In Volume VI of his acclaimed" Hinges of History" series, Thomas Cahill guides us through a time so full of innovation that the Western world would not again experience its like until the twentieth century: the new humanism of the Renaissance and the radical religious alterations of the Reformation.
This was an age where whole continents and peoples were discovered. It was an era of sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also of newly powerful princes and armies--and of unprecedented courage, as thousands refused to bow their heads to the religious pieties of the past. In these exquisitely written and lavishly illustrated pages, Cahill illuminates, as no one else can, the great gift-givers who shaped our history--those who left us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found.

This is a fascinating re-evaluation of the life and works of a hugely talented yet controversial artist. The young Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) created a major stir in late-sixteenth-century Rome with the groundbreaking naturalism and highly charged emotionalism of his paintings. "Caravaggio" is a sumptuously illustrated and engagingly written volume that takes a fresh look at Caravaggio's life and works, uncovering evidence that the efforts of Caravaggio's contemporaries to disparage his character and his artwork often sprang from their own cultural biases or a desire to promote the artistic achievements of his rivals, and that contrary to repeated claims, Caravaggio lacked neither education nor piety, but was an extremely accomplished technician who developed a successful marketing strategy.

John Marciari tells the story of the monuments, artists and patrons of Renaissance Rome in this compelling book. In no other city is the ancient world so palpably present, and nowhere else is the mission of the church so evident. At the same time as the humanists sought to preserve and recreate the ancient city, giving it a new lease of life, the popes dispensed patronage much as any other contemporary Italian ruler. Rome was also the most international of the Renaissance cities with artists and architects generally training elsewhere before arriving in the city and introducing new trends. By adopting a chronological structure, covering the period c.1300-1600, Marciari is able to explore the nature of Roman patronage as it differed from papacy to papacy. He examines the city's extraordinary works of art in the context of the working practices, competition and rivalries that made Renaissance Rome so magnificent.