Designated the king's "Angel" because of the purity of his physical beauty, Peter falls helplessly in love with the lovely companion of Queen Kirsten, the king's adulterous wife. The young musician finds himself dangerously torn between loyalties, ensnared in the deep-seated unrest of a royal court where the forces of good and evil, of harmony and dissonance, are ensconced in a battle to the death.

    Born to the artist Orazio Gentileschi at the beginning of the 1600s, when artists were the celebrities of the day, Artemisia was apprenticed to her father at an early age, showing such remarkable talent that he viewed her as the most precious thing in his life. But at the age of seventeen Artemisia was raped by her father's best friend and partner. The Gentileschi name was dragged through scandal, for Artemisia refused, even when tortured, to deny it happened. Indeed, she went further: she dared to plead her case in court. All of Rome was riveted by the trial. Artemisia won the case, but lost the love of her father and of all of Rome. Artemisia sought revenge through her art, portraying women liberating their fellow citizens from tyrants. Her stunning works took Rome by storm, overturning the prejudices of her time and winning the admiration of patrons, courtesans, and monarchs. Lapierre brings the historical Artemisia Gentileschi to vivid life, capturing the sights, sounds, and smells of Baroque Italy as well as the life of this remarkable woman.

    To root out these heretics, the courts of the Inquisition published checklists of koshering practices and "grilled" the servants, neighbors, and even the children of those suspected of practicing their religion at home. From these testimonies and other primary sources, Gitlitz & Davidson have drawn a fascinating, award-winning picture of this precarious sense of Jewish identity and have re-created these recipes, which combine Christian & Islamic traditions in cooking lamb, beef, fish, eggplant, chickpeas, and greens and use seasonings such as saffron, mace, ginger, and cinnamon. The recipes, and the accompanying stories of the people who created them, promise to delight the adventurous palate and give insights into the foundations of modern Sephardic cuisine.

    Ulinka Rublack draws on court records to examine the lives of shrewd cutpurses, quarreling artisan wives, and soldiers' concubines, and explores women's experiences of communities and courtship, marriage, the family, and the law.

    From 1672, France was continuously at war for over 40 years across Europe, from Sicily to Ireland, fielding the largest armies seen in the West since the fall of imperial Rome. Yet these conflicts - which shaped borders, determined lives, and settled crowns, and tell us so much about the great monarch's government and policies - have been strangely neglected by historians: this book is, astonishingly, the first comprehensive study in any language since the eighteenth century.John A. Lynn (the leading authority on the subject today) examines these wars together, systematically. He sets them - and their consequences - in their full diplomatic, military, administrative, and institutional contexts. He explains why they took place when and where they did; he looks for a coherent strategic policy behind them: he explores the operational logistics of their campaigns; and he considers what they achieved, and what they cost.The results are challenging: John Lynn portrays the mature Louis as far more concerned with defending his realm than he was with conquest. And, although the enormous cost of the wars shadowed the king's last years, Professor Lynn sees their achievements as more positive and enduring than is usually allowed.To the king, warfare was a process of attrition rather than a series of decisive and hence risky, events. As the number and strength of his foes increased, Louis created an army far larger than that maintained by any previous French monarch. So great was the need for troops that he finally sacrificed his navy to concentrate his resources on his land forces. John Lynn characterizes this kind of warfare (which predominated in Europe since the end of the Thirty Years War to the onset of the French Revolution) as "war-as-process"; and he argues that, while it did not win Napoleonic-style battlefield triumphs, it was consistent with the International system of the day, and offered strategic advantages and lasting gains in a way that modern historians have been reluctant to acknowledge.Written with all Professor Lynn's customary panache, this ambitious study offers a powerful central argument, an exhilarating breadth of vision, and a wealth of local detail. It will be necessary reading for specialists in the international relations of early-modern Europe, in the history and dynamics of ancien-regime warfare, and in French politics and institutions. But - as it sweeps us from Turenne and Vauban to Marlborough and Eugene - it is also a hugely enjoyable ride for those who take their history for pleasure and interest alone.

