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Few periods of a hundred years have held the imagination as much as the period 1500-1600. At least four great themes - Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Expansion - vie for dominance. The decisive cultural theme of the fifteenth century - classical revival in Italy - had spread and diversified, the social structures of the Ancien Regime were yet to solidify. This study examines the symptons of expansion - population growth, adventure overseas, new voyages of the imagination - and the areas of conflict - the world and the spirit, the public and private spheres, elite and popular cultures - and argues that spiritual quest and intellectual curiosity had the same cultural roots.
List of contents
Introduction: The Shape of the Century
Expansion and Conflict
PART 1 THE WORLD The Power of Lords
The Symptoms of Expansion
The Shaping of Statehood Cities and Citizens
PART 2 THE WORD New Dimensions
The Dissolution of Monasticism
How the Word Spread
How the Image Triumphed
PART 3 THE SWORD Victims Habsburg and Valois Christians and Turks
Protestants and Catholics
CONCLUSION Fin de siecle Major European Rulers of the Sixteenth Century
Some Chronological Landmarks
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography.
About the author
Richard MacKenney
Summary
Few periods of a hundred years have held the imagination as much as the period 1500-1600. At least four great themes - Renaissance, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and Expansion - vie for dominance. The decisive cultural theme of the fifteenth century - classical revival in Italy - had spread and diversified, the social structures of the Ancien Regime were yet to solidify. This study examines the symptons of expansion - population growth, adventure overseas, new voyages of the imagination - and the areas of conflict - the world and the spirit, the public and private spheres, elite and popular cultures - and argues that spiritual quest and intellectual curiosity had the same cultural roots.
