The Renaissance: not such a golden age?

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. Michelangelo's David, Machiavelli's The Prince, The Plays of Shakespeare. The Renaissance produced some of history's most astounding works of art, culture and innovation. But can focusing on these glittering creations obscure the messy and often violent reality of actually living through the era?

Well in her new book Inventing the Renaissance, Ada Palmer highlights the complexities of this so-called golden age. And I spoke to her about everything from corrupt popes and devastating plagues to why Michelangelo actually hated painting. I wonder if we could start our chat with an analogy that you present us with at the beginning of the book of a statue of David, Michelangelo's David, covered in glitter, so an unexpected image. Can you tell us what that's all about? Yeah, because all through the city of Florence you can buy little statuettes.

copies of this. And you can get white ones, but you could also get the rolled glitter glue. And it's not only incredibly garish, but it also covers up all of the details, right? Which is a perfect way to think about the way the Renaissance gets represented because we see the glitter at the shiny parts and the art and the music and the dramatic stories about princes and princesses in castles. But it covers up all of the details with this sort of garish, glittery surface.

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