That Shakespeare Life
316 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 49 ratingsHosted by Cassidy Cash, That Shakespeare Life takes you behind the curtain and into the real life of William Shakespeare. Get bonus episodes on Patreon
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
The Story of Shakespeare's Birthplace
April 22, 2024 14:00 - 29 minutes - 26.8 MBThere is something uniquely fascinating about the place where someone famous was born and grew up. As many of us travel long distances just for the chance to visit the birthplace of one of our heroes, we seem to recognize the importance of home as the foundation for future greatness. William Shakespeare’s home is no exception. WilliamShakespeare’s life journey began at his birthplace, making it an essential part of his history and the foundation of what he would go on to become. Here today to...
Uncovering the Stage Boards Shakespeare Walked Upon
April 15, 2024 14:10 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBIn October of 2023, the Norfolk Guildhall at King’s Lynn, London was undergoing a bigrefurbishment when 600 year old oak floorboards were discovered beneath the floor. A religioushouse in the 15thcentury, the site became a performance venue by 1593, hosting, amongothers, Shakespeare’s acting company according to company accounts. That discovery meansthat these newly discovered floorboards could have held the footsteps of William Shakespearehimself. Here today to tell us about the floorboards,...
Alarum and Parley: Military Sounds in Stage Directions
April 08, 2024 14:20 - 31 minutes - 28.5 MBIn Shakespeare’s lifetime, sound was often relied upon by playwrights to let an audience know a battle was taking place, an army was taking action, or a particular military event was about to occur. Some of these military sound cues are found in the stage directions of Shakespeare's plays when we see him indicate musicians should sound specific pieces. For example, the musicians are directed to “sound a parley” in Coriolanus Act I, and to play an “Alarum to battle” in Henry IV Part I. Here to...
Robert Armin and Will Kemp, Fools of Shakespeare
April 01, 2024 15:01 - 51 minutes - 46.9 MBAll total, Shakespeare includes 21 Clowns and Fools in his works, that frequency wasn’tjust personal preference. It was, as you may have guessed, a reflection of actualhistory. The Fool dates all the way back to the Romansas an appointed member ofsociety whose job it was to entertain with honesty, mockery, and behavior that wouldhave been foolish for anyone else. Since it is April Fool’s Day today, that makes it theperfect time to explore the history of fools, which iswhy today, we’re meeting...
Bible Translations in Shakespeare's Lifetime
March 26, 2024 17:11 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBOne the of the most significant influences on Shakespeare’s works is the Holy Bible. There are references to biblical characters and even specific Bible verses found throughout Shakespeare’s works. Of course the original Bible was not written in English, but famous translators of the Bible including John Wycliffe who created the first modern English translation of the Bible produced from the original Biblical languages. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Protestant Reformation fueled more Bib...
What is Wattle and Daub, anyway?
March 18, 2024 14:00 - 24 minutes - 23.8 MBFor centuries, the construction method of wattle and daub has been used to contruct buildings.For Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Tudor style of house became famous for this form of construction because Tudor homes featured exposed beams held together in the wattle anddaub style. For the uninitiated, however,you may not know what constitutes a wattle or a daub, or how this method of construction was accomplished. Here today to answer these questionsand share with us not only how the process was c...
Eye glasses, spectacles, and eyeware for Shakespeare's lifetime
March 11, 2024 14:00 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBShakespeare uses the word “spectacles” 8 times across his works, and talks about glass eyes in King Lear. In A Winter’s Tale Leontes is talking with Camillo when he indicates Camillo should have seen something clearly because of the thickness of his eye glass. It makes sense to think that people in the 16-17th century would have suffered from near sighted ness or farsighted ness and other opthamlogic disorders, but what does the historical record show about how these sight related issues wer...
The Battle of Lepanto, 1571
March 04, 2024 15:00 - 57 minutes - 53.1 MBIn 1571, William Shakespeare was only 7 years old, but the naval battle that occurred that year was pivotal forEngland, and indeed the Christian world, that continued to be celebrated and written about for centuries afterShakespeare. The Battle of Lepanto is the last naval battle fought exclusively with rowing vessels, known as galley warfare, and overall was a surprising naval victory for Catholics. Even James VI wrote poetry titledLepanto, that was in high demand as printed literature in En...
