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Inventing the Renaissance: Myths of a Golden Age
Bloomsbury presents Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, read by Candida Gubbins.
The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of modernity, it has come to symbolise the transformative rebirth of knowledge, art, culture and political thought in Europe. And for the last two hundred years, historians have struggled to describe what makes this famous golden age unique.
In Inventing the Renaissance, acclaimed historian Ada Palmer provides a fresh perspective on what makes this epoch so captivating. Her witty and irreverent journey through the fantasies historians have constructed about the period show how its legend derives more from later centuries’ mythmaking than from the often grim reality of the period itself. She examines its defining figures and the enduring legacy of Niccolò Machiavelli, the rediscovery of the classics, the rise of the Medici and fall of the Borgias, the astonishing artistic achievements of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Cellini, the impact of the Inquisition and the expansion of secular Humanism. Palmer also explores the ties between culture and books, for example, could cost as much as grand houses, so the period’s innovative thinkers could only thrive with the help of the super-rich. She offers fifteen provocative and entertaining character portraits of Renaissance men and women, some famous, some obscure, whose intersecting lives show how the real Renaissance was more unexpected, more international and, above all, more desperate than its golden reputation suggests.
Drawing on her popular blogs and writing with her characteristic energy and wit, Palmer presents the Renaissance as we have never seen it before. Colloquial, funny and brilliant, you would never expect a work of deep scholarship to make you alternately laugh and cry.
The Renaissance is one of the most studied and celebrated eras of history. Spanning the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of modernity, it has come to symbolise the transformative rebirth of knowledge, art, culture and political thought in Europe. And for the last two hundred years, historians have struggled to describe what makes this famous golden age unique.
In Inventing the Renaissance, acclaimed historian Ada Palmer provides a fresh perspective on what makes this epoch so captivating. Her witty and irreverent journey through the fantasies historians have constructed about the period show how its legend derives more from later centuries’ mythmaking than from the often grim reality of the period itself. She examines its defining figures and the enduring legacy of Niccolò Machiavelli, the rediscovery of the classics, the rise of the Medici and fall of the Borgias, the astonishing artistic achievements of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Cellini, the impact of the Inquisition and the expansion of secular Humanism. Palmer also explores the ties between culture and books, for example, could cost as much as grand houses, so the period’s innovative thinkers could only thrive with the help of the super-rich. She offers fifteen provocative and entertaining character portraits of Renaissance men and women, some famous, some obscure, whose intersecting lives show how the real Renaissance was more unexpected, more international and, above all, more desperate than its golden reputation suggests.
Drawing on her popular blogs and writing with her characteristic energy and wit, Palmer presents the Renaissance as we have never seen it before. Colloquial, funny and brilliant, you would never expect a work of deep scholarship to make you alternately laugh and cry.
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First published February 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 97 reviews
March 16, 2025
I haven't had this much fun reading a history book in many years. It is chatty, witty, often laugh out loud funny, but with vivid and engaging prose that has a real desire on the part of the writer for the readers to understand,/i> the subject, and in an in-depth and multilayered way. Motivated in part by several very simplistic journaist think pieces during the pandemic that went from "the Renaissance was triggered by the Black Death" to "so maybe we are about to see a new Renaissance", Palmer takes the reader through the very modern and recent origins of the concept of "the Renaissance" and shows it is, in many ways, something of a myth. She then spends most of the rest of her substantial book deconstructing what the term attempts to encompass and to examine what was happening in the periods (plural) and cultures (also plural) it generally refers to that made it both similar to and also distinct from what went before.
In the process she debunks a lot of pop history concepts and common understandings, such as the Middle Ages as "a dark age" or the Renassaince (however you delineate and define it) as "a golden age" - explaining why those terms are not accurate and not even very useful. How secular the Renaissance was and how much it led to secularism, whether it saw a rise in individualism, whether it was the birth of capitalism and whether any of the other posited "x factors" that supposedly definte the Renaissance are valid are also explored at length and in enjoyable detail.
And this is fundamentally an enjoyable book; I imagine Dr Palmer's university classes are a lot of fun. The author peppers her analysis with vivid anecdotes, amusing trivia and running jokes, several of which serve as ways to remind the reader later in what is a fairly long book of something explained at the beginning. So the parrot that speaks Latin, the man with three testicles and Battle Popes One and Two are funny, but also useful to that understanding that the author seeks to instill.
This is a great book and an remarkable debut as a popular history writer by a vigorous scholar who is clearly a superb teacher. I look forward to her next book. Highly recommended.
In the process she debunks a lot of pop history concepts and common understandings, such as the Middle Ages as "a dark age" or the Renassaince (however you delineate and define it) as "a golden age" - explaining why those terms are not accurate and not even very useful. How secular the Renaissance was and how much it led to secularism, whether it saw a rise in individualism, whether it was the birth of capitalism and whether any of the other posited "x factors" that supposedly definte the Renaissance are valid are also explored at length and in enjoyable detail.
And this is fundamentally an enjoyable book; I imagine Dr Palmer's university classes are a lot of fun. The author peppers her analysis with vivid anecdotes, amusing trivia and running jokes, several of which serve as ways to remind the reader later in what is a fairly long book of something explained at the beginning. So the parrot that speaks Latin, the man with three testicles and Battle Popes One and Two are funny, but also useful to that understanding that the author seeks to instill.
This is a great book and an remarkable debut as a popular history writer by a vigorous scholar who is clearly a superb teacher. I look forward to her next book. Highly recommended.
May 23, 2025
Superb history. For those intimidated by its length, let me point out it has 100 pages of notes and references. Yes, that means it is still 650 pages, but it is clear, enjoyable reading: I finished it in 3 days. Part of the reason for the length is that Palmer repeats herself. She also uses a lot of asides and parentheticals. But these have an important function, by repeating information and annotating it she makes it easier to remember. I suspect Palmer is a superb teacher. One example of this is how she gives nicknames, often comic, to the historical figures. For example, rather than just list off a series of popes, she writes, “he was kept in that tedious but important office by Pius II (Scholar-Pope), Paul II (reclusive Venetian), Sixtus IV (Battle Pope!), and Innocent VIII (King Log).”
While this may seem irreverent or distracting (as well as expanding the text), these serve as mnemonics, especially valuable when so many names are repeated (various Medicis, Sforzas, Borgias, and endless Giovannis). I’ve read a lot of Renaissance history and this book has really helped straighten some of these figures out in my head: I will surely never forget Julius II (Battle Pope II) again.
Palmer is a great stylist (in her fiction too) and uses that style in service of teaching, but occasionally goes wrong. Her chapter on Lucretia Borgia was very difficult for me, partly because she chose to write it in second person (using “you” as if the reader were Borgia). Since in other chapters she often addresses the reader directly as “you” and sometimes uses “you” as an indefinite pronoun, this added to my cognitive load unnecessarily. Fortunately, this conceit is restricted to that single chapter. And though I thought overall the sprawl of the text was helpful for context and perspective, the book probably could have been edited down slightly without losing anything. Still, a masterpiece.
Finally, Palmer provides a wealth of references, mostly to recent, accessible books. If you like the Renaissance and read this book, be prepared to buy a bunch more books.
While this may seem irreverent or distracting (as well as expanding the text), these serve as mnemonics, especially valuable when so many names are repeated (various Medicis, Sforzas, Borgias, and endless Giovannis). I’ve read a lot of Renaissance history and this book has really helped straighten some of these figures out in my head: I will surely never forget Julius II (Battle Pope II) again.
