Burgund

A feast for all senses - The glorious history of Burgundy is told by Bart Van Loo. Burgundy is a wonder. The powerful realm that stretched between Germany and France in the 14th and 15th centuries united late medieval high culture with a flourishing of Renaissance and Humanism. Bart Van Loo narrates the history of the kingdom from antiquity to its sudden downfall around 1500 in such an engaging way that the reader is indelibly impressed by the world of knightly tournaments and books of hours, of dukes and trading cities, the world of Jan van Eyck and François Villon. Bart Van Loo presents the history of Burgundy as an increasingly intense drama over 1111 years and one day: The forgotten millennium spanned from the ancient Kingdom of Burgundy to the medieval Duchy, which radiated far beyond its borders through its castles and monasteries - not least Cluny and Cîteaux. In the Burgundian century, a magnificent realm emerged from Dijon in the south to Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam in the north, which nearly became a kingdom in a fateful decade and soon thereafter fell. With the last Burgundian duke Charles, a new era began: As Emperor Charles V, he made the Habsburgs a great power and ruled an empire. Bart Van Loo's masterful new history of Burgundy is a significant achievement that inevitably brings to mind Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror." Art: Bruges and Ghent, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, books of hours and poetry – art experienced a high bloom in Burgundy. Good life: viticulture, courtly festivities, refined cuisine – Burgundy is synonymous with the good life. Europe: many languages, a unified currency, standardized dishes, a parliament – Burgundy was ahead of its time in Europe.