The Real Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn Compared to All is True
February 26, 2024 15:00 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBExplore the real life of Henry VIII against some of the stories inside Shakespeare's play, All is True, with our guest, Kat Marchant. Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
16th Century Romance Fiction
February 19, 2024 15:00 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MBDid you know there were romantic fiction publications in Shakespeare's lifetime? Of course they weren't romance novels, because the novel as a format was not invented, but the romance genre was a live and well. You may recognize chivalric romances, which include knights in shining armor, fighting dragons, overcoming giants, and other quest-worthy elements. In Shakespeare's lifetime, there were romantic tales as well, but as you might expect from the Renaissance era, 16-17th century romance st...
Declension of Pronouns with David Crystal
February 12, 2024 15:00 - 27 minutes - 26.8 MBIn the play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, as well as Hamlet and Richard III, the phrase “declension of pronouns” that comes up as a description of language. That’s not a phrase that I remember being taught in English class, and instead relates to Latin, the language of education for Shakespeare’s lifetime, and indeed across Europe. Here today to explain for us exactly what a “declension” might be, how to use them, and what it helps to understand about things like nouns, pronouns, and spelling ...
The Life of Mary Frith, known as Moll Cutpurse
February 05, 2024 15:00 - 27 minutes - 26.8 MBOne of the most famous criminals of Shakespeare’s lifetime was Mary Frith, known as MollCutpurse. Her character is featured in several plays contemporary to Shakespeare, and itseems her real life persona was even more flamboyant than those represented onstage. MollCutpurse was a notorious pickpocket who made a name for herself in early modern England asa thief and an entertainer, who stood out from the crowd because she liked to dress, and act,like a man. Challenging cultural norms was Moll’s...
16th Century Plague, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Microbiology
January 29, 2024 15:00 - 46 minutes - 43.8 MBPlague is the horrible sickness that reoccurs throughout the life of William Shakespeare, and many listeners will know that plague is to blame for several closings of playhouses around London throughout the 16-17th century. However, what does that word mean, precisely? What symptoms did people have when afflicted with plague, and how was it transmitted from person to person? The play Romeo and Juliet offers some evidence of plague responses when we see the messenger detained by confinement in...
Reporting on Scottish News in England
January 22, 2024 15:00 - 49 minutes - 45.2 MBMary Queen of Scots and her son, James VI of Scotland, brought an urgency to England for sharing news about what was happening in Scotland. From 1580 onwards, the same years Shakespeare was writing about Scotland in plays like Henry VI Part 1 and later Macbeth, which features Scotland prominently, the rate of news about events in Scotland being published in England skyrocketed. This increase can be attributed to an expansion in news publications over a broader landscape, but events involving ...
Childbirth, Midwives, and Pregnancy in the 16-17th Century
January 15, 2024 15:00 - 45 minutes - 42.5 MB“Pregnant” is a word Shakespeare uses in his plays, but it always appears in connection with ideas, grief, or even trauma, but never as a word to describe a woman that is carrying an unborn baby. Instead, whenever a woman is carrying a child in her uterus in Shakespeare’s works, the phrase used is “with child.” This divergence between Shakespeare’s language and how we are accustomed to using the word “pregnant” today is just one way Shakespeare’s plays help shed light on the surprising world ...
The Marian Civil War
January 08, 2024 15:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBWilliam Shakespeare was just two years old when Mary Queen of Scots was removed from power in 1567. The Queen was put under confinement in Lochleven Castle and forced to abdicate the throne in favor of her young son, James VI, the future James I of England. Mary and her supporters, however, did not go quietly. Mary would escape from prison one year later and incite her followers to confront their enemies in a vicious civil war known as the Marian Civil War. Mary herself left Scotland after t...
What Would We Have Seen at a Country House Entertainment?
January 01, 2024 15:00 - 34 minutes - 32 MBFor Shakespeare’s lifetime, the concept of welcoming hospitality was considered a uniquely English virtue. We see this opinion reflected in the play, As You Like It, when Shakespeare’s character Corin suggests that doing deeds of hospitality was one way to get to heaven. Nowhere was hospitality reflected more clearly, or extended more often, than at the country house estate. Now before you think of a small cottage in the countryside, when I say it was a Country House Estate, an example of a f...