Palmer is a great stylist (in her fiction too) and uses that style in service of teaching, but occasionally goes wrong. Her chapter on Lucretia Borgia was very difficult for me, partly because she chose to write it in second person (using “you” as if the reader were Borgia). Since in other chapters she often addresses the reader directly as “you” and sometimes uses “you” as an indefinite pronoun, this added to my cognitive load unnecessarily. Fortunately, this conceit is restricted to that single chapter. And though I thought overall the sprawl of the text was helpful for context and perspective, the book probably could have been edited down slightly without losing anything. Still, a masterpiece.
Finally, Palmer provides a wealth of references, mostly to recent, accessible books. If you like the Renaissance and read this book, be prepared to buy a bunch more books.
February 16, 2025
This was long so I'll keep it short. This is how you write history nonfiction. There wasn't a dull moment, or a section I couldn't wait to get through, whether it was about people, events, ideas or concepts. It was fun, broad and yet easy to follow, and wonderfully supplemented the mind numbing renaissance art history class I just took. No notes, I hope Palmer writes a book for every topic I'm interested in.
Thank you to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for this ARC.
Thank you to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for this ARC.
May 26, 2025
Ada Palmer has created here a very solid and readable introduction to the Renaissance. It introduces the reader to some of the most interesting characters from that period as to most important characteristics. At the same time she very well let's us question the idea of the 'Renaissance' and how it contains very contradictory elements and is always given form by the biases of later generations who want to project their issues on that time period. I think a reader will come out of this book both more knowledgeable about the time period as more skeptical about popular conceptions of time period and aware of one's biases. ( And Ada Palmer very much concedes she herself has also those).
Palmer's writing is very readable and funny ( there are some great humorous passages in this book) and not at all academical. Palmer is also very much present in the book with examples and personal experiences that she shares. This is not a non-fiction were the author is almost invisible. I do have some criticisms of the book. One is very much one of taste. Ada Palmer is very much a historian of Ideas and that shows in this book ( what is humanism, what is atheism, what did obscure writer x thought about y,...) , material aspects of the Renaissance world get much less attention ( again something she herself concedes). There is nothing wrong with that but my interests don't completely align with Palmer.
A bigger issue is the fact that this is still a very dense book at times , with a lot of different names. I'm reasonable familiar with the period and know a lot of those and even I was drowning at times. I can imagine that it would be much for people who have less background. Palmer does really try to make it accessible but sometimes she errs in the other way by repetition of certain information which makes it tedious. But generally I really enjoyed the book and I would recommend it if people want to learn more about the period.
Palmer's writing is very readable and funny ( there are some great humorous passages in this book) and not at all academical. Palmer is also very much present in the book with examples and personal experiences that she shares. This is not a non-fiction were the author is almost invisible. I do have some criticisms of the book. One is very much one of taste. Ada Palmer is very much a historian of Ideas and that shows in this book ( what is humanism, what is atheism, what did obscure writer x thought about y,...) , material aspects of the Renaissance world get much less attention ( again something she herself concedes). There is nothing wrong with that but my interests don't completely align with Palmer.
A bigger issue is the fact that this is still a very dense book at times , with a lot of different names. I'm reasonable familiar with the period and know a lot of those and even I was drowning at times. I can imagine that it would be much for people who have less background. Palmer does really try to make it accessible but sometimes she errs in the other way by repetition of certain information which makes it tedious. But generally I really enjoyed the book and I would recommend it if people want to learn more about the period.
August 3, 2024
Inventing the Renaissance does something magical: it manages to take a tightly-held conviction (that there was a thing in European history called “the Renaissance”), dismantle it with humor and intelligence, then put it back together as something different and more true to the past itself. But maybe more importantly, Palmer’s expertise and storytelling here helps us better understand how golden ages are imagined, and why rejecting those invented constructions of the past provides us with hope as we confront our own contemporary world. As she says herself: “we can do better than the Renaissance.”
October 7, 2025
It's a bit grating at first, especially the lulzy internet speak, but I have to admit I found myself able to fly through it, and it also does a good job of keeping all the repetitious dynastic names comprehensible to the reader. The mini-biographies were ok.
I do have one big issue and a few minor ones on the Lucrezia Borgia chapter. The big issue: the author talks about the well-known debate Isabella d'Este had over who was the better fictional knight, Rinaldo or Orlando, suggesting this was spurred by Ariosto sharing the first chapters (ahem, cantos) of his Orlando Furioso. This is preposterous. Ariosto was seventeen in 1491, still a law student. Isabella might have/probably knew Ariosto, maybe even knew him as a poet (at that point he'd written some latin poetry and a student play that's since been lost), but the OF was still years away. We know this because he had another, earlier chivalric epic that he started working on but abandoned, at around the turn of the century. The first known reference to the OF isn't until 1507, when Ariosto is sent on embassy to congratulate Isabella on the birth of her (third?) son, and in her thank-you letter, Isabella mentions the poem. Isabella's debate was more likely spurred by Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, of which she was a huge fan, writing him to ask for a third book. She also would have known the characters from, among other things, Cieco's Mambriano and possibly Luigi Pulci's Morgante.
Minor quibbles: the author writes, "Ferrante sided with Giulio, demanding that (Alfonso), as duke, punish Ippolito, but Alfonso and Ippolito were close (having grown up together while Ferrante grew up in Naples) so Alfonso refused." Alfonso and Ippolito worked together and became close, but this actually came as a surprise to Ferrara-watchers, as in childhood the two did not always get along, with Ippolito being much closer to Giulio and Sigismondo. Also, the author seems to have forgotten (or not to have known in the first place) that Ippolito spent a big portion of his childhood away from his family, in Hungary, where he was educated.
"You (Palmer is writing in the second person, she means Lucrezia, it's actually a nice touch) bore Alfonso more children in these years: Alessandro, Eleonora, Francesco, then more miscarriages. You were in your thirties now—an age at which many wives in political marriages find their husbands’ attentions moving to younger concubines—but from 1513 on Alfonso started keeping you continually pregnant, even though you already had healthy sons, almost as if… Almost as if he wants you to die in childbirth? Of course there can’t be direct evidence. It was certainly unusual in the period for Alfonso to keep you pregnant so much, despite not liking you very much, but why? Was he trying to kill you? Was he just that lustful? Were you just that lustful? Insatiable? Implausibly fertile? This is exactly the kind of moralistic speculation historians will make about both you and everyone around you for centuries to come, tipping your portrait back and forth between villainous femme fatale and tragic heroine."
I don't really take issue with this one (though possibly the author might be slightly conflating Alfonso d'Este with Alfonso II d'Este, of My Last Duchess Fame). The author is entitled to her opinion, but since the book is about how there are so many different renaissances, I just thought I would offer mine. In short, Alfonso was humiliated in his first marriage, and again to by Lucrezia in their early years. Lucrezia's experience with men was even worse than Alfonso's with women, far worse. So the marriage got off to a rocky start, more performative than loving, with both doing their duty (three times on the wedding night, as per Sarah Bradford) but not investing too much in it emotionally. But the wars against first Venice and then Julius II made them realize they had to rely on each other, and both turned out to be capable leaders with unlikely qualities, and my read is that this brought them together. Sadly, for Lucrezia, this meant a lot of troubling pregnancies. But it's important to note that Alfonso didn't replace her in the way he was expected to. That is, by entering into another dynastic marriage with another elite family after the Borgias were taken off the board. After LB died he took up with the daughter of a hat-maker and lived contentedly with her for the rest of his life, possibly marrying her. Yes, Alfonso loved brothels and prostitutes when he was young, but I suspect that left him as he aged, and that he was looking for a more grounded, emotional love. And now that I think about it, Alfonso would've been justified in finding a new wife anytime after the Borgia family network collapsed, but he didn't, did he? I think there was something there, between them.
