«Impressive and lucid … Fletcher’s narration excels in such colourful details … a scholarly, but vivid history that shows the impact that the machinations of the great, good and not so good had on the insignificant … a persuasive account of how Italy was brought low even as the culture floated high»

Michael Prodger, The Times

«Richly well-informed and admirably well-written, containing material of real interest on every page ... has added a wealth of information that will be new to most of us»

Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

«A story of alliances, betrayals, sacks, sieges, famines, assassinations and gruesomely ingenious tortures … Fletcher navigates this difficult terrain with great skill. She creates atmosphere and drama without any surrendering of clarity... A powerful book»

Charles Nicholl, Guardian

«Terrifying and fascinating ... If you thought the Renaissance was all about beautiful pictures and the ‘rediscovery’ of Classical writing, you are quite wrong … The Beauty and the Terror dismantles our assumptions about the Renaissance with the precision of a wheellock arquebus … an ambitious, multifocal book, encompassing more than 150 years [that] shine[s] a light on figures often forgotten in conventional histories»

Mary Wellesley, Sunday Times

«Fletcher’s expertise is enviable … she knows better than anyone else just how treacherous a time and place it was. At its best, The Beauty and the Terror is as enlightening as you might hope: a chapter tracing early modern ambivalence about the rise of handguns … is exactly the alternative history you might wish for, as are the sections on slavery, sexual mores and pornography»

Tim Smith-Laing, Daily Telegraph