A skirmish-sized Renaissance / sixteenth century Europe tabletop game project has been something of a white whale of mine for quite some time. I’ve started and stopped three separate attempts at a historically-set tabletop RPG and fizzled out on each…
In the decades before the Eighty Years War (or Tachtigjarige Oorlog) that severed the Low Countries into a republican Dutch north and a Habsburg royalist south, another war raged. One largely forgotten about. The Habsburg dynasty was ascending. Charles V…
Sharing a recent acquisition for my Dutch & Flemish studies library: a 220 year old, turn-of-the 19th century Dutch-English dictionary in two volumes! It is unknown if the author, John Holtrop ( d. 1792), was born in England or if…
In the early years of the sixteenth century, after a certain German monk famously nailed an academic debate to a cathedral door, the two early Protestant identities began forming – the eponymous Lutherans and the “Reformed” church in the mold…
Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611) was born the third son to an Antwerp merchant family with business ties to both Rome and Tunis in northern Africa. With his older brothers continuing the family business, young Bartholomeus made the most of his chances…
File this under “things could always be worse.” The city of Haarlem, just west of Amsterdam, was decidedly not part of the early turmoil and revolt that began spreading across Holland, Flanders, and Brabant in the 1560s. There was no…
An example of the human experience from history. These were people like you and I. The years following Philip II’s ascension to the throne of a united Spain and the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries saw a dramatic rise…
While COVID-19 keeps us socially distanced into Spring 2021, take advantage of these fascinating early modern history talks scheduled by a number of great academic organizations.
The Ruckers family of Antwerp were active from the mid-1500s through the 1600s and are considered the "Stradivarius" of harpsichord and virginal makers. Their output was as much works of art as it was exquisite musical instruments.
The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library is hosting a virtual talk on “The Art of Renaissance Warfare” on September 17th. “This public conversation explores how the development of gunpowder, stirrups, and new techniques for polishing armor…