Still, my take is but one among many.
I do have one big issue and a few minor ones on the Lucrezia Borgia chapter. The big issue: the author talks about the well-known debate Isabella d'Este had over who was the better fictional knight, Rinaldo or Orlando, suggesting this was spurred by Ariosto sharing the first chapters (ahem, cantos) of his Orlando Furioso. This is preposterous. Ariosto was seventeen in 1491, still a law student. Isabella might have/probably knew Ariosto, maybe even knew him as a poet (at that point he'd written some latin poetry and a student play that's since been lost), but the OF was still years away. We know this because he had another, earlier chivalric epic that he started working on but abandoned, at around the turn of the century. The first known reference to the OF isn't until 1507, when Ariosto is sent on embassy to congratulate Isabella on the birth of her (third?) son, and in her thank-you letter, Isabella mentions the poem. Isabella's debate was more likely spurred by Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, of which she was a huge fan, writing him to ask for a third book. She also would have known the characters from, among other things, Cieco's Mambriano and possibly Luigi Pulci's Morgante.
Minor quibbles: the author writes, "Ferrante sided with Giulio, demanding that (Alfonso), as duke, punish Ippolito, but Alfonso and Ippolito were close (having grown up together while Ferrante grew up in Naples) so Alfonso refused." Alfonso and Ippolito worked together and became close, but this actually came as a surprise to Ferrara-watchers, as in childhood the two did not always get along, with Ippolito being much closer to Giulio and Sigismondo. Also, the author seems to have forgotten (or not to have known in the first place) that Ippolito spent a big portion of his childhood away from his family, in Hungary, where he was educated.
"You (Palmer is writing in the second person, she means Lucrezia, it's actually a nice touch) bore Alfonso more children in these years: Alessandro, Eleonora, Francesco, then more miscarriages. You were in your thirties now—an age at which many wives in political marriages find their husbands’ attentions moving to younger concubines—but from 1513 on Alfonso started keeping you continually pregnant, even though you already had healthy sons, almost as if… Almost as if he wants you to die in childbirth? Of course there can’t be direct evidence. It was certainly unusual in the period for Alfonso to keep you pregnant so much, despite not liking you very much, but why? Was he trying to kill you? Was he just that lustful? Were you just that lustful? Insatiable? Implausibly fertile? This is exactly the kind of moralistic speculation historians will make about both you and everyone around you for centuries to come, tipping your portrait back and forth between villainous femme fatale and tragic heroine."
I don't really take issue with this one (though possibly the author might be slightly conflating Alfonso d'Este with Alfonso II d'Este, of My Last Duchess Fame). The author is entitled to her opinion, but since the book is about how there are so many different renaissances, I just thought I would offer mine. In short, Alfonso was humiliated in his first marriage, and again to by Lucrezia in their early years. Lucrezia's experience with men was even worse than Alfonso's with women, far worse. So the marriage got off to a rocky start, more performative than loving, with both doing their duty (three times on the wedding night, as per Sarah Bradford) but not investing too much in it emotionally. But the wars against first Venice and then Julius II made them realize they had to rely on each other, and both turned out to be capable leaders with unlikely qualities, and my read is that this brought them together. Sadly, for Lucrezia, this meant a lot of troubling pregnancies. But it's important to note that Alfonso didn't replace her in the way he was expected to. That is, by entering into another dynastic marriage with another elite family after the Borgias were taken off the board. After LB died he took up with the daughter of a hat-maker and lived contentedly with her for the rest of his life, possibly marrying her. Yes, Alfonso loved brothels and prostitutes when he was young, but I suspect that left him as he aged, and that he was looking for a more grounded, emotional love. And now that I think about it, Alfonso would've been justified in finding a new wife anytime after the Borgia family network collapsed, but he didn't, did he? I think there was something there, between them.
Still, my take is but one among many.
July 10, 2025
This rating reflects my personal experience with this book rather than its quality.
I'm sure it's a great book, especially for someone academically inclined, but I cared naught for that particular discussion of humanism (part 4) and whatever was going on in part 5 & 6, either - I'm just here for the anecdotes, really, and Donatello with his cute gay boyfriend (I mean, girl, all I'm saying...you can't just drop this and not show the receipts), but I did enjoy part 1 & 2, especially the chapter on patronage.
Oh and Medici's balls.
The mystery of those balls will haunt me forever.
I'm sure it's a great book, especially for someone academically inclined, but I cared naught for that particular discussion of humanism (part 4) and whatever was going on in part 5 & 6, either - I'm just here for the anecdotes, really, and Donatello with his cute gay boyfriend (I mean, girl, all I'm saying...you can't just drop this and not show the receipts), but I did enjoy part 1 & 2, especially the chapter on patronage.
Oh and Medici's balls.
The mystery of those balls will haunt me forever.
August 12, 2025
I wish Goodreads' ratings went above 5 stars for this one. Infinity stars. My God. This book is a goddamn triumph, not just as an accessible history of the Renaissance but a look at how our understanding of history is constructed. It interweaves learnings from multiple disciplines—political science, history, art, economics, archaeology, and so on, and also LARP and fishtank maintenance—to paint a brilliant and multifaceted portrait of the people, ideologies, and movements that built the Renaissance, and explains why the beginning, end, and significance of the era is so difficult to pin down.
It's also really emotional in a way that deserves celebration. Rarely does any nonfiction work make me openly weep and this did in multiple places. It's the work of an author who loves her subject. I also love her subject but this somehow made me even more excited and invested in the Renaissance than I already was. I am babbling. I got it out from the library in brick form because that what was available but I think I'll buy it in ebook so that I have a searchable version.
It's also really emotional in a way that deserves celebration. Rarely does any nonfiction work make me openly weep and this did in multiple places. It's the work of an author who loves her subject. I also love her subject but this somehow made me even more excited and invested in the Renaissance than I already was. I am babbling. I got it out from the library in brick form because that what was available but I think I'll buy it in ebook so that I have a searchable version.
Read
February 19, 2025Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series is probably my favourite fiction published this century, and one of my standard descriptions is that it's science fiction as written by a historian, someone who understands the second- and third- order consequences of change, and the strange switchback paths the world takes. Well, here's her first public-facing work of history, and it demonstrates that same encyclopaedic knowledge and ability to deploy it to spark new epiphanies in the reader. Ever wondered how melons were responsible for the French Revolution? Almost certainly not, but the answer is here, along with dozens of similarly improbable but persuasive insights. And if you object that the French Revolution was hardly the Renaissance, then that's part of the point; there's vast erudition on display here, but as the title suggests, this is a work of historiography as much as history, the story not just of the Renaissance but of the stories different people and ages have told of the Renaissance, from Petrarch encapsulating the first stirrings to the various (mis)conceptions of it down to the present. Or almost the present, anyway; Palmer's conclusion is a rallying cry for a tattered, bloodied, roundabout yet still forward-facing notion of progress:
"Plague wasn't the Horseman of the Apocalypse Petrarch hoped to defeat, but the man whose Remedies Against Fortune offered consolation, even for those who lose their homeland to war, would weep such happy tears to hear the plague for which he had no consolation is defeatable."