Christmas Gifts in Shakespeare's England
December 25, 2023 15:00 - 23 minutes - 21.4 MBMerry Christmas! I am thrilled you are spending a piece of your Christmas holiday here with us today. That’s a lovely gift in and of itself to have you on the other side of the speakers today as we explore the Christmas tradition of gift giving in 17th century England, and exactly what Shakespeare would have received as a Christmas gift in December over 400 years ago. We are also going to explore what kinds of gifts were popular to be given throughout society for the Christmas holidays from t...
Holiday Ghost Stories
December 18, 2023 15:00 - 34 minutes - 33.3 MBThis Christmas season we are celebrating the holidays Shakespeare style by bringing out some traditional Tudor ghosts tories. For the 16-17th century, one popular time to tell ghost stories was during the Christmas holidays. A more accurate term for these stories might be “ghost narratives” because they are different than the stories we think of today as “ghost stories”Instead of being fictional tales for the purpose of entertainment, ghost narratives fromShakespeare’s lifetime were factual t...
The Ghost Stories of Anne Boleyn
December 11, 2023 15:00 - 25 minutes - 24.4 MBIn Tudor England, it was a tradition to tell ghost stories to celebrate Christmas, particularly on Christmas Eve. One of the people about whom ghost stories might have been shared is none other than Anne Boleyn. If the legends are true, Anne Boleyn’s ghost must be the most traveled ghost in Britain, with stories of her spirit wandering across the country in at least 7 different locations. These stories were told after Anne’s death and survived not only through Shakespeare’s lifetime but persi...
Christmas Carols and Madrigals for Shakespeare's Lifetime
December 04, 2023 15:00 - 34 minutes - 32.8 MBDuring the reign of Elizabeth I, which was 1558-1603 and spans most of Shakespeare’s lifetime, England was experiencing the English Renaissance, a time when all forms of art were seeing a shift in popularity, but music, in particular moved from being something you would hear only in a church to being popular at more secular events. In fact, not only did Elizabeth I herself enjoy playing music, but as an art form, music was widely applied in early modern plays, like those of William Shakespear...
Wool and Wool Sweaters in the 16th Century
November 27, 2023 15:00 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBWilliam Shakespeare’s father, John Shakespeare, spent a great deal of time in trouble with the government over his illegal sale of wool. Several court documents show that John Shakespeare was investing in wool then selling it on to others. He didn’t have a license to sell the wool, which is why he was so regularly in trouble. What the records of his dealings demonstrate is that the wool was valuable enough a commodity in England that John Shakespeare that he felt it was worth both the risk an...
The Pilgrim Psalter, Book of Psalms, 1612
November 20, 2023 15:00 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBThe Pilgrim Psalter (originally titled “The Book of Psalms, Englished in Prose and Meter”) was produced by Henry Ainsworth in 1612. Ainsworth was a Hebrew scholar and Bible teacher among the English Separatists in Amsterdam, Holland. The work is called a Psalter because it is a translation of the Hebrew Psalms which between 1010 and 930 BC during the time of David and his son Solomon. Ainsworth’s translations of the Psalms are musical, set to tunes popular in Reformation era, and are remember...
Table Manners for Shakespeare's England
November 13, 2023 15:00 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBWhen we sit down to a formal dinner here in the United States, there are manners you are expected to follow like sit up straight, push your chair in, place your napkin in your lap. All of this small niceties are called collectively dining etiquette and they represent the rules for how we are to operate socially when eating a meal. Which begs the question: What about Shakespeare? When the bard sat down a meal with his friends, perhaps at the Mermaid Tavern, or even for a state dinner somewhere...
Napkins in Shakespeare's England
November 06, 2023 15:00 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBShakespeare’s plays refer to a napkin at least 20 times, including As You Like It where Rosalind mentions a bloody napkin, in Hamlet the title character is offered a napkin to “rub thy brows.” In Henry IV Part 1, Falstaff talks about someone’s shirt being made of “two napkins” sewn together, Merry Wives of Windsor scorns the greasy napkin, while Othello complains that Desdemona’s napkin is too small. When it comes to sizes, shapes, material, and uses for napkins in Shakespeare’s lifetime, we ...
