The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance

by Catherine Fletcher

The Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century.

The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the reality of this astonishing era, and its meaning for today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Italy, Art, Renaissance, Art History, European History

408 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2020

About the author

Catherine Fletcher holds a PhD in history from the University of London. She is the recipient of many awards and fellowships at the British School at Rome and the European University Institute in Florence and takes up a position as a Teaching Fellow in History at the University of London in the Fall. Divorce of Henry VIII is her first book.

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 or 'alternative' 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 since the likes of Jacob Burkhardt : 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.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternative, I suppose, in that it's able to acknowledge both the beauty and achievement of Renaissance art alongside the cost of the political and martial violence of the culture that produced it. Also takes a few detours to look at Italian connections to the New World, Africa, and India. A valuable overview of the Renaissance from multiple angles.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

An interesting enough overview of the Italian Wars and Renaissance, but one that was somewhat marred by a format that ensured frequent repetition and the call to being an 'alternative history' which never seemed to materialise in practice.


ARC via Netgalley

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big sprawling history of the Renaissance in Italy, but from a refreshing perspective. Histories like this, at a risk of simplifying, are told from one or a few perspectives/levels of analysis. You can get histories of Renaissance art, military histories, political histories, religious histories, and intellectual histories. There are even profiles of the life of common and poorer people or of local and trade guilds. What you have here is a telling of the Renaissance story in its broader contexts. Why did it happen when it did? Was it a homogenous period or were some times more intense than others? How did the state of Europe affect what happened in Italy (and vice-versa)? How important were key individuals (Popes and Emperors)? Most interestingly, how did the different dimensions (military, political, cultural, etc.) affect and interact with each other? What you see about the Renaissance depends on what is looked at, but how do the different perspectives fit together? Does the story change if you look at the dimensions together?

That is what Professor Fletcher tries to do in this book and it is really engaging. There is a lot to keep track of, however, and while there are fewer separate stories, the course of the book is still complex. I have been trying to digest a lot about Renaissance Italy, most recently its political theory. Fletcher’s book provides all the more factual stories to fill in the details. I will try to digest this further and will likely raise the rating.

I will more histories were written this way.

[Fah Michaud · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the blurb, I went into this thinking I was going to get an alternate history that was comprehensive about women writers, Jews, slaves and sex workers in the Renaissance. However, what I got was a long, frankly not very engaging, history of the papacy and wars in the Italian peninsula at that time. If I had wanted to read about men in politics in the Renaissance, I think I would not have picked up a book subtitled "An Alternate History of the Renaissance".

[Johanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has no atmosphere, no interesting vingnettes. It is a list of European, Middle Eastern wars without any interesting details. Some information is incorrect - van Eycks Adolfini painting does not have the artist in the mirror but is the Adolfinis from behind, they are not greeting guests it is a portrait of them with wife pregnant with first child, Maronite Christians were/are from Lebanon not Syria. It is not worth it if you believe it is about the Italian Renaissance - sure the Renaissance was 15/16 Century but that is as close as it gets. This is just a text book on wars during this period, there are definitly better books and better authors. Not worth the time.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a great deal from this book about the violent and unstable political and military contexts within which the Italian Renaissance occurred, and about the extent to which those contexts were tangled up with European power politics. I think I was expecting more about the actual art and culture created within those contexts, but that's my fault for expecting a different kind of book, not the author's fault for not giving me that book.

[Edith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and 1/2. I have very much enjoyed two of Catherine Fletcher's previous histories: "The Black Prince of Florence" and "The Divorce of Henry VIII." Even these books were over-stuffed with her research, and there was a certain amount of repetition, but the subjects were relatively narrow and the historical figures and locales relatively limited. However, with "The Beauty and the Terror" (a terrible title; it sounds like a bodice-ripper) the canvas is much, much larger, so that the same flaws were magnified. I got a quarter of the way though before giving up.

One of the worst things about the book is the lack of a decent map of the Italian peninsula large enough to show the multitudinous city-states, republics, duchies and principalities. There is a single page map of Europe, in which Italy features so little that the names of the cities had to be coded with little boxes. It was incredibly frustrating to have a locale mentioned, look in vain in the front of the book to find it, and then have to Google it. If you have a good working knowledge of Renaissance Italian geography it might not be an issue, but mine is just so-so.

Another conspicuous lack is a set of family trees for the major Italian princely and noble families. I am fair on the Medicis and the Sforzas but beyond that, the families and which cities they held are (and remain) a complete muddle in my head.

I would have found a timeline very helpful.

Because of the structure of the book, which causes us to shuttle back and forth in time, there was a fair amount of repetition, which to be fair you might have thought would be helpful, but which in the end I found irritating. There were numberless little side journeys about people who were quite interesting, but they soon disappeared in the tumble of new faces and new places.

