Renaissance

ever before,” says Margaret MacMillan. (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

“We’ve come to think that peace is normal, but that’s not the reality”: Margaret MacMillan on humanity’s compulsion to go to war

Painting of Pope Callixtus II, the first Borgia pope, though it would be his nephew Rodrigo (later Pope Alexander VI) who would earn great infamy

Your guide to... the Borgias

Portrait of Isabella d'Este in Red by Pieter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). (Photo by Getty Images)

Rethinking the Renaissance

Wartime evacuees wash their hands

“The very sight of her hands did almost turn my stomach”: a brief history of hand-washing

A statue of Leonardo da Vinci

8 milestones in Leonardo da Vinci’s rise to success

The leaning tower of Pisa

Q&A Why does the Tower of Pisa lean to one side?

Lucrezia Borgia with her father Pope Alexander VI

Lucrezia Borgia: is her bad reputation deserved?

A memorial tomb to King Æthelstan, the first Saxon king of all England, in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire. (Photo by Geography Photos/UIG via Getty Images)

A brief history of England

The Sultanahmet district in Istanbul, Turkey, which is classified as World Heritage by UNESCO. (Photo by DOZIER Marc via Getty Images)

General ancient history

A new civilisation rises

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The Medici

Verona skyline with river Adige, bridges, Santa Anastasia Church and Torre dei Lamberti or Lamberti Tower at dawn view from Castel San Pietro, Italy. (Getty Images)

My favourite place: Verona, Italy

Giuseppe Garibaldi in Naples, Italy, 1861. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

God, gangs and Garibaldi

From left to right: Queen Isabella of Castile; French regent Anne de Beaujeu; and Catherine of Aragon. (Photos by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/DeAgostini/Imagno/Getty Images)

Game of Queens: when women ruled Renaissance Europe

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First World War

Verdun and the Renaissance

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In pictures: the luxury estate designed by Leonardo Da Vinci and owned by Napoleon’s sister