
How to be a Renaissance Woman
Jill Burke
£25.00
Out of stock
Description
*A Waterstones Best Book of 2023*
*A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*
*A New York Times Editor’s Pick*
‘Terrific’ SARAH DUNANT
‘Lively and intriguing … You’ll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way’ MAGGIE O’FARRELL
‘Highlights a rich tapestry of female experience that encompasses everyone from artisans to aristocrats …’ THE TIMES
This is the story of the Renaissance, but not as you know it. Discover overlooked and silenced women from this extraordinary moment in history and how they forged opportunities for creativity, community and resistance. From the bedchamber to the court, they give us an intimate window into what life was really like – and hold a mirror up to our contemporary obsession with how we look.
‘Taking a fresh, women-led perspective, Burke highlights a rich tapestry of female experience that encompasses everyone from artisans to aristocrats … The everyday women mixing their own beauty products should rightly be considered chemists and botanists’ The Times
‘A fun, informative and occasionally sobering look at the lives of women across social strata … The real shock of the book is not what’s unfamiliar, it is how much of it seems to mirror today’s obsessions and controversies’ The New York Times
Publisher Review
A lively and intriguing exploration of female life in the Renaissance, lifting the lid on anxieties and aspirations that will sound oddly familiar to any 21st century reader. You'll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way -- Maggie O'Farrell Taking a fresh, women-led perspective, Burke highlights a rich tapestry of female experience that encompasses everyone from artisans to aristocrats ... the everyday women mixing their own beauty products should rightly be considered chemists and botanists. Successfully creating these cosmetics required knowledge of plants and their properties, as well as how to transform them via different techniques. Renaissance women had greater scientific knowledge and experience than they are often credited with * The Times *
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