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What did gun control look like in Renaissance Italy?
- History
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the age when developments in technology and design meant guns rapidly became small enough and affordable enough to be held and used by ordinary men. Italy led the way, helped along by Leonardo da Vinci. They caused havoc, and changed both the art of war between states, and arguments between gentlemen, forever. The posed a difficult question for the ruling Italian states - how to balance their need for defence versus how to control their use in everyday life. Guest: Catherine Fletcher, professor of history at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of The...
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particularly when guns became small enough to slip unseen into your pocket.
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historian Catherine Fletcher has examined the impact of guns in Italy, for that's the
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Is this episode right for you?
B2 · Upper-intermediate
Comfortable if you already follow TV news
- 86% of the words are B1 or easier.
- 164 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
- 138 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.
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Canons had been around for a while, great lumbering things rolled into battle, but guns, weapons a single soldier could carry, only appeared in the 15th century, when they changed not only how battles were fought, but in time, how life was lived in Europe, particularly when guns became small enough to slip unseen into your pocket.
In her new book, The Firearm Revolution from Anacen's Italy to the European Empires, the historian Catherine Fletcher has examined the impact of guns in Italy, for that's the country where they were first used in battle, where they soon became works of art, and where an arms industry quickly sprang up and survives today.
Beretta has been manufacturing weapons since 1526. Catherine Fletcher, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, is the author of many books on Italian Renaissance history, and now the history of guns. Catherine, welcome to Late Night Live.
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