John Julius Norwich was born in 1929. After National Service, he took a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service serving at the embassies in Belgrade and Beirut and with the British Delegation to the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. His publications include The Normans in Sicily; Mount Athos (with Reresby Sitwell); Sahara; The Architecture of Southern England; Glyndebourne; and A History of Venice. He is also the author of a three-volume history of the Byzantine Empire. He has written and presented some thirty historical documentaries for television, and is a regular lecturer on Venice and numerous other subjects. Lord Norwich is chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund, Co-chairman of the World Monuments Fund and a former member of the Executive Committee of the National Trust. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Geographical Society and the Society of Antiquaries, and a Commendatore of the Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. He was made a CVO in 1993.
Wonderful . . . This was indeed a glorious age and Norwich has made
a brilliant decision to study four idiosyncratic rulers as an
interacting quartet rather than separately . . . A lively and
charming book
*THE TIMES*
With characteristic deftness of touch, Norwich brings each
character vividly to life and skilfully weaves their stories
together . . . Norwich introduces a dazzling cast of characters:
from Leonardo da Vinci to Martin Luther, Joanna the Mad to Anne
Boleyn . . . the portrayal feels entirely fresh and enables the
reader to gain new insights into some of history's most familiar
characters. It is a genuinely inspired idea for a book, and Norwich
executes it with typical aplomb
*BBC History Magazine*
Scholarly and entertaining . . . This book provides a vivid and
compelling picture of this turbulent century
*BBC History Magazine*
Packed with extraordinary figures - not just the four princes, but
artists and emperors too . . . a warm, witty and fascinating look
at how such dynamic individuals shaped the Renaissance and the
Reformation right across Europe throughout the sixteenth
century
*History Revealed*
What makes this such a compelling read is that the author seasons
his erudition with a sharp eye for the quirky fact and the sardonic
comment . . . a fascinating and compulsive story
*Country Life*
Norwich made a brilliant decision to study them as an interacting
quartet, rather than individually, for only in this way can one
begin to understand how great events and great personalities were
hopelessly entangled . . . charming
*Sunday Telegraph*
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