Agreed, but then what would he do when you told him that the most powerful, scientifically advanced nation on Earth had, since the completion of this book, decided to turn its back on those miraculous remedies? So that sense of disconnect, that even history seen as two steps forward, one step back no longer feels believable, was one reason that I couldn't quite love Inventing The Renaissance as I do Terra Ignota. The other was the style. Because of reasons, the novels are mostly narrated in a gorgeous 21st century attempt at a 25th century pastiche of Enlightenment prose, a project which made perfect sense on its own terms, but at whose genesis I think I see further hints here in the hilarious sections detailing Palmer's bemused glee at Renaissance humanists'* rediscovery of classical Latin, and the terrible contortions they put it through. Now, I'd read articles before I read the novels, so on some level I knew she doesn't always write like that, even aside from the fact that obviously, nobody always writes like that. But even so, I wasn't prepared for the determined accessibility, sometimes shading into mateyness, with which sections of this are presented. Among (many) other things, Inventing The Renaissance doubles as an intellectual autobiography, and along with the Attenborough-style glimpses of never-before-recorded group behaviours of Renaissance studies academics, there's a keen sense of just how brilliant it must be to get Palmer as a lecturer, even before you consider the awesomeness of her famed papal conclave LARP. And spoken, I imagine her love of a good sobriquet is a boon for keeping the various bearers of repeating names in early modern Italy straight**. But on the page, I confess that the increasingly convoluted variations on Julius II: Battle Pope 2 did start to grate. In places it felt less like Terra Ignota, more like Tumblr posts about Terra Ignota. And there are some excellent Tumblr posts about Terra Ignota, don't get me wrong; I just never imagined there was quite so much of Palmer in $niper.
All of which said, I can forgive a lot in any historian who can, for a brief moment, make me feel like I've almost understood the Italian Wars – and who then makes clear that they're not expecting me to remember it all, because they certainly can't (see also Barbara Tuchman). Palmer is especially good on the League of Cambrai debacle, "a war in which every single participant changed sides, some several times." And if there can sometimes be an echo of those galaxy brain memes that return to the initial statement, coming out of 600+ pages only to conclude, like Bart Simpson, that "in summary, the Renaissance was an age of contrasts", well, the statement definitely feels deepened by the journey. Even just the section which returns to Palmer's dissertation topic and asks whether Machiavelli was an atheist – but more than that, why people get so invested in whether Machiavelli was an atheist, and expands from there to the whole misbegotten human urge to see the past as the present in different hats – would be worth the price of admission on its own. Hell, I emerge from this prepared to concede that Savonarola might, just perhaps, not be quite the blister I have always understood him to be, and there are precious few writers who can shake me on something as foundational as that.
*This word gets a lot of poking and prodding, but I'm not going to try teaching my predictive her preferred variant for one use, legitimate though it is.
**"It could be worse; I know scholars who work on a phase in seventeenth century Iceland when 40 percent of all men were named Jón Jónson."
(Edelweiss ARC)
"Plague wasn't the Horseman of the Apocalypse Petrarch hoped to defeat, but the man whose Remedies Against Fortune offered consolation, even for those who lose their homeland to war, would weep such happy tears to hear the plague for which he had no consolation is defeatable."
Agreed, but then what would he do when you told him that the most powerful, scientifically advanced nation on Earth had, since the completion of this book, decided to turn its back on those miraculous remedies? So that sense of disconnect, that even history seen as two steps forward, one step back no longer feels believable, was one reason that I couldn't quite love Inventing The Renaissance as I do Terra Ignota. The other was the style. Because of reasons, the novels are mostly narrated in a gorgeous 21st century attempt at a 25th century pastiche of Enlightenment prose, a project which made perfect sense on its own terms, but at whose genesis I think I see further hints here in the hilarious sections detailing Palmer's bemused glee at Renaissance humanists'* rediscovery of classical Latin, and the terrible contortions they put it through. Now, I'd read articles before I read the novels, so on some level I knew she doesn't always write like that, even aside from the fact that obviously, nobody always writes like that. But even so, I wasn't prepared for the determined accessibility, sometimes shading into mateyness, with which sections of this are presented. Among (many) other things, Inventing The Renaissance doubles as an intellectual autobiography, and along with the Attenborough-style glimpses of never-before-recorded group behaviours of Renaissance studies academics, there's a keen sense of just how brilliant it must be to get Palmer as a lecturer, even before you consider the awesomeness of her famed papal conclave LARP. And spoken, I imagine her love of a good sobriquet is a boon for keeping the various bearers of repeating names in early modern Italy straight**. But on the page, I confess that the increasingly convoluted variations on Julius II: Battle Pope 2 did start to grate. In places it felt less like Terra Ignota, more like Tumblr posts about Terra Ignota. And there are some excellent Tumblr posts about Terra Ignota, don't get me wrong; I just never imagined there was quite so much of Palmer in $niper.
All of which said, I can forgive a lot in any historian who can, for a brief moment, make me feel like I've almost understood the Italian Wars – and who then makes clear that they're not expecting me to remember it all, because they certainly can't (see also Barbara Tuchman). Palmer is especially good on the League of Cambrai debacle, "a war in which every single participant changed sides, some several times." And if there can sometimes be an echo of those galaxy brain memes that return to the initial statement, coming out of 600+ pages only to conclude, like Bart Simpson, that "in summary, the Renaissance was an age of contrasts", well, the statement definitely feels deepened by the journey. Even just the section which returns to Palmer's dissertation topic and asks whether Machiavelli was an atheist – but more than that, why people get so invested in whether Machiavelli was an atheist, and expands from there to the whole misbegotten human urge to see the past as the present in different hats – would be worth the price of admission on its own. Hell, I emerge from this prepared to concede that Savonarola might, just perhaps, not be quite the blister I have always understood him to be, and there are precious few writers who can shake me on something as foundational as that.
*This word gets a lot of poking and prodding, but I'm not going to try teaching my predictive her preferred variant for one use, legitimate though it is.
**"It could be worse; I know scholars who work on a phase in seventeenth century Iceland when 40 percent of all men were named Jón Jónson."
(Edelweiss ARC)
June 29, 2025
Review published in WOLRD magazine here: https://wng.org/articles/reexamining-...
September 5, 2025
Both a very informative, accessible history of this conceptually unwieldy period and a valuable meditation on history-making in general.
June 27, 2025
Tagantjärele tuli tahtmine täpsustada.
See on kõige parem ajalooraamat mis kunagi kirjutatud.
Kui paljudes akadeemilistes tekstides saab lugeda asju nagu "wtf" ja "srsly" ja lehekülgede kaupa koomilist väljamõeldud dialoogi?
Ada Palmer on parim.
See on kõige parem ajalooraamat mis kunagi kirjutatud.
Kui paljudes akadeemilistes tekstides saab lugeda asju nagu "wtf" ja "srsly" ja lehekülgede kaupa koomilist väljamõeldud dialoogi?
Ada Palmer on parim.
May 13, 2025
If I had read this book in the 8th grade instead of Michio Kaku and Brian Greene "pop physics" books, there's a good chance I would be doing a history PhD right now instead of a physics PhD.
