The Renaissance World

Collating thirty-four essays from the field's leading scholars, John Jeffries Martin shows that this period of rapid and complex change resulted from a convergence of a new set of social, economic and technological forces alongside a cluster of interrelated practices including painting, sculpture, humanism and science, in which the elites engaged.

Unique in its balance of emphasis on elite and popular culture, on humanism and society, and on women as well as men, The Renaissance World grapples with issues as diverse as Renaissance patronage and the development of the slave trade.

Beginning with a section on the antecedents of the Renaissance world, and ending with its lasting influence, this book is an invaluable read, which students and scholars of history and the Renaissance will dip into again and again.