"What a treat to see beyond the art of the Renaissance and into the violent world that spawned it. A fascinating read."-- Mary Hollingsworth, author of Catherine de 'Medici: The Life and Times of the Serpent Queen "This lively and engaging book explains how Renaissance Europe coped with the explosive Pandora's box which opened in Italy with the unstoppable proliferation of handguns after 1433. Guns rapidly became embedded in warfare, crime, sport, hunting and art, creating a 'gun culture' which still shapes our debates about small arms ownership, and which resonates with the simultaneously enabling and threatening appearance of more recent technologies like drones or AI."-- Peter H. Wilson, author of Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples Since 1500 "In this groundbreaking book, Catherine Fletcher transforms our understanding of how firearms reshaped early modern Europe. Drawing on extraordinary research and vivid visual evidence, she reveals how the weapons industry of Renaissance Italy sparked global transformations--economic, moral and imperial--that still echo in today's gun debates."-- Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University "Vivid, learned and enthralling, this book tells the unknown story of the beginnings of the unstoppable spread of firearms.

Despised at first as the coward's weapon for killing at a distance, the handgun was soon adopted everywhere--in war, to keep civil order, to terrify indigenous peoples and by bandits and assassins. Catherine Fletcher splendidly proves her assertion that when we think of Renaissance Italy, we should think immediately of the firearms revolution."-- Susan Brigden, author of New Worlds, Lost Worlds: The Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603.