THE HINGES OF HISTORY We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage—almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description But history is also the narratives of grace, the recountings of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something beyond what was required by circumstance In this series, THE HINGES OF HISTORY, I mean to retell the story of the Western world as the story of the great gift-givers, those who entrusted to our keeping one or another of the singular treasures that make up the patrimony of the West This is also the story of the evolution of Western sensibility, a narration of how we became the people that we are and why we think and feel the way we And it is, nally, a recounting of those essential moments when everything was at stake, when the mighty stream that became Western history was in ultimate danger and might have divided into a hundred useless tributaries or frozen in death or evaporated altogether But the great gift-givers, arriving in the moment of crisis, provided for transition, for transformation, and even for trans guration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found —Thomas Cahill THE HINGES OF HISTORY VOLUME I HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION THE UNTOLD STORY OF IRELAND’S HEROIC ROLE FROM THE FALL OF ROME TO THE RISE OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE This introductory volume presents the reader with a new way of looking at history Its time period—the end of the classical period and the beginning of the medieval period—enables us to look back to our ancient roots and forward to the making of the modern world VOLUME II THE GIFTS OF THE JEWS HOW A TRIBE OF DESERT NOMADS CHANGED THE WAY EVERYONE THINKS AND FEELS This is the rst of three volumes on the creation of the Western world in ancient times It is rst because its subject matter takes us back to the earliest blossoming of Western sensibility, there being no West before the Jews VOLUME III DESIRE OF THE EVERLASTING HILLS THE WORLD BEFORE AND AFTER JESUS This volume, which takes as its subject Jesus and the rst Christians, comes directly after The Gifts of the Jews, because Christianity grows directly out of the unique culture of ancient Judaism VOLUME IV SAILING THE WINE-DARK SEA WHY THE GREEKS MATTER The Greek contribution to our Western heritage comes to us largely through the cultural conduit of the Romans (who, though they not have a volume of their own, are a presence in Volumes I, III, and IV) The Greek contribution, older than Christianity, nevertheless continues past the time of Jesus and his early followers and brings us to the medieval period Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea concludes our study of the making of the ancient world VOLUME V MYSTERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES THE RISE OF FEMINISM, SCIENCE, AND ART FROM THE CULTS OF CATHOLIC EUROPE The high Middle Ages are the rst iteration of the combined sources of JudeoChristian and Greco-Roman cultures that make Western civilization so singular In the fruitful interaction of these sources, science and realistic art are rediscovered and feminism makes its first appearance in human history VOLUME VI HERETICS AND HEROES HOW RENAISSANCE ARTISTS AND REFORMATION PRIESTS CREATED OUR WORLD The European rediscovery of classical literature and culture precipitates two very di erent movements that characterize the sixteenth century The rediscovery of Greco-Roman literature and art sparks the Renaissance, rst in Italy, then throughout Europe New knowledge of Greek enables scholars to read the New Testament in its original language, generating new interpretations and theological challenges that issue in the Reformation Though the Renaissance and the Reformation are very di erent from each other, both exalt the individual ego in wholly new ways VOLUME VII This volume will continue and conclude our investigation of the making of the modern world and the impact of its cultural innovations on the sensibility of the West Copyright © 2013 by Thomas Cahill All rights reserved Published in the United States by Nan A Talese/Doubleday, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies www.nanatalese.com DOUBLEDAY is a registered trademark of Random House LLC Nan A Talese and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC Pages constitute an extension of this copyright page Book design adapted by Maria Carella Map designed by Mapping Specialists Ltd Endpaper: Pieter Bruegel, Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels Jacket design by Michael J Windsor Jacket illustration: Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c 1555 (oil on canvas), Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c 1525–1569) / Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels / The Bridgeman Art Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cahill, Thomas Heretics and heroes : how Renaissance artists and Reformation priests created our world / by Thomas Cahill.— First edition pages cm.—(The hinges of history; volume VI) Includes bibliographical references and index Renaissance Reformation Ego (Psychology)—History Europe—Civilization I Title CB359.C34 2013 940—dc23 2013006241 eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-53416-1 Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-385-49557-8 v3.1 To Devlin, Lucia, Nina, and Conor, beloved grandchildren “Qu’est-ce que cela fait? Tout est grâce.” I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience —Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, April 18, 1521 I had expected to vote against Senator Kennedy because of his religion But now he can be my president, Catholic or whatever he is.… He has the moral courage to stand up for what he knows is right —Martin Luther King Sr., from the pulpit of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, October 31, 1960, the day his son Martin Luther King Jr was released from a Georgia prison, thanks to John F Kennedy’s intervention CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations PRELUDE Philosophical Tennis Through the Ages INTRODUCTION Dress Rehearsals for Permanent Change 1282: The Sicilian Vespers 1353: How to Survive the Black Death 1381–1451: Lutherans Long Before Luther 1452: The Third Great Communications Revolution I NEW WORLDS FOR OLD Innovation on Sea and Land 1492: Columbus Discovers America 1345–1498: Humanists Rampant II THE INVENTION OF HUMAN BEAUTY And the End of Medieval Piety 1445?–1564: Full Nakedness! 