"In this new book, the award-winning novelist and renowned historian Ada Palmer seeks to dismantle the myth of the Renaissance as a 'golden age' compared to the plague- and war-ridden Middle Ages. For those who inhabited what we now think of as the Renaissance, Palmer argues, it was 'a darker, grimmer age than the 'dark ages' that preceded it.' The book, then, is as much about the real Renaissance as it is about our constructions of it, taking a close look at how the myth of the Renaissance as a golden age came about. Palmer ably shows how this myth was constructed for different political reasons at different times, and she contrasts it with the lived reality of the actual Renaissance, which she sees as a troubled period defined by the attempt to end centuries of war and conflict by way of a revival of the educational aims and methods of ancient Rome. The author peppers her book with fifteen mini-biographies ranging from famous figures-including Michelangelo, Machiavelli, and Lucrezia Borgia-to lesser-known ones, examining why history remembers some characters over others and showing in detail how different figures struggled with the trials and tribulations of their time"--

Prologue: The Great and Terrible Renaissance -- Machiavelli the Patriot : SPQF -- Part I. Why You Shouldn't Believe Anyone (Including Me) About the Renaissance. Everybody Wants to Claim a Golden Age ; The Flexible X-Factor of the Renaissance ; Time for a Tangent About Vikings! (It's Relevant, I Swear. . .) ; The Quest for the Renaissance X-Factor Begins ; Super Sexy Secular Humanism ; A New X-Factor : The Baron Thesis and Proto-Democracy ; Another X-Factor : Enter Economists! ; Florence : A Self-Fulfilling Source Base ; What Makes People Start to Study the Renaissance ; Lorenzo de Medici : Hero or Villain? ; Or Were We Brought Here by Romance? ; The Invention of the Middle Ages ; The Un-Modern Renaissance ; Why Did Ada Palmer Start Studying the Renaissance? -- Part II. Desperate Times and Desperate Measures. Desperate Times ; Cruel Wars for Light Causes ; A Strange Peace, A Stranger War ; Rome : The Eternal Problem City ; Medieval but Ever-So-Much-More-So ; The Desperate Measure : Reviving Antiquity ; Intermission: Are You Remembering Not to Believe Me? ; Antiquity Was Not New Either ; The Umanista's Rival : Scholasticism ; Studia Humanitatis - The Words That Sting and Bite ; Italian Renaissance Becomes European Renaissance ; The Supremacy of Antiquity ; Is This About Virtue or Power? - Part III. Let's Meet Some People from This Golden Age. Patrons and Clients All the Way Up ; Our Friends So Far ; Alessandra Strozzi : Labors of Exile ; Manetto Amanatini : There Is a World Elsewhere ; Francesco Filelfo : Between Republics and Monarchies ; Montesecco : An Assassin Fears for His Soul ; Ippolita Maria Visconti Sforza : The Princess and the Peace ; Josquin des Prez : The International Renaissance ; Angelo Poliziano : Patronage Repays ; Savonarola : Saint or Demon? ; Alessandra Scala : The Girl of Our Dreams ; Raffaello Maffei il Volterrano : A Scholar Fears for His Soul Too ; Lucrezia Borgia : Princess of Nowhere ; Camilla Bartolini Rucellai : Spirit of the Last Republic ; Michelangelo : The Great and Terrible ; Interlude: Let's Ground Ourselves in Time ; Julia the Sibyl : A Prophetess in an Age of Science ; Our Friend Machiavelli -- Part IV. What Was Renaissance Humanism? What Was Behind the Curtain? Garin vs. Kristeller ; Who Gets to Count as a Renaissance Humanist? ; Back to Our X-Factors ; Once Upon a Time at Vergil's House ... ; Follow the Money! ; It's Getting Weird in Florence ; Scraps of Philosophia ; Was There Renaissance Secular Humanism? ; How (Not) to Dodge the Renaissance Inquisition ; Why We Care Whether Machiavelli Was an Atheist ; Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 1 ; Virtue Politics ; Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 2 -- Part V. The Try Everything Age. An Exponential Information Revolution ; We Can't just Abelard Harder Anymore ; The Presumptive Authority of the Past ; The New Philosophy ; A Brief History of Progress ; Progresses -- Part VI. Conclusion: Who has the power in history? Great Forces History vs. Individual Choice History ; The Papal Election of 2016 ; Which Horseman of the Apocalypse? ; What Did the Black Death Really Cause?