For context, I took the author's "Italian Renaissance" history class when I was in college (more specifically, the famed Fall 2016 run of the class she references in the final chapters of the book!). She got a spontaneous round of applause after the first day of class. She's that freaking good. She's truly in a league of her own when it comes to lecturing, and that comes through on every page of the book.
This book has three big goals, as best as I can tell, which it achieves masterfully:
1) The narratives we tell about the past say as much about the present as it does about the past. (The Renaissance was about rising nationalism! No, it was about civic participation and city-state republics! No, it was about the decline of faith and the rise of reason!).
2) The past is much more complex than we can ever capture with tidy narratives. The kind of Lorenzo de Medici who helped create the kind of Florence that was full of scholars that many moderns hope were closet atheists (no, they weren't) was not the only story of Florence. It was also the city that, a generation later, took great steps to being what we would recognize as a modern republic, and it also paid great heed to the supposed prophecies of charismatic nuns and elected Jesus Christ as the eternal king of Florence. (That statement is an "and" kind of statement, not a "but" kind of statement). Guess which part of the story usually makes it into the grand narratives we tell?
3) What truly made the Renaissance a distinct age was not art, or scholarships, or merchants, or princes. All those were continuous with the Middle Ages (which were not the Dark Ages!). It was that, for the first time, the artists and scholars and merchants and princes were consciously shaping their efforts to create a new golden age. They failed to create the kind of golden age they hoped for. Instead, they (eventually) created us, and the project is still ongoing. The book ends with a stirring "call to arms" to further the project of creating as-yet-unimagined golden ages with ten times the charisma of any other history book I've ever read. Petrarch's "words that sting and bite" indeed!
This book doesn't just fill you with wonderful facts about the Italian Renaissance (although it does that in bucketfulls - just wait until you get to the part about the Florentine craftsman who got gaslit-pranked so badly he had to leave the country in shame) and spin stories about its figures who are revealed to be wonderful, flawed, and deeply human people. It teaches you grand lessons about how we study history, understand history, activate history. And it makes you want to lay your bricks in the unfinished cathedral of a golden age we still don't have the plans for yet, but by God, let us go forth and make a better, unimaginable world.
For context, I took the author's "Italian Renaissance" history class when I was in college (more specifically, the famed Fall 2016 run of the class she references in the final chapters of the book!). She got a spontaneous round of applause after the first day of class. She's that freaking good. She's truly in a league of her own when it comes to lecturing, and that comes through on every page of the book.
This book has three big goals, as best as I can tell, which it achieves masterfully:
1) The narratives we tell about the past say as much about the present as it does about the past. (The Renaissance was about rising nationalism! No, it was about civic participation and city-state republics! No, it was about the decline of faith and the rise of reason!).
2) The past is much more complex than we can ever capture with tidy narratives. The kind of Lorenzo de Medici who helped create the kind of Florence that was full of scholars that many moderns hope were closet atheists (no, they weren't) was not the only story of Florence. It was also the city that, a generation later, took great steps to being what we would recognize as a modern republic, and it also paid great heed to the supposed prophecies of charismatic nuns and elected Jesus Christ as the eternal king of Florence. (That statement is an "and" kind of statement, not a "but" kind of statement). Guess which part of the story usually makes it into the grand narratives we tell?
3) What truly made the Renaissance a distinct age was not art, or scholarships, or merchants, or princes. All those were continuous with the Middle Ages (which were not the Dark Ages!). It was that, for the first time, the artists and scholars and merchants and princes were consciously shaping their efforts to create a new golden age. They failed to create the kind of golden age they hoped for. Instead, they (eventually) created us, and the project is still ongoing. The book ends with a stirring "call to arms" to further the project of creating as-yet-unimagined golden ages with ten times the charisma of any other history book I've ever read. Petrarch's "words that sting and bite" indeed!
This book doesn't just fill you with wonderful facts about the Italian Renaissance (although it does that in bucketfulls - just wait until you get to the part about the Florentine craftsman who got gaslit-pranked so badly he had to leave the country in shame) and spin stories about its figures who are revealed to be wonderful, flawed, and deeply human people. It teaches you grand lessons about how we study history, understand history, activate history. And it makes you want to lay your bricks in the unfinished cathedral of a golden age we still don't have the plans for yet, but by God, let us go forth and make a better, unimaginable world.
September 14, 2025
I can't claim to be unbiased with my thoughts on this book - Ada Palmer's sci-fi series Terra Ignota is one of my favorite pieces of fiction ever made - but it's easily one of the most fun and thought-provoking history books I've ever read. Inventing the Renaissance takes aim at the general-history conception of the Renaissance as a glorious birth of art and thinking after the "Dark Ages" of the Medieval Era, showing that such a view was the result of an ideological project undertaken by both the very people of the time period and other historians and politicians later on. The book jumps around a lot in time, but follows a conversational thread from historiography to biography to intellectual history. I was always riveted throughout its 650 pages; Palmer managed to teach me a whole lot about European history, political theory, ethics, and the very field of history studies itself, finishing up with a stirring ode to the idea of progress that actually brought a tear to my eye and helped me make sense of our terrifying and dispiriting present.
Palmer takes a conversational tone that echoes the best college professors, though some people might be put off if they're looking for a more stripped-back and serious voice. It definitely worked for me, especially her Homeric habit of adding epithets and repeated little titles to the many characters with similar names spread across Renaissance Europe.
If you're interested in the Renaissance in general, it's a must-read, but I'd also recommend it first and foremost to anyone interested in the broad sweep of history, in tracing ideas and values across time, in understanding who and what shapes the histories in our education system, pop culture, and politics.
Palmer takes a conversational tone that echoes the best college professors, though some people might be put off if they're looking for a more stripped-back and serious voice. It definitely worked for me, especially her Homeric habit of adding epithets and repeated little titles to the many characters with similar names spread across Renaissance Europe.
If you're interested in the Renaissance in general, it's a must-read, but I'd also recommend it first and foremost to anyone interested in the broad sweep of history, in tracing ideas and values across time, in understanding who and what shapes the histories in our education system, pop culture, and politics.
June 18, 2025
This is a book about the Renaissance by an accomplished historian of the period. But it is much more than just another book of Renaissance history. It is instead a book on the historiography of the Renaissance - an integrative study of how historians have looked at the period and learned from each other in the process of doing so. In this sense, it is a meta-history of the Renaissance. This sort of study has costs and benefits for a reader. You do not get a clear single story with a clear resolution. Events have multiple meanings and multiple often conflicting interpretations. It is never clear just what, precisely, the Renaissance was, when it started, who was involved, or where it occurred. But if you have read a bit about the period and can tolerate a bit of ambiguity, the result is a much more satisfying and engaging account of the period. Professor Palmer is also skillful and linking the Renaissance (whatever it is) with the different (similar ambiguous) periods that gave birth to the Renaissance and came afterwards. This is a distinctive and to me attractive way to think about intellectual and cultural history and I found myself engaged by this book to an extent that has not occurred for most of the books I have read about the period.
While this is a long and demanding book, I recommend it to those interested in the Renaissance.
While this is a long and demanding book, I recommend it to those interested in the Renaissance.
