Catherine Fletcher: The Beauty and the Terror (1492)

In this episode Professor Catherine Fletcher takes us back to 1492 and the heart of the Renaissance. She takes us to the deathbed of one of the most powerful figures in Italy; to the Conclave of cardinals that was gathering to elect a new pope; and across the Atlantic to see Christopher Columbus approaching a New World.

Catherine Fletcher is Professor of History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The discussion in this episode of Travels Through Time is drawn from the events described in Catherine's new book, The Beauty and the Terror recently published in hardback by the Bodley Head in the UK and by Oxford University Press in the USA.

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Show notes

Scene One: In an ornate villa in Careggi on the outskirts of Florence Lorenzo ‘the Magnificent’ de’ Medici lies dying.

Scene Two: The Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Pope Innocent VIII, whose territories spanned a swathe of the peninsula from Rome to Ravenna on the Adriatic coast, has died so the traditional process of conclave begins in the Sistine Chapel

Scene Three: Friday 12th October, the Bahamas in the West Indies. Christopher Columbus sights land and arrives on the coast of an island called Guanahaní with his crew of explorers.

Memento: A handful of Lorenzo’s extraordinary collection of antique jewellery.

People

Presenter: Peter Moore

Interview: Violet Moller

Guest: Professor Catherine Fletcher

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Colorgraph

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