Renaissance Lives

A companion volume to a PBS TV series, this collection of biographies examines the lives of 15 Renaissance personages and their accomplishments in relation to the enormous social upheavals that took place from the mid-1300s to the mid-1600s. Rabb ( The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe ) has combined excellent scholarly research with splendidly crafted writing to provide accounts of both well-known and obscure Renaissance figures. Each life story highlights one facet of the transformations in religion, philosophy, the arts and the sciences that took place during this era. Theologian Jan Hus (1370?-1415) represents religious dissent; painter Titian (1487?-1576) and astronomer and physicist Galileo (1564-1642) were symbolic of the changing views of art and science; and the life of Gluckel of Hameln (1646-1724), a female Jewish merchant, reflects the economic revolution taking place. Enlightening and accessible. Illustrated. (Jan.)