The language of the book is clearly pitched at a popular audience, but this is really not a book that is easy for a popular audience to master, at least that is how I feel about it. Other readers may find it easier to absorb, and there are certainly many interesting passages in the book. But for myself, I found it largely a jumble of facts and people which the book did not help me organize. At the very least, read a sample on Kindle first before you buy it. May work well for a more patient reader.

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

That I gave this book a chance was mostly on the strength of Fletcher's performance with her life and times of Alessandro de Medici. However, while this book is not lacking in virtue, I do have some issues with it, starting with the title. If truth in advertising was in effect, it would be called "Early Modern Italy: Cultural Efflorescence and Political Decline," as this is basically just a history of the so-called "Italian Wars," as the Italian peninsula became a cockpit for the Valois-Hapsburg dynastic conflict, and the Italian city-states became marginalized by the initial rise of the nation-state.

This is a reasonably good study so far as it goes, but whether Fletcher really achieves her goal of putting the players in the Italy of the time in proper relation to each other for the general reader is another question; I can see this work as being too indigestible for that. Though it would probably make a good college undergrad textbook. I will say that what Fletcher does well is to incorporate the conflicts of religious practice and authority of the time into her general study; Martin Luther and various Catholic popes are as important in this narrative as any artist or king.

Given the opportunity I'd give it a rating of 3.5.

[Brian Page · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s a slog. Sadly. Catherine Fletcher’s The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance is a facts dump, hundreds and thousands, maybe millions of facts. I’m greatly disappointed largely because I had such high expectations from Fletcher. The theme, of course, is that the Italian Renaissance wasn’t all sunshine & unicorns. So I expected much more synthesis, perhaps a rebuttal to the Kenneth Clark Civilsation type of adulation. That rebuttal is in there, indeed; but it's largely left to the reader to draw conclusions and recognize the big picture as it bubbles up from the relentless tide of particulars. I suspect these comments aren’t precisely conveying what I find deficient. However, after spending a few hours in the text you might find your head spinning and wondering, just what does it all mean? What is she getting at? Now, having written the encyclopedia narrative of the Italian Renaissance, I hope that Fletcher would set aside her mass of 3 x 5 cards and write a (shorter) work in the style of a week-long invitational lectureship.

[Rafa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este año ya he leído dos libros sobre el Renacimiento. Del primero no me esperaba nada y me lleve una grata sorpresa. De este que nos ocupa, esperaba mucho y me he llevado una desagradable sorpresa.

Ya usar la expresión “una historia alternativa” debería haber despertado mis sospechas, “Truco de marketing para vender un producto mediocre”, y efectivamente, de alternativa no tiene nada.

El libro no deja de ser una historia del Renacimiento típica y tópica, aunque con varias carencias que hacen de este libro un elemento al que acercarse con un palo, a ser posible de dos metros, no pongo tres porque es más difícil de manejar.

La autora no se centra en la historia general, pero tampoco en la historia del arte con lo cual deja a ambas cojas o, por decirlo de otra forma, con patas cortas como esos adorables gatitos. Alguno pensará que, tratándose de un libro de 600 páginas, eso no debería ser un problema, pero sí que lo es porque aquí entra en escena una manía que últimamente veo demasiado en los libros de historia, la historia de los cotilleos. Si uno, en este caso una, dedica medio libro a los líos de bragueta o faldas de un montón de personas, más o menos (más los menos que los más) importantes, poco queda para hablar de la política y diplomacia, arte o ciencia. Sinceramente, entiendo que a algunas personas les interese que Fulano se líe con Mengana y que Zutano se zumbe a un paje, pero que en un libro sobre el Renacimiento italiano no se mencione como llegaron los españoles a Nápoles o que apenas se hable de Milán, pero si se dedique un capítulo entero a “La invención de la pornografía” me parece “muy fuerte, tía”.

Pues eso, un libro que hará las delicias de los seguidores de “Sálvame”, pero a mi me ha hecho perder uno valiosos días de lectura. Dos estrellas y muchas me parecen.

[Raine · Rating 5 out of 5]

First non fiction I’ve read in a long long time, but was not disappointed. Recommend for any fans of renaissance art or history

[Simon Mee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to think, as well, about the people whose lives often do not feature in the usual narrative.

I am going to go out on a limb here: European history is adequately covered.

Relatively.

Yes, in the Anglo world, we don’t learn a lot about 16th century Italy but that’s because you don’t really need to know about 16th century Italy. There won’t be a test on it at the end of your life. The role of Italians in financing and actually exploring the New World is interesting, and the revolving door of alliances in the Italian Wars is bemusing, but it’s fine if the base of your knowledge of the era extends to knowing the Ninja Turtles had Italian names.

