Cather­ine Fletch­er is a his­to­ri­an of Renais­sance and ear­ly mod­ern Europe. She is the author The Beau­ty and the Ter­ror: The Ital­ian Renais­sance and the Rise of the West, recent­ly pub­lished by Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, and of The Black Prince of Flo­rence, also pub­lished by Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press and new­ly out in paper­back. She teach­es His­to­ry at Man­ches­ter Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty in the UK and has held research fel­low­ships in Lon­don, Flo­rence, and Rome.