Only a small number of fragments, which could be categorized (generously) as “medieval,” actually survive in modern ballad traditions. As it turns out, however, one could in fact hear hundreds of verses about the Cid being recited in the streets of Spanish towns and cities in the nineteenth century. But they were verses that survived pre…[Read more]

Jean de la Taille’s ‘The Famine’ (1573), like the author’s slightly earlier ‘Saul in his Madness’ (1572) is a dramatization of events narrated or mentioned in the biblical Books of Samuel, augmented by excerpts from Josephus’ ‘Antiquities’. This English translation of ‘La Famine’ is based principally on the edition prepared by Kathleen M. Hall…[Read more]

This article explores how certain dramatists in early modern England and in Spain, specifically Ben Jonson and Miguel de Cervantes (with much more emphasis on the former), pursued authority over texts by claiming as their own a new realm which had not been available – or, more accurately, as prominently available – to playwrights before: the sta…[Read more]

Young Michelangelo Buonarroti’s experience was deeply marked by his cult of Antiquity, reverberated in the creation of artworks such as the Sleeping Cupid and the Bacchus and shared with Raffaele Riario and Jacopo Galli, his patrons during his first stay in Rome (1496-1501).
The cardinal-camerlengo Raffaele Riario was an important promoter of t…[Read more]

The peculiar iconography of the winged horse surmounted by several puttos, as appears in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili sixth woodcut, turns out to be unprecedented and enigmatic at a glance and it’s the result of the depth and complexity of the author’s concepts.
Considering the iconographic details of the sculptural group as well as the text sca…[Read more]

Overlooking Lago di Orta in the foothills of the Northern Italian Alps, the Renaissance-era Sacro Monte di Orta (a UNESCO World Heritage site) is spectacle and hagiography, theme park and treatise. Sacro Monte di Orta is a sacred mountain complex that extolls the life of St. Francis of Assisi through fresco, statuary, and built environment.…[Read more]

Going to the theater was one of the most distinctive-as well as conspicuous-cultural activities to take place regularly in early modern european cities. Precisely because so many people from all walks of life partook of this highly visible pastime, public theaters became spaces wherein social and cultural boundaries between spectators were easily…[Read more]

This article explores the change in dynamics between matter and style in Shakespeare’s way of depicting distress on the early modern stage. During his early years as a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote plays filled with violence and death, but language did not lose its composure at the sight of blood and destruction; it kept on marching to the beat o…[Read more]

One of the major differences between the otherwise very similar commercial theatrical cultures of early modern Spain and England was that, whereas in England female roles were performed by young, cross-dressed boys, in Spain female performers were prominent in their industry. indeed, actresses in Spain played an active role in the creative process…[Read more]