The Penguin Book of the Renaissance

On the one hand it produced the tender work of Giotto and the brilliance of a Leonardo; on the other, it encompassed the atrocities of a Borgia, the fanaticism of a Savonarola and the cynicism of a Machiavelli. Civil disorders, political violence, religious discord and deep-seated corruption provided a setting in which genius flowered and where virtuosity, originality and an explosive energy shone through in politics, in art, in thought and even in murder.