September 12, 2025
Wow wow wow wow wow. I am not an unbiased source on this --- the author is a personal friend and a professor of mine from undergrad, and I'm thanked in the acknowledgements --- but even still, I have rarely read a book so refreshing, so readable, so hopeful, and so well researched all at once. Irreverent and humorous but also earnest and erudite: a true tour de force. I first read a draft of this in 2022, and it's truly amazing to see how much it's shaped and changed and improved since. Highly recommend to all, no matter your level (or lack thereof!) of knowledge on the subject.
November 8, 2025
yeah Ada Palmer really is one of the smartest historians of her generation. didn’t love all the simplifying humor (every single Battle Pope II bit made me roll my eyes) but this book is genuinely a feat of intellectual labor and could alone be basically an undergrad survey course
June 1, 2025
can a book be both accessible and magisterial? yes, though too rarely. this is one such book. I loved reading it and I love imagining other people reading it and I look forward to my continued peripheral participation in the conversations it flows with, around, and through.
July 22, 2025
I haven't been this excited about history in like ten years. I haven't been this excited about a book in longer than that. I had to take breaks to shake out the excitement, I'm not kidding. Ada Palmer is engaging and fun and tells the stories in a way that places her, in my mind, firmly on the same pedestal as my favorite history teacher. (I credit her as the reason I picked history as my high school major all those years ago.)
Through the book, through various asides and repetitions, I feel like I've actually genuinely learned things, which, not to make this about many other historians I've read in my life, somehow isn't a given even if you're interested in the subject. Maybe for the first time in my life I feel like I understand what the hell was going on with the popes during the renaissance. And maybe to some people the stylistic choices of those asides feels scattered, I really do feel like it makes this book come together very well. Because by the end you've understood how all of this links together. And isn't that what history is all about?
I can't talk for people who aren't already interested in history and renaissance, but I'm going to attempt to anyway. This book, despite it's size, is approachable. It's interesting, fascinating, fun and it keeps you interested the entire time. I recommend obtaining a physical copy if at all possible. Trust me.
Through the book, through various asides and repetitions, I feel like I've actually genuinely learned things, which, not to make this about many other historians I've read in my life, somehow isn't a given even if you're interested in the subject. Maybe for the first time in my life I feel like I understand what the hell was going on with the popes during the renaissance. And maybe to some people the stylistic choices of those asides feels scattered, I really do feel like it makes this book come together very well. Because by the end you've understood how all of this links together. And isn't that what history is all about?
I can't talk for people who aren't already interested in history and renaissance, but I'm going to attempt to anyway. This book, despite it's size, is approachable. It's interesting, fascinating, fun and it keeps you interested the entire time. I recommend obtaining a physical copy if at all possible. Trust me.
August 28, 2025
Ada Palmer is both a popular science-fiction writer and also a tenured professor of Renaissance history. She is kind of a genius. This resulted in a book that probably no other working historian could have written.
This is not her most tightly structured work; it was initially meant as a revised improved version of various things she had blogged. But, professionalism, and so it has emerged as a substantial and carefully-constructed work, with a substantial set of notes and references.
She is trying to explain what we mean by the renaissance, by renaissance humanism, etc.
This is not her most tightly structured work; it was initially meant as a revised improved version of various things she had blogged. But, professionalism, and so it has emerged as a substantial and carefully-constructed work, with a substantial set of notes and references.
She is trying to explain what we mean by the renaissance, by renaissance humanism, etc.
April 24, 2025
Using light humor and an informal style Palmer introduces readers/listeners to a Renaissance that many of us have never fully seen. Note that this book is more of a look at Renaissance history than a history of the Renaissance.
One of the ongoing themes of the book is an examination of why we think of the Renaissance as a Golden Age. Palmer uses several approaches, but I was especially interested in the 15 short biographies. She used these people (men and women) to demonstrate that we can't think of the Renaissance in separate chunks: politics, art, religion, and sociocultural change were intertwined in complex ways, just as they are in contemporary life.
Overall, I gained a new perspective on the era and can recommend the book. It's long and jam-packed with information and things to think about, but the journey is worth it.
I was lucky enough to have both an egalley and a review copy of the audiobook. As I've said many times, my favorite way to read history is to listen to an audiobook but have the print/digital edition available so I can see the illustrations (maps, photos, tables) and see the names and foreign words.
The audiobook was performed by Candida Gubbins. I appreciated hearing her pronunciations of places and names and thought she did a fair job at picking up on the author's casual style. At first, I was thrown off by Gubbins's accent, which unfortunately sounded a little school marm-y to me, but I soon got used to her voice and was caught up in the people and politics of the Renaissance.
Note that the print/digital edition includes photographs of some of the places and artwork mentioned in the book. Interested audiobook fans could, however, find many similar images via an internet search. The book contains a few tables and a few lists; that information was a little easier to absorb in print format; however, I still recommend this book in either medium.
Thanks to University of Chicago Press for the review copies.
One of the ongoing themes of the book is an examination of why we think of the Renaissance as a Golden Age. Palmer uses several approaches, but I was especially interested in the 15 short biographies. She used these people (men and women) to demonstrate that we can't think of the Renaissance in separate chunks: politics, art, religion, and sociocultural change were intertwined in complex ways, just as they are in contemporary life.
Overall, I gained a new perspective on the era and can recommend the book. It's long and jam-packed with information and things to think about, but the journey is worth it.
I was lucky enough to have both an egalley and a review copy of the audiobook. As I've said many times, my favorite way to read history is to listen to an audiobook but have the print/digital edition available so I can see the illustrations (maps, photos, tables) and see the names and foreign words.
The audiobook was performed by Candida Gubbins. I appreciated hearing her pronunciations of places and names and thought she did a fair job at picking up on the author's casual style. At first, I was thrown off by Gubbins's accent, which unfortunately sounded a little school marm-y to me, but I soon got used to her voice and was caught up in the people and politics of the Renaissance.
Note that the print/digital edition includes photographs of some of the places and artwork mentioned in the book. Interested audiobook fans could, however, find many similar images via an internet search. The book contains a few tables and a few lists; that information was a little easier to absorb in print format; however, I still recommend this book in either medium.
Thanks to University of Chicago Press for the review copies.
October 1, 2025
100/5 stars, hands down the best history book I’ve ever read.
And it’s not just because of the witty, sometimes irreverent narration, or the complex biographies of individual figures from the times, or masterful handling of a timeline in a history text that’s anything but linear.
It’s because this book is not just a history book - it’s a treatise on the human condition, on progress, on how we view history and what it truly is. Palmer systematically dismantles all of our common adages and beliefs about the Renaissance and then builds them back into what history actually tells us by revisiting all of the texts and bringing her full scope of knowledge to bear on what she’s building. She peoples her new, more accurate landscape with balanced biographies of “our friends” who range from carpenters to the trademark Big Names of the times.
And her goal throughout all of this is not to change your mind to her exact view of the Renaissance - because her thesis is there is no one “true” Renaissance. If you ask an English literature professor, a philosophy professor, and an Italian literature professor when the Renaissance began and ended, they’re all likely to give you slightly different answers, including or excluding certain figures, works, ideas, etc. So she acknowledges the ambiguity about truly nailing anything down while still engaging in a meaningful way with the thoughts and ideas of the times.
In essence, this is a book to challenge, entertain, and educate its reader. It’s not meant to turn you into a fact-reciting robot that knows all about the War of the League of Cambrai (though you will know a good bit by the end).