1565–1680: Charring the Wood III NEW THOUGHTS FOR NEW WORLDS Deviant Monks 1500–1517: Erasmus and Luther IV REFORMATION! Luther Steps Forward 1518–1521: From Dispute to Divide INTERMISSION: IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO (THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY) A Portfolio of Egos V PROTESTANT PICTURES And Other Northern Images 1498–1528: Apocalypse Now 1516–1535: Utopia Now and Then 1522–1611: The Word of God Goes Forth—  First in Hochdeutsch, Then in Shakespearean English 1520s: Encounters and Evasions in Paris 1525?–1569: The Ice Is Melting VI CHRISTIAN VS CHRISTIAN The Turns of the Screw 1516–1525: From Zwingli to the Peasants’ War 1525–1564: From Princely Conversions to the  Second Reformation 1545–1563: Catholics Get Their Act Together 1558–1603: The Religious Establishment of a Virgin Queen 1562–1648: Let’s Kill ’Em All! VII HUMAN LOVE How to Live on This Earth 1531–1540: Nuns with Guns 1572–1616: Men in the Middle 1615–1669: The Deepening POSTLUDE Hope and Regret 50 Tintoretto (?), Veronica Franco, c 1575 Veronica took up the life of a Venetian courtesan upon walking out on her husband after one year of marriage Though she faced intense competition (prostitutes made up more than a tenth of Venice’s population), she became well known— among visiting foreigners as well as Venetians—for her surpassing charms She had been educated with her brothers by private tutors and felt at ease discussing philosophy and literature with her well-born customers Her own poetry was admired for its combination of frankness and discretion She had many friends, both among her fellow courtesans and among the Venetian literati, and perhaps but one enemy—a dissatisfied customer who wrote anonymously against Veronica as “a cow that could satisfy the entire Ghetto,” the neighborhood of Venice’s Jews (Nothing like mixing a little anti-Semitism with your anti-feminism.) Veronica gave as good as she got and rallied other women to her defense The man was revealed to be a local priest, who was later named bishop of Corfu and eventually died of syphilis Veronica died in her mid-forties after weeks of fever, leaving a substantial will to provide for her two children as well as for prostitutes wishing to leave their profession (illustration credit 50) 51 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Portrait of Rudolf II, 1591 Arcimboldo was a novelty painter whose arresting jumbles of elements in the shapes of men delighted Europe None of his compositions won greater fame than this portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, great-great-grandson of Maximilian I The artist, born in Milan, had spent many years in Vienna, then in Prague after the emperor made it his new capital Just before Arcimboldo’s death, however, he returned to his birthplace and there created his portrait of Rudolf as Vertumnus, Roman god of gardens Rudolf received the picture in Prague, fell in love with it, and would sit for hours gazing upon his own image disguised as an abundant collection of vegetables, flowers, and fruit (illustration credit 51) 52 Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait at Easel, 1556 (illustration credit 52) 53 Sofonisba Anguissola, Self-Portrait, 1610 (illustration credit 53) Born to a Cremona family of minor nobility, Sofonisba knew from an early age that she must become a painter, even though no one in Italy had ever heard of a woman taking up such a profession Her doting father sent her to study with a local artist when she was fourteen She was, however, forbidden by the customs of the times from sketching strange men or studying anatomy by viewing nude male models So she became a portrait painter, mostly painting the members of her own family, pictures her father would send off here and there to encourage some publicity for his daughter One of her portraits reached the eighty-two-year-old Michelangelo His admiration bore fruit in an epistolary friendship and finally a visit by Sofonisba to Rome Thanks to this association with il Divino, the young woman was invited to Madrid as court painter to Philip II The sojourn in Spain eventuated in the artist’s marriage to a Spanish grandee, who would later die in a shipwreck, after which Sofonisba returned to her native Cremona, this time with a new, noble, and very young husband who had captained her ship of return Eventually, they moved to Palermo, where they had first met and where Sofonisba would die in her early nineties Her self-portrait at the age of seventy-eight (and another when she was nearly ninety) demonstrates that the artist had none of the scruples about her image that were evidenced by the outraged Isabella d’Este Sofonisba was content to serve as truth teller NORTHERN IMAGES 54 Pieter Bruegel, Beggars, 1568 (illustration credit 54) 55 Pieter Bruegel, Wedding Dance, 1566 (illustration credit 55) 56 Pieter Bruegel, The Fall of Icarus, c 1558 (illustration credit 56) 57 Pieter Bruegel, The Magpie on the Gallows, 1568 (illustration credit 57) 58 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1627 (illustration credit 58) 59 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1634 (illustration credit 59) 60 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1659 (illustration credit 60) 61 Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, c 1669 (illustration credit 61) 62 Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son, c 1669 (illustration credit 62) BY THOMAS CAHILL THE HINGES OF HISTORY Introductory Volume: How the Irish Saved Civilization The Making of the Ancient World: The Gifts of the Jews Desire of the Everlasting Hills Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea The Making of the Modern World: Mysteries of the Middle Ages Heretics and Heroes One additional volume is planned on the making of the modern world ALSO BY THOMAS CAHILL A Literary Guide to Ireland (with Susan Cahill) Jesus’ Little Instruction Book Pope John XXIII A Saint on Death Row ... Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cahill, Thomas Heretics and heroes : how Renaissance artists and Reformation priests created our world / by Thomas Cahill. — First edition pages cm.—(The... these sources, science and realistic art are rediscovered and feminism makes its first appearance in human history VOLUME VI HERETICS AND HEROES HOW RENAISSANCE ARTISTS AND REFORMATION PRIESTS... transformation, and even for trans guration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found Thomas Cahill THE HINGES