    We are told that his corpse bled when she touched it and Jennet was convicted of witchcraft. Was there really a satanic coven on Pendle side? Or was Jennet framed by Lister s son? And were the other witches actually caught up in a much broader and more disturbing pattern of religious persecution? In this best-selling account, Jonathan Lumby presents a remarkable series of new insights. By placing the events in their wider European context, he explains far more satisfactorily than ever before exactly why these disturbing events occurred.REVIEWS Perhaps the best book about 17th Century witchcraft trials ever written. This work is not just about a couple of court cases in York and Lancashire in the early 1600s. It closely examines those cases in order to put them in perspective, showing the beliefs and superstitions about witchcraft in England and Europe during that era. The research and analysis of available local records are remarkable, but so is the three-page bibliography of contemporary and modern publications about witchcraft. Arizoniana, LLC on Amazon"Relying mainly on a short booklet about the hanging of Jennet Preston for witchcraft published fifteen years after the fact, Lumby presents a modern interpretation the story of the Pendle Witches, seven women and two men hanged for witchcraft shortly after Preston's own condemnation and hanging in 1612. Many quotes from transcribed proceedings are scattered throughout the book. Lumby also places the story in the wider context of concurrent events in Europe, adding important information and interpretation to the events of the witch craze, including information about major players, religion - including a section discussing the overlap between spells and prayers - and politics of the day. The book includes a chronology, illustrations and portraits, family trees, and maps. "Reference and Research Book News, 2012/12"

    In one sense, this story begins in 591 A.D., when the Irish monk Columbanus and his followers traveled to France, where they ultimately founded monasteries at Annegray, Luxeuil, Fontaine, Breganz, and Bobbio and helped set the stage for the Carolingian Renaissance. In a real sense, however, it was the Celtic heritage of the early Irish emigres--which survived the Roman conquest and the barbarian invasions--that made the Irish so sought after and influential among the courts of Europe. Messrs. Culligan and Cherici examine the Celtic heritage at considerable length at the outset of the volume before turning their attention to the other principal variable that influenced the Irish exodus, the English repression of the Irish in the late Middle Ages and again in the 1600s. Many of these Irish, who possessed a variety of skills, would enter the mainstream of a number of European societies, some of them becoming leaders in their respective fields. The authors devote separate chapters to the areas of Europe where the Irish had the most effect, which are roughly equivalent to the present-day nations of France, Spain, Portugal, and Austria, as well as discuss the Irish influence upon Eastern and Central Europe and the Papal States. Assembled after fifteen years of study in primary and secondary sources here and abroad and featuring interviews with descendants of Irish emigres and others in the know, The Wandering Irish in Europe fills an important gap in our knowledge of a great people and their impact beyond their borders.

    By concentrating on the era’s paintings and its historical archives, Dean explores how the festival celebrated the victory of the Christian God over sin and death, the triumph of Christian orthodoxy over the imperial Inka patron (the Sun), and Spain’s conquest of Peruvian society. As Dean clearly illustrates, the central rite of the festival—the taking of the Eucharist—symbolized both the acceptance of Christ and the power of the colonizers over the colonized. The most remarkable of Andean celebrants were those who appeared costumed as the vanquished Inka kings of Peru’s pagan past. Despite the subjugation of the indigenous population, Dean shows how these and other Andean nobles used the occasion of Corpus Christi as an opportunity to construct new identities through tinkuy, a native term used to describe the conjoining of opposites. By mediating the chasms between the Andean region and Europe, pagans and Christians, and the past and the present, these Andean elites negotiated a new sense of themselves. Dean moves beyond the colonial period to examine how these hybrid forms of Inka identity are still evident in the festive life of modern Cuzco. Inka Bodies and the Body of Christ offers the first in-depth analysis of the culture and paintings of colonial Cuzco. This volume will be welcomed by historians of Peruvian culture, art, and politics. It will also interest those engaged in performance studies, religion, and postcolonial and Latin American studies.

    Drawing on local texts and narratives he reveals how a series of troubling and unorthodox happenings--bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, nakedness and cross-dressing, excommunication and irregular burial, iconoclasm and vandalism--disturbed the margins, cut across the grain, and set the authorities on edge.

    Retaining the hallmark essays from the celebrated first edition, the second edition contains thirteen new essays, emphasizing the most recent, noteworthy areas of inquiry, including gender relations, slavery and captivity, and the effects of Christianity on the course of native history. With each essay prefaced by helpful headnotes that highlight key concepts and draw connections among the essays, plus an expansive 'Further Readings' section, the second edition of American Encounters is an indispensable volume for both professors and students of early American history.