This perfectly paced book unfolds before you, inspiring you to look beyond your current self in your current time, learning some history. You are taken on a journey to hold up a mirror and look behind yourself to all that’s come before, while also peek around the mirror to see where we go from here.
And it’s not just because of the witty, sometimes irreverent narration, or the complex biographies of individual figures from the times, or masterful handling of a timeline in a history text that’s anything but linear.
It’s because this book is not just a history book - it’s a treatise on the human condition, on progress, on how we view history and what it truly is. Palmer systematically dismantles all of our common adages and beliefs about the Renaissance and then builds them back into what history actually tells us by revisiting all of the texts and bringing her full scope of knowledge to bear on what she’s building. She peoples her new, more accurate landscape with balanced biographies of “our friends” who range from carpenters to the trademark Big Names of the times.
And her goal throughout all of this is not to change your mind to her exact view of the Renaissance - because her thesis is there is no one “true” Renaissance. If you ask an English literature professor, a philosophy professor, and an Italian literature professor when the Renaissance began and ended, they’re all likely to give you slightly different answers, including or excluding certain figures, works, ideas, etc. So she acknowledges the ambiguity about truly nailing anything down while still engaging in a meaningful way with the thoughts and ideas of the times.
In essence, this is a book to challenge, entertain, and educate its reader. It’s not meant to turn you into a fact-reciting robot that knows all about the War of the League of Cambrai (though you will know a good bit by the end).
This perfectly paced book unfolds before you, inspiring you to look beyond your current self in your current time, learning some history. You are taken on a journey to hold up a mirror and look behind yourself to all that’s come before, while also peek around the mirror to see where we go from here.
May 8, 2025
Books like this are complicated for me. I really, really love them; I desperately want more of them; I wish they were written differently. Historiography, especially the conceptual stuff (what do we think about when we think about X? Why do we think that way? Where does that idea come from, and is it from history, or just books and TV?) really fascinate me. History is a bunch of symbols which we reinterpret every generation, and what we think of a period, a date, an event, is shaped by where we are now... and the last bit of big media frenzy over that period. It's fascinating, and it's much more vivid and vivacious than a point-by-point summary of what dates certain events took place. History is more than truth or lies, accuracy or inaccuracy. It's the conversations we have, and what we think is worth including in those conversations.
But, because these books are so conceptual, they tend to be kind of low on information. There's a lot to think about in this book, and a lot to learn. There's also a lot of fluff.
I get it. Palmer is writing in a really informal style, because she doesn't want to be an ivory tower academic who writes in a purposefully arch style to confuse and alienate plebs. As a pleb (I sure don't have a four year degree), I appreciate it. But there's always the risk of talking down to people, or implicitly signaling who is supposed to be reading your books. Palmer mostly avoids that, but there were a few moments that really made me groan. I do not need references to Firefly and Army of Darkness in my history book; I do not need the rib-elbowing understanding that we're all nerds here, ehh? Ehhh? We're the right kind of nerds, bookish chortlers who go squee and watch Doctor Who. Please, talk up to me, I bought your book.
Palmer also seems to be concerned I won't get her point, so she repeats it over and over, sometimes multiple times a chapter. I assume this is because she's an educator; she really really really wants to make sure I get the point. SPQR, SPQF! Historians in Greenland! Battle pope and warrior pope! These little references, and the concepts attached to them, show up in almost every chapter, which is a good rhetorical device! But maybe in a shorter book, with fewer chapters. Especially since I felt a few other concepts went under-explained. I wanted more about the contrasting tyranny of republicanism in Florence, the way art bolstered legitimacy, and the morals of peace that got referenced a few times. I wanted to know more about Machiavelli, who has four chapters dedicated to him but only shows up in two of them. I did not need the basics of moral philosophy explained to me the second time, or the third, or the... tenths. The first time was nice, though.
I guess what I'm saying is that this book is a little disorganized, and it chases its own tail a bit. I find this to be the case in a lot of 'out of the box' educational materials, which assume that if you're excited enough, you'll just get it! Because learning is easy for everyone, and we don't need to worry about the accessibility of information. Because most educators-- and, I assume, students at better and more prestigious colleges-- don't have learning disabilities, there doesn't tend to be a lot of emphasis placed on making information organized and easy to digest when it's taught in an unconventional way.
I'm not saying the book had to be in chronological order-- I found it quite refreshing that it wasn't-- but I wish more time had been spent connecting the ideas that each chapter had, building on the previous thesis to bolster the next, rather than reiterating information without a ton of analysis. It's a book, so if I missed what dentology was, I could have gone back and reread. By the 14th time it was explained, I was fully tuning out, struggling to understand what bigger point the chapter was actually trying to make because it had gotten so lost in the weeds.
I'm not sure someone without a learning disability will have these problems? But I did and it's my review, so.
All in all, however, I consider this book a triumph. I've never found the Italian Renaissance very interesting, mostly because it's spoken about with such bejeweled reverence. I don't like romanticized history populated by buxom wax figures dressed in crushed velvet; it's boring. Ada Palmer successfully makes these people real, makes me care about their lives, makes me want to know more. Isn't that the goal of every educator?
But, because these books are so conceptual, they tend to be kind of low on information. There's a lot to think about in this book, and a lot to learn. There's also a lot of fluff.
I get it. Palmer is writing in a really informal style, because she doesn't want to be an ivory tower academic who writes in a purposefully arch style to confuse and alienate plebs. As a pleb (I sure don't have a four year degree), I appreciate it. But there's always the risk of talking down to people, or implicitly signaling who is supposed to be reading your books. Palmer mostly avoids that, but there were a few moments that really made me groan. I do not need references to Firefly and Army of Darkness in my history book; I do not need the rib-elbowing understanding that we're all nerds here, ehh? Ehhh? We're the right kind of nerds, bookish chortlers who go squee and watch Doctor Who. Please, talk up to me, I bought your book.
Palmer also seems to be concerned I won't get her point, so she repeats it over and over, sometimes multiple times a chapter. I assume this is because she's an educator; she really really really wants to make sure I get the point. SPQR, SPQF! Historians in Greenland! Battle pope and warrior pope! These little references, and the concepts attached to them, show up in almost every chapter, which is a good rhetorical device! But maybe in a shorter book, with fewer chapters. Especially since I felt a few other concepts went under-explained. I wanted more about the contrasting tyranny of republicanism in Florence, the way art bolstered legitimacy, and the morals of peace that got referenced a few times. I wanted to know more about Machiavelli, who has four chapters dedicated to him but only shows up in two of them. I did not need the basics of moral philosophy explained to me the second time, or the third, or the... tenths. The first time was nice, though.
I guess what I'm saying is that this book is a little disorganized, and it chases its own tail a bit. I find this to be the case in a lot of 'out of the box' educational materials, which assume that if you're excited enough, you'll just get it! Because learning is easy for everyone, and we don't need to worry about the accessibility of information. Because most educators-- and, I assume, students at better and more prestigious colleges-- don't have learning disabilities, there doesn't tend to be a lot of emphasis placed on making information organized and easy to digest when it's taught in an unconventional way.
I'm not saying the book had to be in chronological order-- I found it quite refreshing that it wasn't-- but I wish more time had been spent connecting the ideas that each chapter had, building on the previous thesis to bolster the next, rather than reiterating information without a ton of analysis. It's a book, so if I missed what dentology was, I could have gone back and reread. By the 14th time it was explained, I was fully tuning out, struggling to understand what bigger point the chapter was actually trying to make because it had gotten so lost in the weeds.
