Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light

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Reading lists

Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Mirror & The Light’

An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance

The Beauty and the Terror

An imaginative and revelatory new history of the Italian Renaissance that challenges our preconceptions of the era

The Italian Renaissance shaped Western culture - but it was far stranger and darker than many of us realise. 
 
'Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness' Simon Sebag Montefiore 
 
We know the Mona Lisa for her smile, but not that she was married to a slave-trader. We revere Leonardo da Vinci for his art, but few now appreciate his ingenious designs for weaponry. We visit Florence to see Michelangelo's David, but hear nothing of the massacre that forced the republic's surrender. In fact, many of the Renaissance's most celebrated artists and thinkers emerged not during the celebrated 'rebirth' of the fifteenth century but amidst the death and destruction of the sixteenth century. 
 
The Beauty and the Terror is an enrapturing narrative which includes the forgotten women writers, Jewish merchants, mercenaries, prostitutes, farmers and citizens who lived the Renaissance every day. Brimming with life, it takes us closer than ever before to the reality of this astonishing era, and its meaning for today. 
 
'Terrifying and fascinating' Sunday Times 
 
'Enlightening...exactly the alternative history you might wish for' Daily Telegraph

Terrifying and fascinating ... If you thought the Renaissance was all about beautiful pictures and the ‘rediscovery’ of Classical writing, you are quite wrong … The Beauty and the Terror dismantles our assumptions about the Renaissance with the precision of a wheellock arquebus … an ambitious, multifocal book, encompassing more than 150 years [that] shine[s] a light on figures often forgotten in conventional histories

Impressive and lucid … Fletcher’s narration excels in such colourful details … a scholarly, but vivid history that shows the impact that the machinations of the great, good and not so good had on the insignificant … a persuasive account of how Italy was brought low even as the culture floated high

Richly well-informed and admirably well-written, containing material of real interest on every page ... has added a wealth of information that will be new to most of us

A story of alliances, betrayals, sacks, sieges, famines, assassinations and gruesomely ingenious tortures … Fletcher navigates this difficult terrain with great skill. She creates atmosphere and drama without any surrendering of clarity... A powerful book

Fletcher’s expertise is enviable … she knows better than anyone else just how treacherous a time and place it was. At its best, The Beauty and the Terror is as enlightening as you might hope: a chapter tracing early modern ambivalence about the rise of handguns … is exactly the alternative history you might wish for, as are the sections on slavery, sexual mores and pornography

[A] magnificent introduction to the history of the era … Fletcher’s book covers not just the wars and Renaissance art but also Italy’s political systems, courtly ceremonies, the Protestant Reformation and Catholic renewal, anti-Semitism, European colonialism, slavery, military techno­logies, early efforts at gun control, women’s poetry and even pornography … Fletcher shows how digging below the artistic and commercial riches of Renaissance Italy can reveal strong connections between culture, business, religion and violence

Brilliant and gripping, here is the full true Renaissance in a history of compelling originality and freshness, revealing the filth and thuggery, slavery, sex, slaughter and skulduggery behind the exquisite art of Leonardo and Michelangelo

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, author of Jerusalem and The Romanovs

Leading us into the world of the high Italian Renaissance in all its rich, blood-soaked glory, Catherine Fletcher shows us how the violent energies of war gave birth to some of the greatest art ever seen. Devastating in its detail, The Beauty and the Terror is a powerful, intimate and deeply humane portrait of this age of extreme destruction and exceptional creativity

THOMAS PENN, author of Winter King and Brothers York

A wonderfully dark, gritty, hard-edged tour behind the scenes of the Italian Renaissance. Catherine Fletcher is an expert and eloquent guide through the fire, blood and steel that inspired some of the greatest art in the world

JESSIE CHILDS, author of God’s Traitors

Catherine Fletcher’s eye for the skewering detail makes the citizens of renaissance Florence live again

Astonishing … gripping and original … a compelling portrait

Financial Times on The Black Prince of Florence

Packed with intrigue … Fletcher describes with cool menace the plotting and politicking … rought splendidly to life in this excellent book

Sunday Times on The Black Prince of Florence

An approach that enables her to touch on many aspects of this complex time … Above all, it is the women who interest Fletcher, whether painters, poets, politicians or prostitutes … an absorbing read

A finely-written, engaging and clear essay… The force of Fletcher’s narrative is not so much in offering a radical new evaluation of Italian Renaissance civilisation as in insisting that we see it as a cluster of cultural strategies and techniques within an exceptionally turbulent political milieu

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. Her previous books include The Black Prince of Florence: The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de' Medici and The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story. Catherine is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University and broadcasts regularly for the BBC.

