Review
“How to Be a Renaissance Woman brings us a breezy and readable portrait of 16th-century Italy through the lens of beauty standards and practices. There are plenty of noblewomen in these pages, but Burke makes an effort to talk about women of many kinds: domestic help, peasants, widows, courtesans and all manner of sex workers. The details are fascinating.” -- The New York Times Book Review
“A delightful look back at how the Renaissance changed beauty standards. Jill Burke’s How to Be a Renaissance Woman is full of surprising information about how the era widened self-expression.” -- Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
“Jill Burke's sprightly cultural history is a window on the lot of women in early modern Europe. Also, a gentle reminder that, as complicated as things are for women of the TikTok generation, it's nothing like the fraught terrain confronting the Renaissance woman.” -- The Star Tribune
“In How to be a Renaissance Woman, a lively new history of beauty culture in 16th- and 17th-century Italy, make-up is a tool to understand society and the female experience. Whether with a make-up brush or a paintbrush, women wanted to control how the world would see and remember them.” -- The Economist
"Burke’s . . . argument is profound. By focusing on Renaissance women’s practical knowledge of the material world, Jill Burke reveals their lives in intimate detail.” -- The Times Literary Supplement
“A lively and intriguing exploration of female life in the Renaissance, lifting the lid on anxieties and aspirations that will sound oddly familiar to any 21st century reader. You'll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way.” -- Maggie O'Farrell, bestselling novelist and winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020
“If you think that pressures on women to look their best, either through chemical enhancements or using filters on Instagram, are a modern invention, then Jill Burke's new book is a timely reminder that our ancestors were undergoing the medieval equivalent 500 years ago. Some of the most compelling parts of the book detail female solidarity and friendship in this visual society. The book finishes with an amusing and engrossing section of real-life Renaissance beauty recipes for the brave to try - from the relatively innocuous honey and egg eye cream to a non-toxic version of the skin lightener that beauties used on their faces. But there's a serious message behind the book: the tyranny of beauty ideals has been with us for centuries.” -- Mail on Sunday
“Terrific. Drawing 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, [Burke] has emerged with enough knowledge to open her own Renaissance Body Shop. The book is that rare thing, a serious history that is both accessible and entertaining - no more so than when it comes to 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.” -- The Literary Review
“Taking a fresh, women-led perspective, Burke highlights a rich tapestry of female experience that encompasses everyone from artisans to aristocrats ... the everyday women mixing their own beauty products should rightly be considered chemists and botanists. Successfully creating these cosmetics required knowledge of plants and their properties, as well as how to transform them via different techniques. Renaissance women had greater scientific knowledge and experience than they are often credited with.” -- The Times (London)
About the Author
Jill Burke is a professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, a historian of the body and its visual representation, focusing on Italy and Europe from 1400-1700. She is currently the lead investigator of the Royal Society funded project 'Renaissance Goo,' working with soft-matter scientists to remake Renaissance cosmetic and skincare recipes. She talks regularly about Renaissance bodies on television, radio and podcasts, and she discusses the history of art and beauty on “Jill Burke’s Blog.” She lives in Edinburgh.
