The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance
CATHERINE FLETCHER
(BODLEY HEAD, 432 PP, £25)
Tablet bookshop price £22.50 • Tel 020 7799 4064

Catherine Fletcher’s history of the Italian Renaissance aims to show us an unknown side of the period that shaped Western culture; but time and again in its pages I found myself pulled into a ­narrative I know all too well.

The story that jumped out at me was the tale of the Catholic Church and the men who controlled it; and, though the detail may have changed, the instincts were sometimes uncomfortably close to home, especially if home is the Vatican. Witness, for example, this from Martin Luther, quoting a cardinal of his acquaintance who said: “Let them eat, and drink, and do what they will; but as to reforming us, we think that is a vain idea; we will not endure it.”