The ultimate podcast about the Renaissance!
Latest episodes
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15 min
The Good Society – The Renaissance #248
We wrap up the witches series by pulling together everything we’ve covered – the folklore, the hallucinogens, the conspiracy theories, the Inquisition, and yes, the broomstick thin…
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17 min
The Smell of Evil – The Renaissance #247
We’re deep in the witchy end of the Renaissance now…. women falling into trances, communing with the dead, healing the sick, and charging for it, which honestly sounds like a prett…
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18 min
Werewolves Lost Again – The Renaissance #246
We’ve finally made it to witch trials…. sort of. First: an 80-year-old man in 1692 Livonia confessing to being a werewolf, werewolves who apparently lose battles against sorcerers…
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16 min
Head on a Platter – The Renaissance #245
We’ve been building up to witches for a while now, and this episode we take a detour back to the second century CE…. because of course we do. Before Christians started accusing Jew…
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13 min
The Devil’s Recipe Book – The Renaissance #244
We finally get to the witches. Only took us a couple of hundred episodes. The trail leads through the Black Death, tortured confessions about poisoned powders and boiled infants, a…
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13 min
Blame the Jews (The Plague Made Them Do It) – The Renaissance #243
Twelve Genoese galleys dock at Messina in 1347 carrying rats, fleas, and Yersinia pestis…. and within weeks Europe is looking for someone to blame. Spoiler: it’s the Jews. Also the…
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19 min
The Silence of Marguerite – The Renaissance #242
The Beguines were a movement of independent women who lived like nuns, owned property, preached in the vernacular, and answered to no man or church…. which, predictably, the church…
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20 min
Rats, Jews, and the Man with the Flute – The Renaissance #241
The Jews have been expelled, the lepers have been burned, and somebody clearly had a plan…. we just don’t know who. We dig into the mechanics of medieval conspiracy theories, how t…
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18 min
A Goodly Sum – The Renaissance #240
The King of France issues a royal edict blaming the lepers for poisoning the wells…. conveniently leaving out the Jews, who had just paid him 150,000 livres – roughly a third of th…
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27 min
The Tall Dark Man with a Scimitar – The Renaissance #239
We’re still talking about the Great Leper Scare of 1321 and now we’re deep into the trials. We’ve got lepers across France being rounded up, tortured into confessions, and burned a…
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26 min
POISON IN THE WELL – The Renaissance #238 (The Witches Part 2)
We're still talking about the Great Leper Scare of 1321 - where lepers, Jews, Muslims, and the devil himself are allegedly conspiring to poison the wells and topple Christendom. It…
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23 min
Burn the Lepers – The Renaissance #237
We are taking a break from Michelangelo to talk about lepers, Jews and... WITCHES! Today we start with the 1321 leper panic in France, where thousands of people were burned alive o…
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23 min
Ghosting the Pope – The Renaissance #236
On this episode, Michelangelo is done waiting around in Rome — he packs up and heads back to Florence, effectively ghosting the Pope before the Pope can ghost him any harder. Juliu…
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29 min
The Warrior Pope and the Marble Dreamer – The Renaissance #235
Michelangelo gets summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II — the baddest, most belligerent pope who ever lived — to build the greatest tomb the world has ever seen. Mickey heads to Carra…
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28 min
The Price Just Doubled: Michelangelo, the Doni Tondo, and the Birth of the Artist as Rockstar – The Renaissanc…
In this episode of The Renaissance Times, Cameron and Ray dive deep into Michelangelo's three extraordinary marble and painted roundels — the tondos — created during his Florence y…
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19 min
Renaissance #225 – Teenage Michelangelo: The Buff Baby Jesus and the Marble Prodigy (Michelangelo, part 3)
In this episode of The Renaissance Times (Episode 225), Cameron and Ray return to Florence to explore Michelangelo’s earliest surviving sculpture, Madonna of the Stairs (Madonna de…
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19 min
Renaissance #225 – Teenage Michelangelo: The Buff Baby Jesus and the Marble Prodigy (Michelangelo, part 3)
In this episode of The Renaissance Times (Episode 225), Cameron and Ray return to Florence to explore Michelangelo’s earliest surviving sculpture, Madonna of the Stairs (Madonna de…
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16 min
Renaissance #224 – Privilege, Paint, and Patronage (Michelangelo, part 2)
In this episode of Renaissance, Cameron and Ray continue their exploration of Michelangelo’s life and career, digging into the family connections, social structures, and cultural f…
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16 min
Renaissance #224 – Privilege, Paint, and Patronage (Michelangelo, part 2)
In this episode of Renaissance, Cameron and Ray continue their exploration of Michelangelo’s life and career, digging into the family connections, social structures, and cultural f…
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18 min
Renaissance #223 – Mickey The Angel (Michelangelo part 1)
Cameron and Ray dive into the life and legend of Michelangelo, kicking off what promises to be a long-running series on one of history’s most celebrated artists. Drawing on Vasari’…