European Tapestries

Tapestry, the most costly and coveted art form in Renaissance and Baroque Europe, has long fascinated scholars. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, researchers delved into archival sources and studied extant tapestries to produce sweeping introductions to the medium. The study of tapestry, however, fell outside mainstream art history, with tapestry too often seen as a less important “decorative art” rather than a “fine art.” , Also, tapestry did not fit easily into an art history that prioritized one master, as the making of a set of large-scale tapestries required a team of collaborators, including the designer, cartoon painters, and weavers, as well as a producer/entrepreneur and, often, a patron. Scholarship on European tapestries in the Early Modern period, nevertheless, flourished. By the late 20th century art historians turned attention to the “decorative arts” and tapestry specialists produced exciting new research illuminating aspects of design, production, and patronage, as well as tapestry’s crucial role in the larger narrative of art and cultural history. In 2002, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s landmark exhibition and catalogue, Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, spotlighted the art form, introduced it to a broad audience, and brought new understanding of tapestry as art. A sequel, the Met’s 2007 exhibition and catalogue, Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, followed. Other major museums presented ambitious exhibitions, accompanied by catalogues with substantial new research. In addition, from the late 20th century, institutions have produced complete catalogues of their extraordinary European tapestry holdings, among them: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Patrimonio Nacional in Spain; the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. At the same time, articles and books exploring specific designs, designers, producers, and patrons appeared, with some monographs published in the dedicated series, Studies in Western Tapestry, edited by leading scholars Guy Delmarcel and Koenraad Brosens, and produced by Brepols. Tapestry research has often focused on the works of well-known designers and their exceptionally innovative work, such as the artists Raphael (b. 1483–d. 1520) or Peter Paul Rubens (b. 1577–d. 1640). High-quality production at major centers, including Brussels or at the Gobelins Manufactory in France, has also captured scholars’ attention, as have important patrons, among them Henry VIII of England (b. 1491–d. 1547) or Louis XIV of France (b. 1638–d. 1715). Newer directions for research include the contributions of women as weavers and entrepreneurs, the practice of reweaving designs, and the international reach and appeal of Renaissance and Baroque tapestry beyond Europe.

English Overseas Empire

The English (after the Union of England, Scotland, and Wales in 1707, the British) Overseas Empire famously encompassed the globe. The range of scholarship related to this phenomenon stretches accordingly. This article focuses on contributions that consider the period prior to c. 1700 but provides links to other Oxford Bibliographies articles that include entries on non-English perspectives on the expansion of English overseas interests more fully, entries on the cultural interactions generated by that expansion, entries that relate to the later period, and entries that provide additional references to the topics discussed here. The emergence of an English Overseas Empire might be regarded as one of the most significant yet one of the more unlikely consequences of the Reformation and the Renaissance. In the 15th century, England suffered civil war and had its overseas territory reduced to Calais and the Pale of Dublin while its foreign mercantile sphere concentrated on the Baltic region, Antwerp, and Seville. The English break with Rome severed longstanding Anglo-Iberian economic ties and provided the religious-ideological frame for trading, plundering, and colonizing forays against the “popish” Iberians the success of whose initiatives had left the English scandalously behind in the minds of early imperial cheerleaders. By the 1640s, English “private” initiatives had established presences in Africa, America, and Asia, although the scale of these operations eventually proved beyond the capacity of these projectors, thus necessitating governmental intervention. After 1689, France replaced Spain as the imperial bogey, but an anti-Catholic imperial ideology, which employed a language of liberty and virtue derived from humanism, intensified as English political and economic ambitions expanded and direct government involvement in empire increased. Both this expansion and the cultural interactions it generated tracked changing English cultural and political sensibilities: contemporary authors and artists acclaimed English overseas endeavor as a hallmark of civilization, modernity, capitalism, and progress; the stridency of this celebratory view accompanied a seemingly inexorable coloring of the globe pink prior to World War II. English overseas expansion also entailed deep involvement in the enslavement of Africans—in terms of both exporting enslaved persons from sub-Saharan Africa throughout the Western Hemisphere and importing these people to labor on English plantations—a reality that has begun to receive significant attention only recently. It also involved the often-nasty subjugation of societies in situ, another reality that has also received a recent intensive rethink in the postcolonial era that began in the 1960s.

