Ulinka Rublack

cultural identity in renaissance Europe

Dressing up

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the most admired astronomers who ever lived and a key figure in the scientific revolution. A defender of Copernicus ́s sun-centred universe, he famously discovered that planets move in ellipses, and defined the three laws of planetary motion. Perhaps less well known is that in 1615, when Kepler was at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft. The proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years, with Kepler conducting his mother's defence. In The Astronomer and the Witch, Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one which takes us to the heart of his changing world. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the centre of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil - a century after the Reformation, and on the threshold of the Thirty Years' War. Kepler's defence of his mother also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view, on the cusp between Reformation and scientific revolution. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children wondered whether their mother really did have nothing to hide...

Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother

The Astronomer and the Witch

Ulinka Rublack uses criminal trials to illuminate the social status and conflicts of women living through the Reformation and the Thirty Years War, telling for the first time, the stories of cutpurses, maidservants' dangerous liaisons, and artisans' troubled marriages."--BOOK JACKET.

The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany

A range of startling case-studies from German society between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Gender in Early Modern German History

The first survey to utilise the approaches of the new cultural history in analysing how Reformation Europe came about.

Reformation Europe

A study of the crimes of women in early modern Germany, this text draws on court records to examine the lives of shrewd cutpurses, quarrelling artisan wives, and soldiers' concubines.

Giorgio Riello

Presents a global history of dress regulation and debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised.

Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c.1200–1800

The Right to Dress

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the most admired astronomers who ever lived and a key figure in the scientific revolution. Perhaps less well known is that in 1615, when Kepler was at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft. The proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years, with Kepler conducting his mother's defence. The Astronomer and the Witch pieces together the tale of this extraordinaryepisode in Kepler's life. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the heart of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil. Italso offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children struggled to understand what their mother had done...

Johannes Kepler's Fight for His Mother

Maria Hayward

Jenny Tiramani

This captivating book reproduces arguably the most extraordinary primary source documents in fashion history. Providing a revealing window onto the Renaissance, they chronicle how style-conscious accountant Matthäus Schwarz and his son Veit Konrad experienced life through clothes, and climbed the social ladder through fastidious management of self-image. These bourgeois dandies' agenda resonates as powerfully today as it did in the sixteenth century: one has to dress to impress, and dress to impress they did. The Schwarzes recorded their sartorial triumphs as well as failures in life in a series of portraits by illuminists over 60 years, which have been comprehensively reproduced in full color for the first time. These exquisite illustrations are accompanied by the Schwarzes' fashion-focussed yet at times deeply personal captions, which render the pair the world's first fashion bloggers and pioneers of everyday portraiture. The First Book of Fashion demonstrates how dress – seemingly both ephemeral and trivial – is a potent tool in the right hands. Beyond this, it colorfully recaptures the experience of Renaissance life and reveals the importance of clothing to the aesthetics and every day culture of the period. Historians Ulinka Rublack's and Maria Hayward's insightful commentaries create an unparalleled portrait of sixteenth-century dress that is both strikingly modern and thorough in its description of a true Renaissance fashionista's wardrobe. This first English translation also includes a bespoke pattern by TONY award-winning costume designer and dress historian Jenny Tiramani, from which readers can recreate one of Schwarz's most elaborate and politically significant outfits.

Ulinka Rublack

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