This year’s course opens with the collapse of the Venetian spice trade and the invention of the rudder, whiich allowed Portuguese explorers to discover a sea route to India. It continues with the reign of Isabella of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon, the unification of Spain (i.e. the completion of the 400-year 'Reconquista' of the Iberian peninsula from Moorish domination), the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492, Spain having been the world center of the Jewish people, a land in which they experienced a 700-year ‘Golden Age’ and constituted 10% of the population, the Edict of Expulsion not formally revoked until 1968), establishment of the Inquisition, discovery of the New World and ascendancy of the Habsburg Charles V, 'Holy Roman Emperor', who ruled over an immense empire.

The series goes on to discuss the great inventions and innovations of the time: the compass, eye glasses, banking, and the arquebus, i.e. the gun, later to become the musket, and later still the rifle - 'armaments', from which we derive the expression 'to bear arms'. The invention of the gun ended the epoch of the knight in the Middle Ages, as bullets could penetrate armor; the chivalrous knight in shining armor became a legendary figure of the past. 

There will be an examination of the ground-breaking concepts of Leonardo Da Vinci, as well as the rise of popular theater, exemplified by Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. We will also encounter the famous personalities of the period, including the Borgia pope and his notorious family, as well as the important ideas, such as those of the political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and the astronomer and physicist Galileo, "the father of modern science", as well as the upheavals of the Reformation. 

There will be an introduction to little known but important and influential artists of the time, such as Artemisia Gentileschi, the first prominent woman painter. Also examined in depth will be the celebrated artists and craftsmen of the Renaissance such as Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini. The series will go on to explore the evolution of classical architecture during the Renaissance in Italy and France. 

In order to understand the modern world a grasp of all these ideas, individuals and inventions is eminently helpful, even essential.