About Us

A Message from the General Editor

Welcome to Routledge Resources Online: The Renaissance World. We hope that this product offers an opportunity to discover the fascinating time period known as the “Renaissance,” roughly 1300-1700. During this era, cultures around the world came into contact as never before, with complex results: the arts and sciences flourished while colonial conquest and slavery expanded. Originating as an aesthetic and intellectual movement in Europe, the “Renaissance” would reach across the globe to the Americas, Asia, and Africa, with these interactions shaping Europe in turn. This resource invites a fresh take on the period by emphasizing its movement and intersection—the travel of people, ideas, and objects.

“Renaissance” is itself a fraught term, as is the very question of how, or even whether, to divide the past into discrete eras. Our authors do not hold a monolithic notion of “Renaissance” as a clearly defined time or movement. As you read the entries here, you will encounter different—sometimes even contesting or contradictory—understandings of what is meant by “Renaissance.” (You’ll see that many scholars prefer the designation of “early modern.”) That friction is itself part of what it means to study “Renaissance” history, and we invite you not only to learn about diverse cultures but to think about different approaches to studying the past.

Here you will find entries by leading researchers who illuminate these cultural crosscurrents in the arts, politics, social history, economics, religion, material culture, and media. We also consider the “Renaissance World” in the context of the natural environment. The entries present excellent scholarship designed to be of interest to the specialist and accessible to students. The content has been carefully curated, edited, and peer-reviewed, and we will continue to expand our offerings.

There are two main ways to explore the site. The “Topics” filter will take you into subjects that span geographies:

• Art, Architecture & Material Culture
• Conquest & Colonization
• Economy & Commerce
• Environment
• Literature & Drama
• Politics & Governance
• Religion
• Sciences, Philosophies, & Learning
• Society

 

Alternatively, the “Places” filter will allow you to focus on a particular region:

• Africa
• Americas
• Asia
• British Isles & Northern Europe
• Central & Eastern Europe
• France
• Italy
• Ottoman Empire
• Spain & Portugal

 

Many of the entries here take readers into the “Renaissance World” through side doors or quirky paths. We often privilege the intellectual magic of the “and,” as entries bring together ideas or people that are not traditionally paired. Insight into the period’s rich cultural dynamics is found in unusual ways. We hope you enjoy the journey.

 

Kristen Poole, General Editor

Kristen Poole is the Ned B. Allen Professor of English at the University of Delaware. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in English literature and a S.T.M. (Master’s of Sacred Theology) from United Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia. Her research revolves around the intersection of religion, theology, and science in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature. She has published extensively on Shakespeare and Milton, and is writing a book on Philip Pullman and the seventeenth century. Her research has been supported by the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington Library, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She will be holding a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford in 2023.

 

Email: kpoole@udel.edu

Website: https://www.english.udel.edu/people/kpoole

 

Subject Editors

 

Kameliya N. Atanasova, Ottoman Empire

Kameliya N. Atanasova received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and is Assistant Professor of Religion and History at Washington & Lee University. Her research focuses on Islamic Intellectual history and especially the intersections of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) and politics in the early-modern period (1500-1800 CE). She has published articles on Sufism and Islamic law, Enoch (Idris) in Ottoman Sufi writings, Ottoman multilingualism and Qur’anic interpretation, and has co-written an article on the status of Samaritans in the Ottoman Empire.

 

Email: atanasovak@wlu.edu

Website: https://my.wlu.edu/directory/profile?ID=x19840

 

Alison Cathcart, British Isles and Northern Europe

Ali Cathcart is Professor of Early Modern Scottish and Archipelagic History at the University of Stirling where she teaches and researches aspects of Scottish, Irish and maritime history. Her research interests focus on the so-called ‘periphery’, in particular, the communities that live at the intersect of land and sea and how they interact with ‘central’ government. Her current research focuses on island communities within the British and Irish Atlantic archipelago, their utilisation of resources, and the interplay between local, regional and supra-national while also exploring customary legal practices on land and sea. She is fascinated by fish, seaweed, the intertidal zone, cows, and, increasingly, trees.

 

Email: a.m.cathcart@stir.ac.uk

Website: https://www.stir.ac.uk/people/1403494

 

Christopher Close, Religion

Christopher Close is Professor of History at Saint Joseph’s University, where he has taught since 2012. His research focuses on the history of early modern Europe with a special interest in the intersection of religion and politics in European society from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. His first monograph, The Negotiated Reformation: Imperial Cities and the Politics of Urban Reform (1525-1550) (Cambridge University Press, 2009), examines how networks of support and communication between cities enabled the Protestant Reformation to spread in southern Germany. His second book, State Formation and Shared Sovereignty: The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488-1696 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) reevaluates traditional models of state formation by analyzing the operation of alliances in the Holy Roman Empire and the Low Countries during the early modern period.  His work has been supported by grants from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the American Philosophical Society.

