This episode finds the Crusaders marching through the Anatolian desert, doing deals with French pirates, selling their armour and watching pack animals sliding down wet mountain paths, until finally reaching the city/fortress of Tarsus – where they immediately turn on and kill each other, before eventually moving on towards Antioch. This was less a unified Christian army and more a coalition of competing interests, with each leader vying for their own piece of Muslim territory.

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The post Renaissance #204 – A Coalition of Competing Interests (The Crusades part 13) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

On his way to Constantinople, Bohemond attacked a village of Christian heretics, because having different opinions should not be tolerated. When he arrived at the Byzantine capital, he met with Alexios but didn’t trust his cooking. After he left, he was quickly followed by Count Raymond of Toulouse, who thought he should be in charge of the allied invasion and had a knack for building barricades… out of corpses.

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The post Renaissance #200 – Raw Meat (The Crusades part 9) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

The failure of the People’s Crusade didn’t stop the overall appetite in Europe for pillaging the Holy Land. They still had the Prince’s Crusade. A bunch of rich young men, their vassals and hired mercenaries set out to pillage Jerusalem and anything else appetising along the way. Even, perhaps Constantinople.

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The post Renaissance #197 – The Prince’s Crusade (The Crusades part 6) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

At the end of April in 1096, a priest by the name of Volkmar, a monk called Gottschalk, and an army from the Rhineland led by a Count Emich set off on the First Crusade with tens of thousands of soldiers and enthusiastic pilgrims… following a goose that had been inspired by God… and a holy goat. Their first order of business was to kill as many Jews as possible. Why? Because something something Jesus.

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The post Renaissance #195 – The Holy Goose and the Holy Goat (The Crusades part 4) appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

Our guest today, Toby Lester, has worked as a refugee affairs officer for the United Nations, helped with programmes in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, undertaken Peace Corps work in Yemen. He has written also extensively for national publications, including the Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The American Scholar, The Wilson Quarterly, BBC Magazine, and the London Times. He also worked at The Atlantic in a variety of editorial capacities: including as the managing editor. Today he serves part-time as a senior editor for Harvard Business Review and edits books for writers, but he is himself a writer of two wonderful history books, The Fourth Part of the World (2009) and Da Vinci’s Ghost (2011) which is about Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man.

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The post #138 – Toby Lester, Da Vinci’s Ghost – Leonardo da Vinci Part 27 appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

Taking a short break from Leonardo, our guest today is Julia Charity, an official Vatican tour guide! Julia, who originally hails from the UK, tells us how she ended up as a Vatican tour guide and about some of her favourite art on display in the Pope’s fortress, including “The Last Judgment” by Michelangelo, the “Transfiguration” by her “Renaissance husband”, Raphael, and the Borgia Apartments. If you want to book a Vatican tour with Julia, you can email here at theacharity[at]gmail.com.

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The post #136 – Julia & The Vatican appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

Curtis Wong has had an incredible career. He has produced critically acclaimed educational CD-ROMs at Corbis and the Voyager Co., as well as the definitive editions of feature films for the Criterion Collection. He ran  the Content Group at Intel, and was granted many patents at Microsoft Research. Today he joins us to tell some stories from his career, including his groundbreaking work with Bill Gates to produce the digital version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester.

The post #120 – Leonardo da Vinci Part 13 – Curtis Wong appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

We chat with one of the world’s leading authorities on Leonardo da Vinci – Matthew Landrus from Oxford University, author of Leonardo da Vinci’s Giant Crossbow.

 

The post #118 – Leonardo da Vinci Part 11 – Matthew Landrus appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

If you’re wondering “where are rest of the episodes?”, they are on our website as part of our membership program.

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“Extraordinary power … conjoined with remarkable facility, a mind of regal boldness and magnanimous daring.” That’s how Vasari described Leonardo da Vinci. But how much do we really know about the world’s most famous artist? And how much of what we think we know is myth?

The post #108 – Leonardo da Vinci Part 1 – A Complete Bastard appeared first on The Renaissance Times.

With Charles out of the picture, Piero de Medici figures it’s time to return to Florence. He marched into Tuscany with a force of four hundred lancers, light cavalry, and foot soldiers. Unfortunately, nobody shows up to welcome him and he went back into exile. But his attempt to return sets off a series of political assassinations in Florence, supported by Savonarola. Civil tensions increase until a Franciscan friar challenges Savonarola to trial by fire. When this doesn’t work out as planned, the people are furious and Savonarola gets thrown into prison.

 

The post #105 – Savonarola Part 12 – Trial By Fire appeared first on The Renaissance Times.