and live a life of service to God. Thus began the saga of one of the most famous and fas...

The Metaverse. Virtual Reality. The Blockchain, Crypto, and NFTs. You've probably heard of these techno wonders, and how they will change everything. What they don't tell you is how much of this has happened before, or how Renaissance is filled with pageants, performances, pilgrimages and pecunia...

A merchant in fourteenth-century Naples has to relieve himself at night in an alley, a woodcarver in fifteenth-century Florence decides to ignore a dinner invitation, the poet Petrarch finally arrives in Rome for the first time, and a Roman servant returning to his native city can’t remember wher...

In 1558, an enormous block of marble intended for the central statue of a new public fountain arrived in Florence. Duke Cosimo de’ Medici had a sculptor in mind for the project, but other artists persuaded him that they should compete for the commission. This ‘competition’ transformed Florence in...

Synonymous with scandal and intrigue, the figure of Giacomo Casanova has enthralled, mystified, and positively tickled the imagination of curious lovers of Venice for centuries. In this seminar, participants will delve deeper into the complex and often contradictory elements of Casanova’s fascina...

When the Romans invaded Britain in 55 and again in 54 BC, Caesar and his men found a land of unfriendly Britons and unwelcoming weather. His incursions led to war, exchange, and trade. By 43 AD Claudius received the surrender of British tribes, and large areas of the country would become part of ...

Just as there can be a thin line between love and hate, so too can several of Shakespeare’s best-known plays dance on the border between comedy and tragedy, thanks to the lively contrasts and dynamic energies of their Italian style. The avant-garde Italian drama of Shakespeare’s time also enabled...

Michelangelo (1475-1564) has an unusual training for an artist of his time insofar as his first training was with a humanist scholar (his father had grand plans for him), followed by apprenticeship in a painting workshop, followed by participation in the Medici sculpture garden where he met sculp...

The Renaissance in Florence was the product of a perfect storm of wealthy bankers, talented artists, ingenious financial instruments, and a new attitude toward money. This new attitude took its cues not from age-old religious injunctions against usury but instead from the even more ancient ideas ...

It is well known that classicizing inscriptions were widely used in Renaissance Italy to mark elite domestic buildings with the authority and identity of their patron-owners. Previous studies have tended to discuss these textual interventions on the designed surfaces of the palazzo as personal st...