I'm not sure someone without a learning disability will have these problems? But I did and it's my review, so.
All in all, however, I consider this book a triumph. I've never found the Italian Renaissance very interesting, mostly because it's spoken about with such bejeweled reverence. I don't like romanticized history populated by buxom wax figures dressed in crushed velvet; it's boring. Ada Palmer successfully makes these people real, makes me care about their lives, makes me want to know more. Isn't that the goal of every educator?
May 11, 2025
Super interesting treatment of the Renaissance! I learned a lot, and enjoyed how she tied all the threads together, even while questioning whether or not there was a distinct movement called the Renaissance at all. I loved learning about why Florence is considered the heart of the Renaissance and hearing different perspectives on Machiavelli and even Savanarola. Ada Palmer is brilliant, and so readable. Highly recommend this title!
November 23, 2025
An immensely readable and energetic history of the Renaissance, mostly focused on intellectual history and some historiography, written with charm and humor and genuine delight. Don't let the length intimidate you, it goes fast, and the style is very accessible. It's been a long-ass time since I studied any history of this period (my college history classes were post-Enlightenment and/or US-centric), so this really gave me a much better grounding than I had without entirely overwhelming me.
October 23, 2025
A deeply enjoyable and informative history book. The author masterfully brings to life a complex era through shifting between small-scale and large-scale views, colorful anecdotes, and above all, a burning passion for the subject that made me envious of her students. This phrase might be overused but this is truly a love letter to the Renaissance, the study of history, and humanity
February 19, 2025
Inventing the Renaissance was a highly engaging romp through Renaissance history that managed to be both informative and entertaining at once, with the author referencing everything from Plato to Batman and Assassin's Creed. Some of the nicknames she gave the historical figures were so catchy I don't think I'll ever forget them (Battle Pope 2!) and they helped, too, in keeping characters straight in your mind as you read, considering the number of repeating first names among the major players (notably the Popes). It was fascinating to see how many of our perceptions about the Renaissance stem from later centuries, and the author offered some interesting new perspectives on events I had thought I already knew well. Despite its length, this book remained captivating throughout save, for me at least, a slight lull in Part IV with the lengthy discussion on humanism. If you are a history fan, it's definitely worth a read, especially since it combines perfectly a compelling narrative with academic rigour. I am giving it 4.5 stars.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I received this book as a free eBook ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
September 7, 2025
A long but interesting history on the period known as the Renaissance, when many of the things that make up modern society, from science to humanism, came out of nowhere: of course not. As the author (a historian and fantasy writer) shows, many of the things and ways of thinking that came out of the Renaissance build on what people did in the Middle Ages (no longer the Dark Ages). These changes would continue into the Enlightenment, and then into the modern world.
The book starts by looking at one particular place: Florence. In an era where most places were ruled by royalty, Florence stood out by being a republic, officially ruled by 'elected' people. But even then, this was no modern democracy: only the elite of the elite could be elected and even then, they were subjects of patronage to various wealthy families, most notably the House of Medici, who 'called the shots' when it came to making (or gaming) the rules to their advantage.
But Florence is only a city, and can be conquered by rival cities or countries. One way to counter this was to make Florence indispensable, by promoting ancient studies and the arts and spreading them far and wide. Other rulers began to accept that acquiring culture and learning from Florence were 'better' ways of showing they were superior to their betters. This gave Florence influence and access to the 'great powers', gaining protecting in return.
The author then shows us the lives of various people during the Renaissance period, mostly from Florence, to give us a view of what life was like for elites (written history usually focus on the elites, few on the peasants) at the time. And life at that time was rough and full of intrigue and conflict. We see the rise and fall of the Medicis and the influence of Florence, and parts of the 'Great Game' as France, the Popes in Rome, the various city states of Italy (Venice, etc.) strive to gain control of Italy and of Europe.
In all of these struggles, the idea that 'there has to be a better way' starts to gain strength and are covered in a section that covers one of the most 'notorious' people in the Renaissance period: Niccolò Machiavelli. His writings on how rulers should rule would lead to modern Political Science. But at the time, his writings were a struggle to understand what the rulers of his time were doing to gain an advantage over others and what could be done to raise the condition of humanity as a whole.
The final section looks at just what the Renaissance really put forth: a lot of questions that need answers. These questions would gradually overturn the idea that ancient authority was always right, and that ideas need to be tested by questioning them and comparing them with evidence. This would lead to the idea of Progress.
Here, the author looks at current times and shows that the idea of Progress as a way to improve humanity is still a work in progress. Technological and social changes have improved mankind but also caused problems (like colonialism and racism). While much has changed, much still has to be done using concepts that rose during the Renaissance. And the author is optimistic that the future will get better, given time.
The book starts by looking at one particular place: Florence. In an era where most places were ruled by royalty, Florence stood out by being a republic, officially ruled by 'elected' people. But even then, this was no modern democracy: only the elite of the elite could be elected and even then, they were subjects of patronage to various wealthy families, most notably the House of Medici, who 'called the shots' when it came to making (or gaming) the rules to their advantage.
But Florence is only a city, and can be conquered by rival cities or countries. One way to counter this was to make Florence indispensable, by promoting ancient studies and the arts and spreading them far and wide. Other rulers began to accept that acquiring culture and learning from Florence were 'better' ways of showing they were superior to their betters. This gave Florence influence and access to the 'great powers', gaining protecting in return.
The author then shows us the lives of various people during the Renaissance period, mostly from Florence, to give us a view of what life was like for elites (written history usually focus on the elites, few on the peasants) at the time. And life at that time was rough and full of intrigue and conflict. We see the rise and fall of the Medicis and the influence of Florence, and parts of the 'Great Game' as France, the Popes in Rome, the various city states of Italy (Venice, etc.) strive to gain control of Italy and of Europe.
In all of these struggles, the idea that 'there has to be a better way' starts to gain strength and are covered in a section that covers one of the most 'notorious' people in the Renaissance period: Niccolò Machiavelli. His writings on how rulers should rule would lead to modern Political Science. But at the time, his writings were a struggle to understand what the rulers of his time were doing to gain an advantage over others and what could be done to raise the condition of humanity as a whole.
The final section looks at just what the Renaissance really put forth: a lot of questions that need answers. These questions would gradually overturn the idea that ancient authority was always right, and that ideas need to be tested by questioning them and comparing them with evidence. This would lead to the idea of Progress.
Here, the author looks at current times and shows that the idea of Progress as a way to improve humanity is still a work in progress. Technological and social changes have improved mankind but also caused problems (like colonialism and racism). While much has changed, much still has to be done using concepts that rose during the Renaissance. And the author is optimistic that the future will get better, given time.
June 28, 2025
One of the most engaging histories I've ever read. It's not structured as a traditional history either, to its benefit. I've read quite a bit about the Italian Renaissance already, and I still learned a lot for this book.
April 24, 2025
An extremely excellent overview of how we perceive the Renaissance and how it plays into our perception of history, both past and present and our own. I like the fact that we get several profiles of renaissance superstars that are honest about “oh this dude was at minimum gay as hell”, and deontology vs virtue ethics with pop culture characters as test cases. It’s a dense read but it’s engaged me in a way I haven’t been able to mentally in a long damn time. A highly recommended read. (Prof Palmer, any chance any of your classes are open to members of the public who’d just like to sit in and learn?)
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