Alexander Lee

Alexander Lee is author of Machiavelli: His Life and Times (Picador). He tweets at @alexander_c_lee

Gauguin was not an artist who lent himself to categorisation

Cranach’s impact on the Reformation would have been impossible without his earlier success as a secular artist

Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa by Anthony Grafton

Even Dürer was probably a little surprised

Manuscripts have weathered the vicissitudes of time only thanks to human passion

For centuries, the Po has been the lifeblood of Northern Italy

Heilbron writes with authority and – what is more unusual – genuine passion

Yukio Mishima concealed his poignant political commentary in a run-of-the-mill science fiction novel