Trade, faith, and fear wove the fabric of the sixteenth century. In this episode of Threads Through Time, George Curry traces how the Mid-Renaissance transformed humanism in hierachy, how velvet and black dye became instruments of faith, and how power found expression through symetry and spectacle. From Luther's hammer at Wittenberg to the ruffs of Spance and Frnace, beauty became regulation, and the body, architecture.

This is the age of splendor, when appearance became authority and discipline defined beauty.