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Catherine de’ Medici appears in 7 of the 8 Valois Tapestries, sometimes in the center of the design, sometimes at the edge, or up in a corner, or barely to be seen in the deep background. The various placements of her portraits suggest a question: what is the purpose of her ubiquitously dispersed presence inContinue reading “Where is Grandma?”

  I had signed a contract to write a book titled When Women Ruled the World: The Glorious Sixteenth Century in 1984. I had, in fact, not written one word of that book (though I had written a number of others), until one summer day in 2012 I found myself rummaging around under my recently married daughter’s childhood bed,Continue reading “After 40 Years of Waiting: My daughter’s gift to me, the inspiration to write When Women Ruled the World”

In 1565, Catherine de’ Medici asked Pierre de Ronsard to put together a book of poems that could be sent to Queen Elizabeth I of England to celebrate the treaty she and the English queen had recently signed together. This was the Treaty of Troyes which ended the “First” war of religion between the HuguenotsContinue reading “Defending the Regiment of Women, Pierre de Ronsard and Catherine de’ Medici”

Tapestry was the most expensive Renaissance art form (save perhaps for monumental architecture). Requiring the organized labor of multiple hands, sometimes over many months, beginning with a “cartoon” often by a major artist (such as Peter Paul Reubens), and created out of imported silks, wool, and precious metals, the weavings were far more laborious toContinue reading “Are Renaissance Tapestries High Art?”

When Women Ruled the World: Making the Renaissance in Europe by Maureen Quilligan When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt by Kara Cooney There are two books titled When Women Ruled the World available to read in 2021. The first is Kara Cooney’s on six female pharaohs in ancient Egypt; the second isContinue reading “Disambiguation: Why Two Books Titled “When Women Ruled the World”?”