In Tudor Europe, “real tennis” was more than a game—it was a dangerous obsession of kings and courtiers. From wool-stuffed ...

While monarchies reigned in 16th-century Europe, painters and dramatists began portraying the middle-class home with unusual “seriousness and sympathy,” says Richard Helgerson, a professor of English ...

In 1570, a Frenchman was arrested for smuggling clandestine correspondence between France and England in a basket of cheese.

Fingers started wagging when 16th-century European women began wearing masks to protect their skin and hide their identities. Masked women on a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Laeken (now part of the ...

In 1502, as Europeans hungrily looked to the vast new continent across the Atlantic Ocean, innovative maps of these unfamiliar territories became objects of power and intrigue. Alberto Cantino, an ...

Connecting the past to the present, the documentary ‘We Were Here’ sparks conversations about representation, belonging, and historical memory. (Courtesy UCSB MCC) The Renaissance is often imagined as ...

Paige Donaghy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

The Renaissance is often imagined as a period of European artistic and intellectual flourishing, yet its depictions frequently erase the presence of Black Africans who lived in cities like Venice, ...

The 16th century CE was known throughout history as a period of aggressive economic Western expansion. That was when they discovered that colonization was more profitable than feudalism, hence the ...