For almost two hundred years, the Avis dynasty ruled Portugal and helped drive its transition from a small agricultural kingdom on the periphery of Christendom to a pioneer in global exploration, colonization, and trade.
The Belém Monstrance is an object of extraordinary artistry that embodies an immediate response to events taking place in Portugal and its overseas expansion.
If we read Alejo Fernández's The Virgin of the Navigators closely, we can learn an enormous amount about Spain’s role in exploration, trade and commerce, conquest and colonization, and slavery.
Throughout Europe women’s relegation to the domestic sphere was rooted in Christian tradition that placed blame for humanity’s fall from grace upon Eve, the first woman.