The Spectacular Life and Treacherous World of Alessandro de’ Medici

The Black Prince of Florence

A dramatic tale of assassination, spying and betrayal in the opulent, cut-throat world of Renaissance Italy.

A spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence

Nothing in sixteenth century history is more astonishing to our era than the career of Alessandro de’ Medici. His story, told by an exact and fluent historian, challenges our preconceptions. Catherine Fletcher’s eye for the skewering detail makes the citizens of renaissance Florence live again: courtesans and cardinals, artists and assassins

Astonishing … gripping and original … a compelling portrait

Packed with intrigue … Fletcher describes with cool menace the plotting and politicking that dominated Alessandro’s rule … brought splendidly to life in this excellent book

A scintillating book that glisters and gleams with stabbings, poisonings, adultery and intrigue – and a startling reminder of how visceral and dangerous Renaissance Florence was. The drama of events is perfectly complemented by careful scholarship and lucid writing. This is everything a historical biography should be

Ian Mortimer, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England

In this brilliantly written and impeccably researched biography, Catherine Fletcher brings Renaissance Florence vividly to life. The story of Alessandro de' Medici's brief and bloody ascendancy reveals the darker side of this most dazzling and cultured of cities, beset by intrigue, violence and betrayal. A stunning book.

Tracy Borman, author of Thomas Cromwell: The untold story of Henry VIII's most faithful servant

Bold, breathless and full of suspense

A seductive, shimmering and significant retelling of a man whose rise to power was ... as unlikely as it was extraordinary

Engrossing … bursts with stabbings, poisonings, duels, eye-gougings, arquebus shootouts and people being run through with swords. Fletcher’s approach is scholarly yet dramatic, immersed in Renaissance glamour … a tremendous step forward in our knowledge of this intriguing man

More than just a forensic reconstruction of the period … Like a detective, Fletcher interrogates her witnesses … But it is among the detailed records of Alessandro’s wardrobe-keepers that she finds her treasure … These lend her narrative a sensuous vividity

Fletcher is entirely at ease amid the Renaissance world and its archival resources, and her details, particularly those involving dress, feasting and ceremonial, are generously deployed in the work of recovering a neglected episode of Florentine history

An original, revelatory and gripping biography. Not only a vivid evocation of the violence and glamour of sixteenth-century Florence, but also a fresh perspective on the history of race and the concept of the Renaissance man

Gripping … Fletcher describes in detail without losing momentum

A fascinating and profound examination of one of the darkest periods of Medici family history, filled with a wealth of period detail

An accomplished and original account of an extraordinary and much misrepresented episode in Italian history. Catherine Fletcher provides a newly sympathetic portrait of a monarch whose rule in Florence was even more unlikely than Henry VII’s presence on the English throne

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of A History of Christianity

Caroline Murphy, author of Murder of a Medici Princess

Fletcher charts Alessandro’s meteoric rise and bloody fall while bringing Renaissance Italy into sharp focus by deftly contrasting its simultaneously sublime and visceral natures, drawing us into an intriguing, believable Florence along the way

Terrific … maintains a standard that all history books should aim for

There are few periods in history as spectacular as the Italian Renaissance, and this fascinating biography of the comparatively obscure Florentine Duke Alessandro de’ Medici is a positive riot of vivid incident and intrigue.’

