Pierre de Bourdeille, Abbé de Brantôme (c. 1540–1614), was a French courtier and memoirist whose Lives of Fair and Gallant Ladies preserved scandalous, witty, and often ribald anecdotes about the noblewomen of the sixteenth-century French court. Volume 1 of this lively work draws on Brantôme’s decades of courtly observation to paint vivid portraits of aristocratic women of the Renaissance.
A unique document of Renaissance social life seen from the inside, Brantôme’s collection has entertained and shocked readers for four centuries. Download this free EPUB for a frank and colourful view of life among the French nobility.