Artemisia Gentileschi

During the last four decades the painter Artemisia Gentileschi (b. Rome 1593—d. Naples 1654?) has become an increasingly popular subject for both scholars and the general public. Against considerable odds, she was trained by her painter father, Orazio Gentileschi, and demonstrated a precocious talent from an early age. Her first known signed and dated painting is a Susanna and the Elders of 1610 (Schönborn Collection, Pommersfelden); she returned to this subject many times during her career, including her last known signed and dated painting of 1652 (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna). In the intervening years she devised innovative compositions for both traditional and not-so-traditional iconographies, with a focus on heroic women from sacred and secular sources—in addition to Susannas, she painted Judiths, Mary Magdalenes, and Lucretias, among others—as well as multiple self-portraits, indicating demand for her abilities and interpretation as well as her image. Her rape by the painter Agostino Tassi in 1611, and the trial that followed in 1612, has been seen by many as a pivotal moment in Artemisia’s life, which it certainly was. But her artistic accomplishments must be understood in the much wider contexts of nascent feminist ideologies and painting in Baroque Europe. During her long career, spent in Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples, and London, Artemisia acquired numerous patrons and correspondents. These included Grand Duke Cosimo II of Florence and his wife, Christina of Lorraine; Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger; Galileo Galilei; the Duke of Alcalá Fernando Enríquez d’Afán de Ribera y Enríquez; Philip IV and his sister Infanta María of Spain; Cassiano dal Pozzo; and Charles I of England. She was named the first female member of Florence’s Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in 1616, and she deftly managed her own thriving business and extensive studio, largely on her own. The last known documented reference is a Neapolitan tax document of 1654; she may have died during the plague outbreak in the city that year. Her burial site, allegedly in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, has not been identified, but a later text states that it was marked with a now lost stone simply inscribed “HEIC ARTEMISIA,” or “Here Lies Artemisia.” The lack of more detailed information provides an indication of the fame she had achieved during her life. The literature on Artemisia Gentileschi has expanded significantly in recent years, as has her body of work, but not without considerable scholarly disagreement.

Agrippa d’Aubigné

Born in 1552, Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné was taken by his father, at the age of eight, to look upon the severed heads of Huguenots executed for their part in the failed Conspiracy of Amboise. The spectacle marked the child, stirring his devotion to the Protestant cause, which determined his whole life. His military career included serving in the first three Wars of Religion under the prince de Condé, and then in the army of Henri of Navarre. When wounded at the battle of Casteljaloux (1576), Aubigné experienced a religious vision, which, he claims, was the first inspiration for his epic poem Les Tragiques, written and revised over some forty years, before its publication in 1616. His best-known work for modern readers—monumental, and by turn dramatic, satirical, and deeply moving—it is above all imbued with his Calvinist faith in the ultimate triumph of divine purpose, despite the horrific scars wrought by the civil wars. Yet Aubigné’s personal relationship with other leading Protestants was often tense. When Henri IV converted to Catholicism in 1593, Aubigné felt bitterly betrayed and retreated for a while to his family and his provincial estates in Poitou, where he penned his Lettre à Madame, urging the king’s sister, Catherine de Bourbon, to hold firm to her Protestant faith. The need to make his voice heard and shape the Protestant cause impelled him, however, to return repeatedly to the political fray, albeit with increasing disappointment. The accession of Louis XIII and the Regency of Marie de’ Medici fueled his anger against those Protestants willing to appease the new regime. Never inclined to hide his views, he indulged his full satirical venom in his novel Les Aventures du baron de Fæneste (1617–1619), while the seditious views voiced in the first two volumes of his Histoire Universelle (1618–1619) saw this work condemned to be burned. In the last decade of his life, Aubigné took refuge in Geneva (1620–1630), where his marriage with Renée Burlamacchi brought companionship and literary support, not least in her role, after his death, of ensuring his many manuscripts were safely transmitted to the pastor Tronchin, his literary executor. Aubigné may appear as intransigent, and easily moved to anger and scorn, but he was also devoted to his family, as shown in his manuscript Sa Vie à ses enfants, and he had a striking regard for women who stood fast for their Protestant faith.

