Featuring the beauties of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, combined with the dark and hidden side of the Renaissance, by an acclaimed historian and expert in the period.

"Fascinating ... explores the dualities of creative brilliance and human baseness with a mastery of sources and a popular touch that vividly brings the whole period to life." Spectator "Effortlessly combines scholarly depth with a highly accessible style." New Humanist "In this lively decipherment, Alexander Lee explains what's really going on [in Renaissance art]." Independent

Alexander Lee is a fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick. A specialist in the history of the Italian Renaissance, he completed his first two degrees at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, before proceeding to undertake his doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh. He has previously held positions at the Universita degli studi di Bergamo and the Universite du Luxembourg. He the author of numerous studies on the Italian Renaissance, including, most recently, Petrarch and St. Augustine: Classical Scholarship, Christian Theology, and the Origins of the Renaissance in Italy (2012), and is currently working on a study of humanistic concepts of empire in the fourteenth century.