In other words, the reform movements of the period cannot be separated from the wider process of colonisation and empire-building, which influenced too the world of scientific investigation and in the longer term even the everyday diet.

This is me saying you should read this book. It’s about context. It’s about portrayals against reality. It’s about how people both famous and otherwise (admittedly with scanty documentary on the “otherwise”) inhabited their world. Most importantly, it’s interesting. I’ve read the The Beauty and the Terror described as “lively” which is a weak way of saying Fletcher is a good writer. She’s also a good historian, which I guess explains the PhD in it.

And by exploring how the people of this world thought about their own media revolution, or considered questions of gender and sexuality, or responded to changing weapons technology, we can better understand our own world too, and the ways in which then as now brilliant cultural innovation can exist.

The Beauty and the Terror is good because it is full of explanations for decisions, whether as to root and branch reform of the church, or to poetry written by a courtesan. Yeah, you can portray it as history written at 30,000 feet but that is my point. You are never ever going to get all the details of every moment, and you particularly don’t need to know your War of the League of Cambrai from your War of the Holy League. What The Beauty and the Terror offers is perspective – is history one damn thing after another, or are there reasons for those things happening?

The Beauty and the Terror is a book of aha! moments, which I don’t think there are enough of in history.

Relatively.

[Stephenie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is with immense relief that I have finished reading this book. I actually read four other books in the time I was reading this one as it was that dense and incoherent. It was filled with many detailed facts which, sadly, did not form a cohesive narrative, nor did it reflect the title or topic it purported to cover. If you are more interested to learn about the various “Italian wars” of the early 16th century, this is the book for you. Otherwise, steer clear.

[Siobhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a perfectly good history of the Renaissance in Italy, but it is far from great and not worthy of the ecstatic praise heaped upon by the mainstream media. Catherine Fletcher is an academic who writes well and knows her sources but in following the current trend to link past epochs with our own to provide evidence of continuities but relevance she wanders egregious stupidities, not least in her dismissive remarks about Italy's insignificance as colonial power. Try saying that to the hundreds of thousands of Libyans, Ethiopians and Somalis who died resisting Italy's colonial ambitions. Of course idiotic mistakes about 20th century Italy's activities as a colonial power shouldn't alter the quality of the author's writing on Renaissance Italy but they do, once a writer introduces any subject and handles it badly must accept that this failure will reflect on anything they may have previously said or written.

I don't expect a Renaissance expert to write intelligently on 19th or early 20th century Italian history - but if they do than I will judge their inadequacies harshly because honestly there is no reason to make such comments. But the book is, if not saturated, full of them - from comparisons to forgotten tv series on the Borgias to the ridiculous 'reconstructed' Salvator Mundi painting - maybe this is the price of publication these days, if it is it is not a price I am willing to pay.

I found the book hopelessly compromised by its attempts at relevance - most of which have already dated into obscurity.

[Annarella · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Jairo Munoz · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have read a lot about the Renaissance and are familiar with the European empire wars, you may be misled by the words in the subtitle “an alternate history” (they make me think of the infamous words “they are not lies they are alternate facts”). There is nothing about “alternate “ here. This is well documented historical facts with hundreds of good references. This book is a wonderful recount of what went on in Italy (and surrounding worlds) between 1490’s and about 1570. What was goin on? A LOT! Go an read the book.
When you finish reading the book, look around. Try to remember YOUR experience on this earth, think and ponder: are we any different today? Have we made any progress as a “civilized world’? Or are we going backwards. Do we treat those that are different from us better than they did then? Do we solve our differences and disagreements in a more “civilized “ manner than they did then? Are we uplifting our societies and giving equal rights to all… are females better of today than they were then?
I don’t know… I just feel we are the same savages with more technology and the same greed… perhaps WE are the alternate history.

[Sophie Constable · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an immensely fascinating book about the Italian Renaissance. It is jam packed with information and provides a very good background to any kind of Renaissance studies. There is a wide range of topics covered in this book and there is also an extensive bibliography in the back should you wish to know more. I really appreciated how the book refused to gloss over some of the darker elements of the period in question though as the book is very focused on the Italian peninsula it doesn't go as into depth on the 'discovery' of the Americas as some other books might. The prose is also easy to follow and the author keeps the reader engaged despite the many political players and other figures that need to be introduced. If you already know a lot about the Renaissance then you might find this book a little disappointing but I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to get into Renaissance studies but doesn't quite know where to start.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good popular overview of the period (as someone who only knew a bit about it), but very disjointed and hampered by the author's need to repeat the titles & relations of historical figures every time they're introduced as if we've forgotten them immediately and a kind of defensive writing style that reads to me as someone far more used to academic writing than the popular kind. i think treating this book as a series of interlinked essays (not really on alternative history, because the focus is much too wide for that) helped me get my head round it more. i plan to read the author's other two books and see how much she's developed from here!