A creditable and enjoyable history of one of the lesser known Medici… It is a story of nepotism, intrigue, murder, lust, spying, double crossing and political and religious power grabbing… Well researched; Fletcher has a good eye for detail and discerning credible witness testimony from contemporary accounts…. lively and entertaining and accessible to the casual reader, as much as the student of the period.

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. Her first book, The Divorce of Henry VIII, brought to life the world of the papal court at the time of the Tudors. Her latest book, The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance is published in 2020. She has recently been appointed Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

‘A spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence’ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard, Books of the Year 
 
1531 – after years of brutal war and political intrigue, the bastard son of a Medici Duke and a ‘half-negro’ maidservant rides into Florence. Within a year, he rules the city as its Prince. Backed by the Pope and his future father-in-law the Holy Roman Emperor, the nineteen-year-old Alessandro faces down bloody family rivalry and the scheming hostility of Italy’s oligarchs to reassert the Medicis’ faltering grip on the turbulent city-state. Six years later, as he awaits an adulterous liaison, he will be murdered by his cousin in another man’s bed. 
 
‘Nothing in sixteenth-century history is more astonishing’ Hilary Mantel

The Untold Story

The Divorce of Henry VIII

The inside story of Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon - 'an intricate and fascinating story' Hilary Mantel

An eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story of an elusive man with an impossible job. A brilliant and impressive feat of original research, and necessary reading for anyone fascinated by the story of Henry’s divorce... Catherine Fletcher has allowed the story to tell itself, except that she’s been so clever in the telling of it, cutting through to what matters without over-simplifying

A glittering debut...drawing on the unexplored riches of Italian Renaissance archives, enlarges the well known story, and to magnificent effect

Fletcher does her subject great credit. She makes no attempt to either embellish or simplify. She simply tells a cracking story well, in plenty of detail with clarity and insight. Above all she resists the temptation to overlay past events with modern cultural and emotional responses. Her protagonists are never anything but true to their selves and Fletcher richly deserves the title of historian. Jonathan Rhys Meyers need not apply.

The greatest joy of this splendid book is that it dwells on context. You'll emerge with a keener sense of why the dynastic priorities of Henry VIII ("a mid-ranking northern monarch, a player on the European stage but far from the star of the show") managed to cause such a fuss

A masterly retelling of an event that changed British history and set the Tudors against the Vatican

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe. Her other books include The Black Prince of Florence, ‘a spectacular, elegant, brilliant portrait of skulduggery, murder and sex in Renaissance Florence’ (Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard Books of the Year), and The Beauty and the Terror: An Alternative History of the Italian Renaissance, to be published in 2020. She has recently been appointed Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

‘An eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story’ Hilary Mantel 
 
1527. Henry, desperate to marry Anne Boleyn and ensure the Tudor line asks Pope Clement VII to grant him a divorce. Enter Gregorio Casali, an Italian diplomat hired to represent Henry’s interests in the Vatican. Through six years of persuasion, threats and bribery Casali lives by his wits, playing off one powerful patron against another, negotiating with ambassadors from Spain, France and beyond, each crowding the Vatican to press their interests in the Tudor break up. Before it is done, Henry will decide to divorce not just Catherine, but the Church itself. Set against the backdrop of war-torn Renaissance Italy, The Divorce of Henry VIII combines a gripping family saga with a highly charged political battle between the Tudors and the Vatican to reveal the extraordinary true story behind history’s most infamous divorce. 
 
(Originally published with the title Our Man in Rome)

Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador

Our Man in Rome

The inside story of Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

An eye-opening book, an intricate and fascinating story of an elusive man with an impossible job. A brilliant and impressive feat of original research, and necessary reading for anyone fascinated by the story of Henry’s divorce.