The Legends and Folklore of Werewolves for 16th century England
October 30, 2023 14:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBFar before the time of Shakespeare, there was a prevalent belief in the creatures known as werewolves, or lycanthrope, as they were called in the Ancient world. This belief saw a large increase by the 16th century, with people believing werewolves were humans capable of shape shifting into the form of a large and evil wolf, desiring to consume other humans, particularly children, by the light of a full moon. The legend of werewolves today is dismissed by the popular mindset and relegated to t...
The 16th Century Legend of Robin Hood
October 23, 2023 14:00 - 31 minutes - 29 MBWilliam Shakespeare refers to the legend of Robin Hood in his play, As You Like it with the old Duke exiled to the Forest of Arden with a group of Merry Men who “live like the old Robin Hood of England” (Act I, scene i). In his play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare again mentions the Robin Hood legend when an outlaw exclaims “By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar.” The accompanying characters of the Robin Hood story find their place in Shakespeare’s plays, when in Henry IV Part...
How Was the First Folio Physically Made?
October 16, 2023 14:00 - 34 minutes - 32.6 MBIn the year 1623, close to a decade after William Shakespeare died, the First Folio was published, which is a collection of some of Shakespeare’s plays selected by his friends and a group of business investors involved in the project. What makes it a Folio, as opposed to simply a book, is the way in which it is physically bound. Here today to help us explore the materials used in making the Folio, including details about the paper used and the intricate binding, along with how the plays were ...
Haunted Lover's Ballads
October 09, 2023 14:00 - 21 minutes - 20 MBForShakespeare's lifetime, ghosts and spiritual manifestations were fixture in pop culture publications like songs, ballads, and of course, plays like Shakespeare’s that feature ghosts such as Banquo, Hamlet’s Father, and even a string of dead victims that visit Richard III on the eve of Battle in Shakespeare’s Richard III. They were as haunting as ever in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but what was the purpose, place, and reception of ghosts for Shakespeare’s lifetime?Did people believe ghosts were...
Maria on Board the Golden Hind
October 02, 2023 14:00 - 44 minutes - 42 MBDuring his voyage around the world in 1577-1580, Sir Francis Drake captained a ship named the Golden Hinde. On this ship lived a woman named Maria, whose plight we only know about because of a record kept by an anonymous sailor who mentions her in one line of a manuscript currently housed at the British Museum in London. The line is short, but the history it references is immense. The line reads ““Drake tooke… a proper negro wench called Maria, which was afterward gotten with child between t...
The History of English Apples
September 25, 2023 14:00 - 41 minutes - 39.5 MBShakespeare uses the word “apple” in his works a total of 9 times, including references to crab apples, rotten apples, and the apple of your eye, among others. The word apple was used to describe the round, edible, fruit we know today, but could also apply to other fruits. In fact, some 16-17th century references use “apple” as a generic term for any fruit that included a nut. There’s even one expression from the Middle ages called “appel of paradis” which refers to a banana. The apple fruit ...
The Science of a 16th Century Football Found at Stirling Castle
September 18, 2023 14:00 - 27 minutes - 26.3 MBIn Shakespeare’s lifetime, the game we call soccer today, known as football in Europe, was a popular in Shakespeare’s lifetime. In fact, some sources say the game of football was invented in England during the Middle Ages. These original forms of football were called “mob football” and would be played in towns and villages, involving two opposing teams, that would struggle by any means possible to drag an inflated pig’s bladder to markers at each end of town. Shakespeare mentions this game tw...
The 16th Century Bed That Sleeps 12 People
September 11, 2023 14:00 - 48 minutes - 44.2 MBIn Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act III, Sir Toby Belch uses the Great Bed of Ware in England as a measuring stick for something that is impossibly large. The Great Bed of Ware is a real bed, as it was in Shakespeare’s lifetime, that was made for travelers to use when staying at an inn. The bed itself is, as Sir Toby suggests, impossibly large, with sleeping capacity for up to 9 people! Here today to tell us about the history and importance of The Great Bed of Ware, is our guest and Curator, ...
What Was Shakespeare Really Like?
