HOW TO BE A RENAISSANCE WOMAN

Sub-titled 'The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity', this was voted as a Waterstones Best Book of 2023 and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, highlighting a rich tapestry of female experience from artisans to aristocrats. Discover overlooked and silenced women from the bedchamber to the court, who give us an intimate window into what life was really like. The book draws on early published beauty pamphlets, letters, poems, songs, diaries and recipe books, not to mention treatises by both men and women and the rich material of Renaissance art. The book is a serious history about the age-old debate as to whether women's commitment to beauty is a sign of weakness, a pandering to male desire, or a form of empowerment. We see everyday women mixing their own beauty products just like chemists and botanists, creating cosmetics which required knowledge of plants and their properties, as well as how to transform them via different techniques. There is a relatively innocuous honey and egg eye cream to a non-toxic version of skin lightener, beauty tips for brides, getting the body in shape, body hair and witch hunts, and one chapter entitled 'Breast Bags, Nose Jobs and Labiaplasty'. With a series of superb colour plates, many of nudes by the likes of Artemisia Gentileschi and many other historical illustrations throughout the text. With references, 336pp.