Royal weddings were rarely fascinating fairytales of love – they aimed to foster allegiances and cement alliances. Soon after his return home, Prince Henri, Duke d’Orléans (future King Henri II of France), found himself at the center of his father King François I’s marial plans for him. Henri and his...
Filippo Lippi: a talented Renaissance painter-rake
Fra Filippo Lippi, also known as Filippo Lippi, died on the 8th of October 1469 in Spoleto, Papal States. Born in circa 1406 in Florence, he was one of the most important Italian painters of the Quattrocento – a painter in the second generation of Renaissance artists. Born into a...
Tiziano Vecelli, or simply Titian: ‘The Sun Amidst Small Stars’
Titian, one of the most prominent Renaissance artists, was born as Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio in Cadore, in the Republic of Venice sometime around 1488 to 1490. Regarded as the most important Renaissance member of the 16th-century Venetian school of art, he was called ‘The Sun Amidst Small Stars’, echoing...
Royal eccentricity: the wrestling match of two kings
The history of wrestling stretches into ancient times. It was first described in the Greek literature, including in Homer’s legendary literary works such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. Greek wrestling was a popular form of martial art, and it was featured as a sport since the eighteenth Olympiad in...
A Fabulous, yet Sad, Life: Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio! He is inextricably connected with the Renaissance, just as Petrarch is. Boccaccio was a man of the Renaissance in almost every sense. Born to a Tuscan merchant Boccaccio di Chellino, Giovanni came into the world in the summer of 1313. The exact date and place of Giovanni’s birth...