The Ambassadors: Great Art Explained

Very recommendable! A famous painting by Hans Holbein the Younger.

(235) The Ambassadors: Great Art Explained - YouTube

War and famine in Europe between 1450-1700 CE, the Renaissance

Recommendable!

"... In the Early Modern Era, “an army of twenty thousand men . . . exceeded the population of most European cities; and when that winding horde of soldiers, with ten to fifteen thousand horses, set out on campaign, it could easily eat up, in a few days, all the food and fodder in the adjacent villages and countryside for many miles around.” Armed runaway conscripts also ate their way through villages. “Desertion was rife, and in the early eighteenth century gangs of disciplined deserters occasionally terrorized rural communities.” ...

Fearing pillaging soldiers, peasants and rural folk often fled to the nearest walled city—but these offered little protection from starvation if they were sieged. In the siege of the port city of La Rochelle in 1628, “some fifteen thousand Rochelais perished, mostly from starvation, out of a population of eighteen to twenty thousand inhabitants.” ...

Many ate horse excrement “with great avidity,” according to Léry, combing the streets for “every kind of ordure,” whose “stink alone was enough to poison those who handled it, let alone the ones who ate it.” “I can affirm that human excrement was collected to be eaten,” ...

Finally, some people turned to cannibalism. Léry wrote of how a grape-grower named Simon Potard, his wife, and an old woman in their household, had together eaten the brains, liver, and innards of Simon’s daughter, who was about three years old. Léry personally saw “the cooked tongue, finger” and other bodily remains of the toddler in a cooking pot, “mixed with vinegar, salt, and spices, and about to be put on the fire and cooked.” ..."

"We think of the Renaissance as a shining era of human achievement, pinnacle of artistic genius and humanist brilliance, the time of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Montaigne. Yet it was also an age of constant, harrowing warfare. Armies, not philosophers, shaped the face of Europe as modern nation-states emerged from feudal society. In Furies, one of the leading scholars of Renaissance history captures the dark reality of the period in a gripping narrative mosaic. ..."

Grim Old Days: Lauro Martines’ Furies "Early modern war was waged not just with weapons, but also hunger and social collapse."

Published in 2013 Source

Leonardo da Vinci studies of anatomy don't get recognition they should

Recommendable!

"... Yet one great achievement that frequently goes unrecognised is his studies of human anatomy. More than 500 years after his death, it’s time this changed. ...

The human anatomy became one of his great interests. This was seeded during his time as an apprentice in Andrea del Verrocchio’s bottega (studio) in Florence, where studying the human form was crucial for achieving realistic depictions.

Creating detailed anatomical drawings required precise sketching skills and the ability to accurately depict the structures being studied. ...

His anatomical sketches were unlike anything seen before. For example, his sketches of the muscles of the arms and human skull are comparable to illustrations in today’s medical anatomy texts. ..."

da Vinci studies of anatomy dont get recognition they should

Sketches of human muscles, 1515.

What Makes “The Mona Lisa” a Remarkable Work of Art | Leonardo da Vinci by Ken Burns

Very recommendable!

The Infinity of Visual Space: “The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne” | Leonardo da Vinci by Ken Burns

Very recommendable!

Dissecting a 100-Year-Old Man and the Drawings That Changed Anatomy | Leonardo da Vinci by Ken Burns

Very recommendable! His anatomical studies are absolutely amazing!

The Battle of Anghiari and the Michelangelo Renaissance Rivalry | Leonardo da Vinci

Very recommendable!

The Vitruvian Man and Anatomical Studies | Leonardo da Vinci

Recommendable!

Thousands of Pages of Inventions, Ideas and Flying Machines | Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks

Very recommendable!

How “The Last Supper” was Painted | Leonardo da Vinci

Very recommendable!

Narratives in Paintings: The Virgin on the Rocks and Lady with an Ermine | Leonardo da Vinci

Very recommendable!

The Art of Perspective: The Annunciation and Ginerva de'Benci | early works of Leonardo da Vinci

Very recommendable! What a genius!

Ken Burns on the genius of Leonardo da Vinci

This should be a very interesting documentary again!

Exhibition Tour— Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350 | Met Exhibitions

Very recommendable! However, e.g. Florence was not mentioned once, if I am not mistaken.

Lucrezia Borgia: Pretty Poison

Recommendable!

Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi at the Minneapolis Institute of Art

This should be a spectacular exhibition! One good reason to travel to Minneapolis!

Great Art Explained: Botticelli's Birth of Venus

Very recommendable!

How Botticelli revolutionised portraits

Very recommendable!

Silk, Seduction, And Sin: The Renaissance Art Of Passion with Waldemar Januszczak

Very recommendable! Venice, the capitol of glass and much more!

"It was Venice that invented the reclining Venus"!

"A bull with a foot fetish!"

Don't miss the other great art documentaries by Waldemar Januszczak!

Venice: Bridge of Tits ("It takes its name ("Bridge of the Tits") from the use of the bridge by prostitutes, who were encouraged to stand topless on the bridge and in nearby windows")

Architect Of The High Renaissance: The Short Life Of Raphael

Very recommendable! I was surprised that I did not know or recognize some of his famous paintings. I guess, Rafael being a contemporary and compatriot of such famous famous artists as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo ("the trinity of great masters of the period" (source)) may explain some of my gaps.