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Born in, or just outside, Florence c. 1380, Lorenzo Ghiberti probably trained in the shop of a goldsmith. He established himself, in the early 15th century, as one of the most skilled bronze/brass sculptors on the Italian peninsula; indeed, he reinvigorated the art of casting metal sculpture in Florence. He demonstrated his abilities in working with cooper alloys first in the famous competition of 1401–1402, in which sculptors, vying for the commission to fashion the Florence Baptistery’s second set of doors, made trial reliefs representing the sacrifice of Isaac. His victory led to his completion of a set of doors (1403–1424) representing scenes from the New Testament. He carried out this project, along with many others, with the assistance of his large workshop. Ghiberti’s mastery of bronze/brass sculpture subsequently led to numerous commissions in these media: between 1412 and 1429, he sculpted three colossal statues for the church of Orsanmichele (St. John the Baptist, St. Matthew, and St. Stephen) and two reliefs for the Siena Baptistery (1417–1427). He received commissions in other materials as well. In the 1420s he produced a number of designs for marble tombs, cast another in bronze, and made two elaborate papal miters (1419 and c. 1434). Between 1425 and 1452, he completed the Florence Baptistery’s third and final set of doors, known as the Gates of Paradise, which both demonstrate his ability to represent—in reliefs made of copper alloys—fictive space through linear perspective and elegant bodies inspired by Antiquity, and highlight his understanding of the meaning and power of Old Testament stories. While working on the Gates he completed other projects, including, for Florence Cathedral, a tomb-shrine of St. Zenobius. In these years and earlier he also made designs for stained-glass windows throughout the cathedral. During his career, he dabbled in architecture, working on the project for the cathedral’s new dome and designing a sacristy-chapel space for the Strozzi family in Santa Trinita. Aside from his sculptures, he is in the early 21st century unquestionably best known for his remarkable Commentaries, a three-book treatise containing the first history of art penned after Antiquity—he included histories of ancient and recent Italian art, culminating in his autobiography—and an extensive section on the science of optics. Ghiberti was an avid collector of ancient art and also owned a number of books. His uncommon acumen as a businessman led him to acquire a great deal of wealth, including a number of properties. After a long, productive, and influential life, he died on 28 November 1455.

Italian Wars, 1494–1559

According to the Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini, Italy enjoyed peace and plenty in the years around 1490. From 1494 it was plunged into what he and others regarded as a series of “calamities,” triggered by the French kings Charles VIII (r. 1483–1498) and Louis XII (r. 1498–1515), who claimed to rule the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan, respectively. Francis I (r. 1515–1547) retained the claim to Milan, and the wars themselves continued through the reign of Henry II (r. 1547–1559). Rule over Naples was contested and secured by Ferdinand II of Aragon (r. 1479–1516) and maintained by his Iberian successors. Milan was an imperial fief, so was contested by Ferdinand’s grandson Charles V in his capacity as Holy Roman emperor (r. 1519–1556). The conflicts waged in Italy in the names of these various princes between 1494 and 1559 are collectively known as the Italian Wars. They include the War of the League of Cambrai (1508–1516), that of the League of Cognac (1526–1530), and the War of Siena (1552–1559). This article approaches the wars by means of Reference Works and Overviews specifically devoted to the Italian Wars, though it is also worth teasing information from histories of Renaissance Warfare. Contemporary Sources provide innumerable angles on a subject that can be difficult to define beyond events on the battlefield or the besieged city and are therefore subdivided into four types: Memoirs and Chronicles, Histories, Official Records, and cultural evidence, the last of which appears under the heading Art of War, Art and War. Some publications deal with individual episodes or short spans of time and therefore feature in a Chronology of War, itself subdivided at the death of Louis XII/accession of Francis I, 1494–1515 and 1515–1559. The biographical genre—Lives and Times—is the most obvious way of dealing with the leading protagonists, who tended to be Princes, but group studies are also relevant when one turns to Subjects and Citizens who contributed to the conflicts in some form or other. Some authors have confined their research to military history, including the recruitment of soldiers, their pay, and provisions, as well as their activities on the battlefield, but the Italian Wars witnessed so much overlap between the lives of Soldiers and Civilians that they are brought together in the penultimate section of the article, which then concludes with the miscellanies that are Collections of Papers.

Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton (b. 1642–d. 1727) played a pivotal role in the early modern Scientific Revolution through his contributions in three fields: mathematics, optics, and physics. Additionally, Newton contributed to the scientific method, designed and built the first working reflecting telescope, engaged in extensive correspondence with other natural philosophers, and served as president of the Royal Society of London for more than a quarter century. His accomplishments also include his leadership at the Royal Mint in London (first as warden in 1696 and then as master from 1699 until his death). He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. Newton’s life can be divided into three phases according to geographical region. From 1642 to 1661 he lived in Lincolnshire, where he was born (Woolsthorpe) and attended grammar school (the King’s School, Grantham). He came to Trinity College in 1661 to begin his undergraduate training and became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. In 1696, he moved to London to take his position at the Mint. He was given a state funeral and buried at Westminster Abbey. Newton’s development of calculus introduced a potent mathematical tool with a wide range of applications (Gottfried Leibniz independently shared this innovation); his prism experiments showed that sunlight is heterogenous; his three laws of motion continue to serve physics and engineering; and his inverse-square law of universal gravitation helped make planetary science and the Space Age possible. Newton’s status as a polymath is underscored by his practice of alchemy (chymistry), and his forays into chronology and his study of doctrine, prophecy, and church history. The steadily increasing collection of transcribed manuscripts produced by the Newton Project has given scholars unprecedented access to his thought and has made research into the interrelations between his intellectual endeavors possible. In addition to being important to science and scientists, Newton is studied by historians, historians of science, philosophers, philosophers of science, theologians, sociologists, and literary scholars. This article on Newton and Newtonianism reflects this range of study and brings together classic studies along with cutting-edge research. Note: articles alluded to in summaries of collections of papers are mostly not repeated elsewhere under the specific subject headings.

Charles V, Emperor

The figure of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1500–d. 1558), looms large over a wide swath of human experience in the 16th century. His empire impacted the direction of history in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East. The military, diplomatic, and dynastic force of his empire weighed on cultural movements that included the Reformation, Renaissance, print revolution, witch trials, global trade, and colonization. The interplay of his narrow and shortsighted vision on one side and his military courage, administrative acumen, and devotion to duty as he understood it on the other has intrigued historians for nearly five hundred years. Every generation has found him relevant, but for different reasons. By all accounts he was talented in language acquisition. He also had the energy, intellect, and desire to understand the minutia of administrative and diplomatic business. His presence on the battlefield and documented courage helped him maintain the loyalty of his subjects. In short, he seems to have been a “good enough” emperor. Although he did not maintain political or religious unity in his empire, he defended the lands he inherited and maintained them under his family’s rule. His publicists devised an imperial program focused on his personal power as a ruler chosen by God to defend Christianity from internal and external forces of evil. The contemporary shift toward authoritarian rule in many countries today has given this program new relevance.