September 04, 2023 14:00 - 20 minutes - 18.5 MBWhen we look back at the study of Shakespeare’s plays, the question always come to mind about how much can we know about the actual William Shakespeare from the pieces of artwork, plays, and even legal documents that survive about his life. No one has done more study of the plays of William Shakespeare nor understands more about his life in turn of the 17th century England than our guest today, Stanley Wells, President of Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, who joins us to share about his latest bo...
Expletives: Exploring 16th Century Curse Words
August 28, 2023 14:00 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBA short notice for you ahead of today’s episode, I apologize for the general gruff sounding voice today, I am recovering from a cold and struggling through a horrible cough that threatens to take my voice completely. But never fear! As a true performance professional, the show must go on! Therefore, I am armed with three cups of chamomile tea, a large bottle of water, and an excellent audio editor who will remove any coughs. Therefore, without more ado, let’s dive in to the history. Profanity...
Potatoes First Arrived in England in the 16th Century
August 21, 2023 14:00 - 25 minutes - 24.2 MBIn the play, Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff declares “Let the sky rain potatoes!” what’s unique about this quote, despite Falstaff calling for root vegetables to rain down from the sky which is of course, weird on its’ own, but potatoes on the whole were brand new to England at the exact time Shakespeare was including this quote in his play. Merry Wives of Windsor was written towards the end of the 16th century—between 1597 and 1601. Potatoes are thought to have arrived in the late 1580s or...
The Wadlow Portrait of Shakespeare
August 14, 2023 14:00 - 29 minutes - 28.2 MBAfter we published our episode here on That Shakespeare Life about the Duncan portrait of William Shakespeare, I received an email from Steve Wadlow, telling me about the history of a portrait that had been hanging in his family home for years that a visiting Shakespeare scholar indicated might be William Shakespeare, and suggested Steve look into the provenance further. With no prior experience in Shakespeare history or indeed even the art world, Steve dove headlong into finding out where th...
Tewskbury Mustard from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 2
August 07, 2023 14:00 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBIn Shakespeare’s in Henry IV, Part 2, Falstaff has the line: “his wit's as thick as Tewkesbury Mustard” (Act 2, Scene 4). Falstaff is describing his friend Ned Poins, but it presents the question of what was Tewkesbury Mustard? Turns out this particular mustard developed in a small town of England called Tewkesbury, and it was not only popular in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but during the 17th century it was considered a staple condiment in kitchens of this time period. Amazingly, the mustard has...
Real 17thC Canon Law in Measure for Measure
July 31, 2023 14:00 - 28 minutes - 25.9 MBIn Shakespeare’s play, Measure for Measure, there’s a fictional court case against Claudio for extra-marital misconduct. The play separately asks the audience to pass judgement on Angelo regarding a marriage pre-contract that was known as a “Spousal” contract for Shakespeare’s lifetime. In 1604, when Measure for Measure was first performed, these cases of immoral behavior were being tried in real life in what were known as “ecclesiastical courts,” or colloquially, the “Bawdy Courts.” Many of ...
The Arrival of the Exclamation Point During Shakespeare's Lifetime
July 24, 2023 14:00 - 33 minutes - 31.8 MBIn his 1611 English to French dictionary, Randle Cotgrave defines the exclamation point as “the point of admiration and detestation” While credit for the original creation of the exclamation point is given to Alpoleio da Urbisaglia, the current version of the exclamation point that we know today developed between 1400-1600, during the time WIlliam Shakespeare was penning over 6000 uses of exclamation points we can find in his works. In the absence of emojis, punctuation was the way that writ...
The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England
July 17, 2023 14:56 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBWhen it comes to stepping back into the life of William Shakespeare and walking around the streets of London to see what the sights, sounds, smells, people and places were really like, no one does that better than a time traveler. In order to take just such a trip and take a short jaunt down a London street during the 16th century, we are delighted to welcome a man who is a listener favorite and longtime listener-requested guest, the history time traveler himself, and author of The Time Trave...
A Fight Director Takes on Queen Margaret
July 10, 2023 14:00 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBOne of Shakespeare’s strongest characters is Queen Margaret who, as a consequence of her husband’s bouts with insanity, finds it necessary to lead not only a country, but to stand at the helm of an entire army, leading England’s military into battle and winning. It is an important story in the history of the War of the Roses, and one that Jared Kirby and Hudson Classical Theater decided to take on this year. Jared is a celebrated fight director and took on the challenge of staging entire batt...
