An image from Costume book of Matthaus Schwarz from Augsburg, 1520 - 1560

The Art of Renaissance Clothes

While Spanish Catholicism and reformatory Protestantism favored black clothing, much of the Renaissance happened in an explosion of color.
Giovanni da Udine, detail of border surrounding Raphael’s Cupid and Psyche, Villa Farnesina, Rome.

Fruit and Veg: The Sexual Metaphors of the Renaissance

Using peach and eggplant emojis as shorthand for sex may seem like a new thing, but Renaissance painters were experts at using produce to imply intercourse.
Leonardo da Vinci

The Destructive Myth of the Universal Genius

Excusing bad behavior from actors viewed as exceptional has led to supremely destructive moments in history. How'd we get from da Vinci to Hitler?
Idealized Portrait of a Woman (allegedly Simonetta Vespucci) by Sandro Botticelli

The Renaissance Lets Its Hair Down

The notion that everybody was going to be hairless in Heaven may not have sat well with Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli.
An anatomical machine of Prince Raimondo di Sangro

The Anatomical Machines of Naples’ Alchemist Prince

Rumor had it that these machines were once the Prince’s servants, whom he murdered and transformed into anatomical displays. Scholars showed otherwise.
Lansquenets - mercenary soldiers under emperor Maximilian I, c. 1600. Lithograph, published in 1887.

Chivalric Romance, Meet Gunpowder Reality

The manly knight wouldn't have lasted a day in sixteenth-century combat. So why was he so popular as a literary figure at the time?
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schreibzeug_(Nürnberg).jpg

How Renaissance Artisans Turned Live Animals into Silver

Lifecasting was the renaissance art of making sculptures using molds taken from real-life plants and animals.
A 17th century standing cup

These Bizarre Ivory Cups Were Carved by Princes

The royal houses of Europe felt that it would be good for their sons to learn a manual trade. Artisans taught nobles to carve ivory on a lathe.
Mary Somerset

The Beaufort Botanist and Her “Innocent Diversion”

Despite the twelve volume herbarium she created, this seventeenth-century scientist earned little recognition. 
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer by Michiel van Mierevelt

Public Dissection Was a Gruesome Spectacle

Renaissance-era anatomists taught people to “knowe thyself” by reading the books of bodies.