Bathsua Makin

Bathsua Makin (b. 1600–d. 1681?) was a child prodigy, writer, and noted educator. Her father Henry Reginald was a schoolmaster. Her first book, Musa Virginea, appeared when she was 16; a second published work on shorthand is undated, but appeared before 1619. She followed her father into education, working as tutor for the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I, and later for the Countess of Huntingdon and her children. Makin’s specialty was languages, so she taught Princess Elizabeth Latin, Hebrew, Greek, French, and Italian by the time the child was nine, and she taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew to the Huntingdon family. Finally, An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (Essay) is attributed to Makin by many scholars. The Essay says Makin planned to open a school in 1673, though nothing further is heard of the school. It also provides information about education, catalogues learned women, and offers a spirited defense of women’s abilities, as well as an attack on misogyny. Makin’s importance lies in the way she exemplifies the problems of research on early modern women writers, her work as a Latin poet, her essay on education, as well as her reception. Her brother-in-law John Pell once remarked that “she is a woman of great acquaintance.” Pell was one of Samuel Hartlib’s correspondence circle, and Hartlib mentions both Makin and her father in his papers. Surviving letters and the Hartlib papers link her to notable men: Sir Symonds D’Ewes, Carew Ralegh, Robert Boyle, and several prominent London physicians. Around 1640, Anna Maria van Schurman wrote Makin, and they continued corresponding until at least 1645 and possibly until 1648. Makin almost certainly knew other learned Englishwomen, including Rachel Speght, Anne Halkett, Dorothy Moore Dury, and Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh, though none of these is listed in her catalogues of learned ladies, perhaps because they demurred. Her influence on later women is less clear. The Countess of Huntingdon’s granddaughter, Lady Elizabeth Hastings, was Mary Astell’s sponsor; another was Lady Catherine Jones, daughter of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh. This article does not include the many anthologies that include passages from the Essay speaking to such concerns as politics, women’s lives, conduct books, religion, classical studies, and so forth. Simply using a search engine like Google to find the search terms “Bathsua Makin” and “anthology” will yield around 9,000 results, and the range of topics is broad and varied.

William Tell

William Tell (Wilhelm, Guillaume) is the name of a legendary Swiss hero from Canton Uri in the present-day Swiss Confederation. From the first recorded appearances of Tell in the late 15th century until the Revolutionary Era of the late 18th century, the symbol of William Tell has been used in a variety of ways to shape the cultural mythology of Switzerland, Europe, and the Atlantic world. According to a variety of Swiss foundation myths, Tell stood up to tyranny in the late 13th or early 14th century and helped secure Swiss liberty by defeating (or helping to defeat) the tyrant known as Gessler. Most of the tales present Tell as a humble, virtuous citizen of the canton who refused to bow down to the arbitrary symbols of a tyrant’s authority. In reaction to Tell’s defiance, the tyrant forced Tell to shoot an apple off Tell’s son’s head, promising both father and son their freedom if Tell were successful. However, upon discovering a second arrow hidden on Tell’s person, which threatened the tyrant, Gessler tried to imprison Tell. A sudden storm, possibly divinely inspired, allowed Tell to escape the ship with his life and kill Gessler in revenge, while a Swiss uprising overthrew the tyrannical government. Differences in content and interpretation of the various Tell stories result from the answers to several questions: Did Tell plan and lead the revolt? Did he take part in the foundational oath at the Rütli Meadow, the mythical birthplace of the Swiss Republics? Did the revolt target local aristocrats or a foreign tyrant? Usually the Tell story broke into two camps: one supporting the elite leadership of the Swiss republics, and the other demanding more popular sovereignty. In this breakdown, Tell either acted in defense of his family against the foreign tyrant or sought to overthrow local, aristocratic rule, signaling a more popular rebellion. Eventually, these interpretations were easily expanded beyond Swiss boundaries and were used to support or challenge elite-led governments outside the Swiss Republics. During the Revolutionary Era, the figure of Tell evolved into a transnational proxy in an ongoing battle between those who saw true liberty as self-rule, free from the intervention of foreigners, and those who saw liberty as an egalitarian principle, available to the entire male citizenry.