 

Email: cclose@sju.edu

Website: https://directory.sju.edu/christopher-close

 

Gary Ferguson, European Literature and Drama

Gary Ferguson is the Douglas Huntly Gordon Distinguished Professor of French at the University of Virginia and has been a Visiting Professor in both the USA (University of Pennsylvania) and France (Universités Paris 13–Paris Nord, Rennes 2–Haute Bretagne, and Jean Monnet–Saint-Étienne). He is the author of numerous studies on French medieval and early modern literature and culture, focusing on gender, sexuality, queer studies, women writers, and the history of religion. He has edited Anne de Marquets’s Sonets spirituels and co-edited the Brill Companion to Marguerite de Navarre. His book Same-Sex Marriage in Renaissance Rome: Sexuality, Identity, and Community in Early Modern Europe (2016) is being translated into Italian for PM Edizioni’s Obliqua series.

 

Email: rgf3y@virginia.edu

Website: https://french.as.virginia.edu/people/profile/rgf3y

 

Sharonah E. Fredrick, Americas

Sharonah E. Fredrick received her doctorate in Hispanic Literatures from Stonybrook University; her M.A. from Tel Aviv University in Renaissance History in the Americas and Spain, and her B.A. in historical anthropology from SUNY Buffalo. She has published in the University of Toronto’s Renaissance and Reform, in Brepols’s series of Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the Spanish literary journal Raices, among others. Her interests include: Mayan and Andean medicine; piracy in the Caribbean and Pacific, Amerindian and Spanish Golden Age drama; and Judeo-Spanish literature from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries. She teaches at the College of Charleston. In 2024, Sharonah’s book on Early Modern Native American studies was published by University of Nebraska Press: An Unholy Rebellion, Killing the Gods-Political Ideology and Insurrection in the Mayan Popul Vuh and the Andean Huarochiri Manuscript. It has since been nominated for Non-fiction Book of the Year for the MLA’s Isabel Kovacs Singer Award, LASA’s Non-fiction Book of the Year, and the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH)’s Non-Fiction Best Book of the 2024/2025 cycle.

 

Email:  ixqiq7@gmail.com

Website: https://spanish.cofc.edu/about/faculty-staff-listing/sharonah-esther-fredrick.php

 

Duncan Hardy, Central and Eastern Europe

Duncan Hardy is Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida, where is he also Affiliated Faculty in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He received his D.Phil. in History from the University of Oxford, and has held research fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research, London, the Université libre de Bruxelles, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He specializes in the history of the Holy Roman Empire in the late Middle Ages and into the early modern period, and his work often compares and connects that polity to its neighbors to the east and west.

 

Email: duncan.hardy@ucf.edu

Website: https://history.cah.ucf.edu/faculty-staff/?id=1152

 

Mack P. Holt, France

Mack P. Holt received his Ph.D. in early modern French history from Emory University. He taught for thirty years at George Mason University where he is now Professor Emeritus of History. His research and teaching focuses on the Reformation and the religious wars in sixteenth-century France as well as the history of wine. He served as president of the Society for Reformation Research and as co-president of the Society for French Historical Studies. His research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

 

Email: mholt@gmu.edu

Website: https://historyarthistory.gmu.edu/people/mholt

 

Wendy Beth Hyman, Knowledge

Wendy Beth Hyman earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Chair of Book Studies at Oberlin College. Her research interests focus on early modern poetry and drama, especially in relation to intellectual history, the history of science and technology, Renaissance art and visual culture, and classical mythology. She has published a book on seduction poetry, and she has edited an essay collection on teaching social justice through Shakespeare and another on automatons in English Renaissance literature. She has served on the Program Committee of the Shakespeare Association of America and is on the Executive Committee of the International Spenser Society.

 

Email: whyman@oberlin.edu

Website: https://www.oberlin.edu/wendy-beth-hyman

 

Jelena Sánchez, Spain and Portugal

Jelena Sánchez is Associate Professor of Spanish in the World Languages & Cultures Department at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests include women’s empowered role in early modern Spanish society and theater. She has published on the representation of sex, sexuality, gender, maternity, dowry and guardianship systems, inheritance, legal documents, and exploration in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In addition to contributions to edited essay collections, her articles include “Illness and Pregnancy: Female Agency in Lope de Vega’s El acero de Madrid” and “The Many Lives of Isabel Barreto: Admiral, Governor, and Merchant.”

 

Email: jsanchez@noctrl.edu

Website: https://www.northcentralcollege.edu/profile/jsanchez

 

Lauren Shohet, English Literature and Drama

Lauren Shohet received her Ph.D. from Brown University and is Professor of English at Villanova University. She has also studied and taught in Germany, Italy, France, and England. She has published widely on Shakespeare, Milton, gender studies, media change, genre theory, and adaptation. She has served on the Program Committee of the Shakespeare Association of America and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Milton Society of America. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, the Bogliasco Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Foundation, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Huntington Library.