[Romulus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nie wiem, czy zwrot „alternatywna historia” jest adekwatny, nie jestem specjalistą ani nawet historykiem. Ale wiem, że czytanie sprawiło mi w tym przypadku mnóstwo przyjemności. Dwadzieścia procent ebooka przeczytałem w jeden dzień. A prawie trzydzieści procent to dodatki i przypisy, więc może to żaden wyczyn, że poszło tak szybko. Jednak to nie jest najważniejsze. Bardzo wciągająca lektura. Najwięcej frajdy przyniósł opis zmagań w czasie wojen włoskich. I ich skutki, zarówno w skali mikro (dla poszczególnych włoskich państw i miast, czy rodów) oraz graczy zewnętrznych (głównie Francji i Hiszpanii). Trochę żałuję, że kupiłem ebooka. Dobra książka na moje snobistyczne półki. 🤓

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

As stated by so many other reviewers, the view on the Italian Renaissance is hardly as alternative as the cover would like you to believe. The protagonists are still the major artists and the princes of the Italian city-states.
A better title for this book might have been "Italian culture at the times of the Italian Wars". As a book on the Italian Wars, it provides a very lucid overview of the historical events and the cultural context in which this was set. Fletcher uses good academic sources to tell her story, but one as to keep in mind a particular politically correct agenda that tends to distort the facts. Nevertheless, a good summer read.

[Alexei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - the history of the late Renaissance without varnish, with all its blood and gore. Excellent style, dry and witty. Also, with much attention to contemporary female actors some of whom were rather prominent but are usually neglected with the notorious exception for Lucrezia Borgia. Too many characters, but they never ask us how to plot history.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall it increased my knowledge of a subject in which heretofore I had little interest. The historical/political chapters were hard work however the chapters on arts and the humanities were fascinating and well written.

[Rai · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF @ pg 150 because life is too short.

This is nothing remotely like the synopsis and was dull as fuck.

[Julia Edgar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed the social and literary history aspects of this text, especially where the writer dealt with the history of women in the Renaissance. The consideration of famous writers such as Machiavelli was balanced by introducing Vittoria Colonnade who I didn’t previously know. It’s extremely strong on the artists of the period and their shifting political affiliations. Finally, it covers religion well, bringing alive the struggles of Luther with Catholic orthodoxy.

It is extremely detailed and covers a huge variety of topics: as always the conflict between Pope and Emperor and the city states but it was also interesting to look at the conquest of Latin America which my medieval history degree (30 years ago) did not cover.

It is also a very beautiful book with some gorgeous plates. It’s not entirely designed to be an easy read popular history but if you have sufficient framework already for the Renaissance it’s well worth a read.

[Taymaz Azimi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not “alternative” in any sense. This is a good overview of Italian Wars seen through works of art and literature. Those works are not necessary analysed against the backdrop of Italian Wars but are means to arrive at different junctures of those six decades of turmoil. I would have preferred something a little more analytical about both political state of affairs and the effect of wars on art and literature, but I guess that’s not what the target audience of this book would want. For a non-academic work that intends to make the complexities of Renaissance politics accessible, I would say it’s quite good. It’s an enjoyable read.

[Alessandro Schümperlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Non è un brutto saggio, ma ci sono troppe parti "romanzate e tagliate" che mi lasciano perplesso. Mi aspettavo un'analisi un pochino più approfondita sui risvolti "deprecabili"(oltre a quanto non lo siano già) di parecchi personaggi importanti del rinascimento europeo, ma tutto tagliato con la katzbälger (per restare a tema lanzichenecchi ed affini).
Diciamo che per chi non ha conoscenze approfondite, oppure ha bisogno di "togliere ruggine" dalla memoria può aiutare, ma chi cerca un tomo specifico potrebbe trovarsi un pochino deluso

[Bram De · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one large connected narrative but rather a collection of anecdotes on art, religious, and political intrigues across Italy in the 16th century. It nonetheless offers great insight and emphasises how this period shaped the world as we know it. The lack of a common thread connecting all chapters however makes it difficult to stay engaged though.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sad that it seems like it took ages for me to read this, it did, but it wasn't the fault of the book (apart from the binding, which meant it didn't lie flat with the remote holding it open, while I knitted).
It is fascinating.
It is compelling.
It provides a background to the Renaissance, which is often overlooked.
There is history of the arts, of war, of women, of Jews, of people of colour.