Telling the story of famous 16th-century Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, Dumas' historical novel Ascanio was adapted into an opera of the same name by famous composer Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns.

Catherine de Medici's father-in-law, King Francis of France, was the perfect Renaissance knight, the movement's exemplar and its Gallic interpreter. An aesthete, diplomat par excellence, and contemporary of Machiavelli, Francis was the founder of modern France, whose sheer force of will and personality molded his kingdom into the first European superpower. Arguably the man who introduced the Renaissance to France, Francis was also the prototype Frenchman--a...