The Florentine historian Francesco Guicciardini (d.1540) described the year 1494 as ‘a most unhappy year for Italy’ because it began the decades of wars between France and Spain over control of Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan, and which drew in ‘a great part of the rest of the world’. This was also the age which produced Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine diplomat and historian (and author of the infamous book, The Prince), the artists and architects Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, Bramante; while the Borgias rose and fell, the Medici survived, and Italy lost her liberty and became part of the Spanish empire. Through a rich array of written and artistic sources, explore the ‘tragedy of Italy’. Meet the princes and popes, soldiers and artists, who set their virtue against fury, their magnificence against gunpowder, in their search for honour, glory and power. Learn through illustrated lectures, film clips and online resources.