A fresh perspective on a well known subject, Professor Fletcher's book is an exploration of the Italian Renaissance but focusing on how all of the different elements of that key time in European history affected and interacted with one another. Sprawling and epic, it can sometimes be difficult to follow the different strands but the effort is well worth it!

The Beauty and the Terror, subtitled 'an alternative history of the Italian Renaissance', tells the story of the Renaissance in Italy, from the fifteenth to the later sixteenth century, following the historical narrative of wars, religion, art, trade, and beyond. Short chapters have specific focuses and Fletcher moves between different topics to follow mostly chronologically the key events and some lesser known context and people.

This is a readable introduction to the Italian Renaissance that raises some questions around things like how were Jewish people treated, what role did women play, and how did colonialism and the slave trade relate to the Renaissance in Italy. However, the idea of it being an 'alternative history' is a stretch, as it seems to cover a lot of the standard content (from my perspective, as someone who doesn't know the period very well), the key wars and religious conflicts and politics over land and the papacy, and only dedicates chapters or bits of chapters to looking at other, more 'alternative' areas, which probably have a lot of other books about them too.

The book is interesting, but very focused on describing the wars, which makes it ideal for someone looking for an overview of the period in Italy, and how Italy (well, the Italian states at the time) interacted with other countries, but not so much to look for the alternative stories of particular individuals or certain groups. To present more of an 'alternative history', it perhaps needed to cut down on some of the detail around more well known events and figures, or to provide in text nods towards texts that do that, so it worked as an introduction to this alternative history.

This is a lively popular history of the Renaissance from 1492 through the sixteenth century, focusing primarily on Italy but not ignoring exploration, imperial colonialisation and the impact of, for example, the fall of Byzantium (1453). Anyone who has studied the Renaissance either formally or through interest is unlikely to find anything new here though it may be helpful to have this kind of sweeping contextual history that gives a picture of how city-state politics, the Reformation, humanism, art, warfare and weaponry, print, trade etc. all all fit together.

In some ways, Fletcher seems to want to correct a view of the Renaissance that, surely, has been repeatedly challenged: she wants to say that the idea of the 'golden age' is a nineteenth century construct that privileges the mythologising of great, white, Christian, men. She's right, I just think that is itself a very old-fashioned view, so in a way this book seems to think it's more radical than it is. It's good to reply, again, to Joan Kelly's iconic question, 'Did Women Have A Renaissance?' - but since Kelly asked it in an academic article from the 1970s, there's been fifty years of scholarship to tackle the issue, and this book can't do more than skim the surface.

So this is an enjoyable read that offers up a modern view of Renaissance history: its attention, though, primarily to princes, rulers, popes, imperial explorers, mercenary leaders, patrons and the 'big' artists returns to a hierarchised view of culture. That's not a criticism just a way to 'place' this book which will be complementary to the kinds of micro-histories we've enjoyed in recent times.

I think it's well researched and interesting book but as I'm a sucker for Renaissance history I didn't find anything new or any exciting discovery.
Renaissance for a great time for art but it's also a very violent time with a war or a sack every other day and it's something I studied when I was 8 years old.
As for the slavery in Florence it's a maybe as Florence didn't have any ports and it would have been quite a problem for slavery.
Renaissance artists worked for people who are terrible if we judge them using our moral terms and that's a sort of miracle because we've got some of the greatest masterpiece in a dark and violent age.
I found this book interesting but I don't agree with the author views because we have to face what was and we cannot think that Alessandro Borgia or Ludovico il Moro were contemporary men. They were full of contradictions and they were people living in a specific age.
All the rest are hypothesis and maybe.
I recommend this book with all the issues because it's an interesting read but I think there are some issues.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.