Stranger's Hall: A 16thC Home for Refugees
July 03, 2023 14:00 - 29 minutes - 27 MBIn the 16th century, one man from Norwich, Thomas Sotherton, wanted to encourage these refugees to settle in Norfolk, specifically, because the immigrant’s skills in textile weaving made them valuable to the economy. To that end, he setup what became known as Stranger’s Hall, where the immigrants could live and work. The property was owned by people who would have used the property for business and living accommodation, which was common practice for mediaeval merchants’ dwellings. Therefore, ...
The Establishment of Fort Raleigh in 1587
June 26, 2023 14:00 - 31 minutes - 29.1 MBIn 1584, Spain dominated the coasts of Central and South America, the Carribean, and modern day Florida. England, under the rule of Elizabeth I, sought to disrupt and overthrow this control by establishing colonies in the New World. Not only would these colonies help provide a buffer against Spain’s control, but it also helped set up a home base for England’s privateering, which allowed English ships to attack Spanish ships, stealing treasure and gaining control of Spanish trade routes in the...
New Discoveries about the First Folio
June 19, 2023 14:00 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBDuring his lifetime, only about half of Shakespeare’s plays were available in printed versions.That meant that there were several of Shakespeare’s plays that weren’t available in printed form at all while the bard was alive. So how do we know about those plays today if there weren’t any written records? They survive through a book called the First Folio. There are at least 18 plays from Shakespeare’s works that we only have today because of the printing of the First Folio that happened in 162...
Farthingales & Poofy Shorts: The World of 16th Century Underpants
June 12, 2023 14:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBToday we’re talking about undergarments! 16th –17th century fashion was rife with gorgeous and elaborate outerwear, but the underwear, hose, and supportive under clothing was just as intricate. Shakespeare’s plays from this period suggest that clothing styles were a way to identify a man’s nationality. In Much Ado About Nothing Don Pedro talks about being able to identify the Dutch, French, German, and Spanish by the cut of their clothes. While slops and short cloaks are called out in Much Ad...
What was it like to be handicapped or disabled in 16th Century England?
June 05, 2023 14:00 - 36 minutes - 33.3 MBIn his plays, Richard III, in his Henry Plays, and even in macbeth, Shakespeare writes about medical disabilities and phsyical deformities like a hunchback, madness, blindness, and being lame. We can tell form these references that disability was present in Shakespare’s lietime but what exactly was the understanding of what a disability meant for a real person in Shakespeare’s lifetime? In order to understand the reaction of society, whether accomodations were made for disabilities, what thos...
What It Means to Take a 17thC Covenant in Scotland
May 29, 2023 14:00 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MBShakespeare mentions “covenants drawn between’s” in Cymbeline, and mentions covenants again in Henry VI when the King is negotiating a marriage to Lady Margaret, and then it concept comes up further in both Richard II and and in Taming of the Shrew. Covenants were a key player in the Protestant Reformation that was going on in Shakespeare’s lifetime, but it was also a word that could meant to promise or form a contract. The history of the time period tells us that Swiss Reformed theologian Jo...
Huguenots arrive in England during Shakespeare's Lifetime
May 22, 2023 14:00 - 21 minutes - 19.8 MBIn this week’s episode you’ll hear me learn about how to pronounce this week’s topic correctly—it is the Huguenots (and not Huguenots as I had been saying and which you may have been tempted to say as well). This week we’re exploring the arrival of Huguenots to England in Shakespeare’s lifetime. During Catherine de Medici’s reign as Queen consort in France, the country was anything but hospitable to Protestants. The St. Bartholomew Day’s Massacre in the late 16th century saw thousands of Hugu...
Finding a Lost Aldrovandi Portrait from the 1590s
May 15, 2023 14:00 - 33 minutes - 30.4 MBUlisse Aldrovandi is considered by many scientists, including Carl Linnaeus, the man who formalized the modern system of naming animals, to be the father of natural history studies. During Shakespeare’s lifetime, until his death in 1605, Aldrovandi collected a vast amount of specimens for his cabinet of curiosities, gathering over 7000 artifacts, organizing multiple expeditions to collect plants, and illustrating thousands of bizarre natural history phenomenon into at least 12 publications, s...