Catherine Fletcher rescues from undeserved obscurity a key player in one of history's great events. With impeccable scholarship and a zest for the delightful minutiae of history, Fletcher navigates the intricate byways of Renaissance diplomacy to bring this vital new figure into the story of Henry VIII's "great matter"

Fletcher does her subject great credit. She makes no attempt to either embellish or simplify. She simply tells a cracking story well, in plenty of detail with clarity and insight

Catherine Fletcher is a historian of Renaissance and early modern Europe, she broadcasts frequently for BBC Radio 4 on Italian Renaissance history and is a BBC New Generation Thinker. Catherine worked with the set team on the BBC’s adaptation of Wolf Hall, advising the production on the historical detail of religious ceremony, dress and furnishings. She now holds the position of Associate Professor in History and Heritage at Swansea University, has previously held fellowships at the British School at Rome and the European University Institute, and has taught at Royal Holloway, Durham and Sheffield universities. The Divorce of Henry VIII is her first book.

1527. Gregorio 'The Cavalier' Casali is Henry VIII's man in Rome. An Italian freelance diplomat, he charmed his way into the English service before he was twenty. But now he faces an almighty challenge. Henry wants a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and Casali must persuade Pope Clement VII of his master's case. 
 
Set against the backdrop of war-torn Renaissance Italy, Our Man in Rome weaves together tales from the grubby underbelly of Tudor politics with a gripping family saga to reveal the extraordinary true story behind history's most infamous divorce. 
 
Through six years of cajoling, threats and bribery, Casali lives by his wits. He manoeuvres his brothers into lucrative diplomatic postings, plays off one master against another, dodges spies, bandits and noblemen alike. But as the years pass and Henry's case drags on, his loyalties are increasingly suspected. What will be Casali's fate? 
 
Drawing on hundreds of unknown archive documents, Our Man in Rome reconstructs his tumultuous life among the great and powerful at this turning point for European history. From the besieged Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome to the splendours of Greenwich Palace, we follow his trail in the service of Henry VIII. Lavish ceremony and glamorous parties stand in contrast to the daily strains of embassy life, as Casali pawns family silver to pay the bills, fights off rapacious in-laws and defends himself in the face of Anne Boleyn's wrath. 
 
This vivid and compelling book will make us think anew about Henry, Catherine and the Tudor world.

Catherine Fletcher

Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour, first-person asides and comparisons between past and present ... The Roads to Rome is a nuanced and perceptive book that interrogates “the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are”

Roman roads run everywhere, and Fletcher has been on most of them ... It has been her labour of love to crisscross an entire continent ... Fletcher's book is an exemplar of history as travelogue. It presents a familiar panorama - of Europe since antiquity - but from an unfamiliar, even original perspective ... The roads themselves are Fletcher's stars: sources of prosperity but also danger, stages on which to compete for and assert status, vectors of destiny that take men from where they cannot stay to where they must go ... The camaraderie she generates with fellow travellers, dead as well as living, engages and inspires.

Elegantly plotted … It is no easy task to condense 25 centuries of history into 300 pages and Fletcher, whose area of expertise is Renaissance Europe, rises to the challenge … For modern Grand Tourists, Fletcher’s book will provide an enjoyable distraction when the journey to Rome gets dull

Fletcher has a knack for identifying the poignant and the picaresque, which keeps the book unpredictable and entertaining. Ms. Fletcher is a charming writer. There are plenty of memorable scenes and evocative images.

Very readable ... these routes are almost a natural part of the landscape. The reader departs the book with a feeling that they have been there for an unimaginable time, travelled on by a cast of vivid characters. It is a compelling image, in an enjoyable book.

[A] rich narrative of the long afterlife of Rome's roads

[A] terrifically researched, sweeping study into the idea (or conception) of the Roman road

With verve and expertise, Catherine Fletcher has tramped the far-flung Roman roads of Europe and created a delightful, novel and authoritative history from the ground up.

Past and present cleverly entwine in Catherine Fletcher’s erudite, entertaining and infinitely readable journey along the roads that stitch Europe’s history together.

This is history quite literally following in the footsteps of the past: covering and uncovering the ways in which the Roman road network has become part of the DNA of every society since. It’s a magical and informative ode to the majesty and mystical power of the humble roadway.

Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of Warwick

Fletcher is a rare thing: an academic who writes beautifully and accessibly about big subjects, and this travelling history of the network of roads emanating from the Roman capital and covering much of our continent promises to be utterly riveting, filled with golden nuggets of information all rendered in Fletcher’s flowing and witty prose. She is also prepared to put in the miles, ending the book with the dust of 14 countries on her shoes in a quest to uncover the secrets of this remarkable network

The Roads to Rome is a vibrant, enchanting and rich compendium. Catherine Fletcher is an essential guide to the many hidden layers of history beneath our feet.

Catherine Fletcher’s mastery of history and storytelling converge beautifully in this captivating exploration of the Roman roads. She expertly leads us on a journey that reaches from Rome to Spain to Constantinople, and from the remote past into the present. A must-read for tourists and armchair travellers alike.

In her magnificently imagined and vividly composed book, Catherine Fletcher gives new meaning to the word journeyman (these days journeyperson). Among her pages, we journey the thousands of miles of Roman roads from 500 BCE to the present and are never made timeless or homeless. Fletcher offers us justification for an infinity of plannable holidays or long hours of cosy reading at home. All readers should direct themselves to her Romes.

This work, of course, is much more than an exploration of Roman road building achievement: what Catherine also offers us is her personal experience of following and enjoying the variety of routes that have taken her across the breadth of the Roman world. The result is an encyclopaedic unveiling of her extensive literary and cultural appreciation of what has happened on these routes and who has been there.

A Journey Into Europe’s Past

'All roads lead to Rome.' It's a medieval proverb, but it's also true: today's European roads still follow the networks of the ancient empire, stitching together our histories and continuing to inspire our imaginations. 
 
Over the two thousand years since they were first built, the roads have been walked by crusaders and pilgrims, liberators and dictators, but also by tourists and writers, refugees and artists. Catherine Fletcher shows how the roads – as channels of trade and travel, routes of conquest and creativity – forever transformed the cultures, and intertwined the fates, of a vast panoply of people across Europe and beyond. 
 
The Roads to Rome is a magnificent journey into a past that remains intimately connected to our present. Travelling from Scotland to Cádiz, from Istanbul to Rome, we meander and march through a series of nations and empires that have risen and fallen. Along the way, we encounter spies and bandits, scheming innkeepers, a Byzantine noblewoman on the run, young aristocrats on their Grand Tour, a conquering Napoleon, Keats and the Shelleys, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and even Mussolini on his motorbike. 
 
Reflecting on his own walk on the Appian Way, Charles Dickens observed that here is ‘a history in every stone that strews the ground’. Based on outstanding original research, and brimming with life and drama, this is the first book to explore two thousand years of history through one of the greatest imperial networks ever built.

Catherine Fletcher

Praise for The Roads To Rome

Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour, first-person asides and comparisons between past and present ... The Road ...

Roman roads run everywhere, and Fletcher has been on most of them ... It has been her labour of love to crisscross an entire continent ... Fletcher's book is an exemplar of history as travelogue. It pr ...

Elegantly plotted … It is no easy task to condense 25 centuries of history into 300 pages and Fletcher, whose area of expertise is Renaissance Europe, rises to the challenge … For modern Grand Tour ...

Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour, first-person asides and comparisons between past and present ... The Road ...

Roman roads run everywhere, and Fletcher has been on most of them ... It has been her labour of love to crisscross an entire continent ... Fletcher's book is an exemplar of history as travelogue. It pr ...

Elegantly plotted … It is no easy task to condense 25 centuries of history into 300 pages and Fletcher, whose area of expertise is Renaissance Europe, rises to the challenge … For modern Grand Tour ...

Epic and witty ... Fletcher is a thoroughly enjoyable narrator because she peppers her learned prose with wry humour, first-person asides and comparisons between past and present ... The Road ...

Roman roads run everywhere, and Fletcher has been on most of them ... It has been her labour of love to crisscross an entire continent ... Fletcher's book is an exemplar of history as travelogue. It pr ...

Elegantly plotted … It is no easy task to condense 25 centuries of history into 300 pages and Fletcher, whose area of expertise is Renaissance Europe, rises to the challenge … For modern Grand Tour ...

Books by Catherine Fletcher

Articles featuring Catherine Fletcher

Books to read if you loved Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Mirror & The Light’

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