The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France

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"The Renaissance in France, as elsewhere in Europe, saw glory crowned amidst conflict and squalor. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, France seemed set to become the most powerful nation in Europe, but as the century ebbed so did her fortunes. In between, during a century of more or less permanent combat which murdered the dreams, comforts and relatives of many Frenchmen and saw a soaring economy shot down, some of the greatest building, painting and thinking to come out of the whole European Renaissance was being done. Sixteenth century France was a colourful, confusing and often downright fatal habitat, and we moderns might profitably look on the complexity of its successes and failures, to which Professor Knecht is a matchlessly illuminating and genial guide."--Jacket