 

Email: Lauren.Shohet@villanova.edu

Website: https://www1.villanova.edu/university/liberal-arts-sciences/programs/global/gender-womens-studies/faculty/biodetail.html?mail=lauren.shohet@villanova.edu&xsl=bio_long

 

Erika Supria Honisch, Music

Erika Supria Honisch is Associate Professor of Critical Music Studies in the Music Department at Stony Brook University, where she is also Affiliate Faculty in the History Department. She received her PhD in Music History and Theory from the University of Chicago, and specializes in music, politics, and religion in Habsburg Central Europe. Her articles appear in, among others, Journal of Musicology, Early Music History, Plainsong and Medieval Music, Common Knowledge, Organised Sound, Austrian History Yearbook, as well as in several edited volumes. Recent ensemble collaborations include projects with Schola Antiqua, the Newberry Consort, Cinquecento, and Tenet. With Giovanni Zanovello (Indiana University), she edits the Inclusive Early Music project, which helps instructors introduce students to musical voices, communities, and points of contact typically left out of music history survey courses.

 

Suzanne Sutherland, Italy

Suzanne Sutherland is Associate Professor of History at Middle Tennessee State University. She received her Ph.D. in History from Stanford University. Her research focuses on war, politics, and scholarship in the seventeenth-century Italian peninsula and Central Europe, while she teaches a wide range of topics from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. She is also part of Stanford University’s Mapping the Republic of Letters interdisciplinary digital humanities research project. Her research has been supported by the J. William Fulbright Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Stanford University’s UPS Endowment Fund.

 

Email: Suzanne.Sutherland@mtsu.edu

Website: https://www.mtsu.edu/faculty/suzanne-sutherland

 

Giovanni Zavanello, Music

Biography Forthcoming.

 

Former Subject Editors

• Art: Mónica Domínguez Torres, University of Delaware
• British Isles and Northern Europe: Sabrina Alcorn Baron, University of Maryland
• British Isles and Northern Europe: Jay Zysk, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
• Central and Eastern Europe: Micheal Tworek, Harvard University
• European Literature and Drama: Gary Ferguson, University of Virginia
• European Literature and Drama: Meredith K. Ray, University of Delaware
• European Literature and Drama: Jane Tylus, Yale University
• France: Keith Luria, North Carolina State University
• Ottoman Empire: Gábor Ágoston, Georgetown University
• Religion: Jeffrey Shoulson, Brandeis University
• Spain and Portugal: Montserrat Pérez-Toribio, Wheaton College, Massachusetts

 

Advisory Board

Art

• Erin J. Campbell, University of Victoria
• Mónica Domínguez Torres, University of Delaware
• Ethan Matt Kavaler, University of Toronto; Director, Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies
• Lia Markey, Center for Renaissance Studies, Newberry Library and Northwestern University

 

English Literature and Drama

• Claire M. L. Bourne, Pennsylvania State University
• Jane Grogan, University College Dublin
• Lucy Munro, King’s College London
• Julian Yates, University of Delaware
• Jay Zysk, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

 

Knowledge

• Margaret E. Boyle, Bowdoin College
• Ann E. Moyer, University of Pennsylvania
• Daniel Selcer, Duquesne University
• Jessica Wolfe, University of North Carolina

 

Music

• Andrew Dell’Antonio, University of Texas-Austin
• Tess Knighton, ICREA Research Professor affiliated to the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
• Honey Meconi, University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music
• Jessie Ann Owens, University of California at Davis, Emerita
• Katelijne Schiltz, University of Regensburg

 

Religion

• Andrea Celli, University of Connecticut
• Bruce Gordon, Yale University
• Adam Shear, University of Pittsburgh
• Jeffrey Shoulson, Brandeis University
• Stefania Tutino, UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles)

 

Americas

• Stephanie Kirk, Washington University
• Andres Ruiz-Olaya, University of Mary at Bismark, North Dakota
• Elizabeth Skerpan Wheeler, Texas State University
• Thomas Ward, Loyola University Maryland

 

British Isles and Northern Europe

• Elizabeth Ewan, University of Guelph
• Karin Hassan Jansson, Uppsala University
• Sjoerd Levelt, University of Bristol
• Jason Peacey, University College London

 

Central and Eastern Europe

• Giovanna Brogi, Università degli Studi di Milano
• Karin Friedrich, University of Aberdeen
• Christopher Hutchinson, University of Mississippi
• Nancy Kollmann, Stanford University
• Howard Louthan, University of Minnesota

 

France

• Sara Beam, University of Victoria
• Barbara Diefendorf, Boston University
• Keith Luria, North Carolina State University
• Katharina Piechocki, University of British Columbia
• Lynn Wood Mollenauer, University of North Carolina Wilmington

 

Italy

• Caroline Castiglione, Brown University
• Brian Maxson, East Tennessee State University
• Colin Rose, Brock University
• Alessandro Silvestri, Beatriu de Pinós Fellow, Institució Milá I Fontanals (CSIC)
• Isabella Lazzarini, Università degli Studi del Molise

 

Ottoman Empire

• Nikolay Antov, University of Arkansas
• Selim Sırrı Kuru, University of Washington
• Nir Shafir, University of California, San Diego

 

Spain and Portugal

• Alejandro García-Reidy, University of Salamanca (Spain)
• Rosilie Hernández, University of Illinois, Chicago
• Noelia García Pérez, University of Murcia (Spain)
• Montserrat Pérez-Toribio, Wheaton College, Massachusetts