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Drawing on evidence from contemporary maps, paintings and writings, and modern environmental science, the lecture will offer a 'virtual' walk around the City with Sir Thomas Gresham.
London is the most dynamic old world city on the planet – renewal has been at the heart of its success. Disaster has never been courted, but when it has come it has provided the platform for advances that have been at first sight architectural but with hindsight economic and social.
London was crucially dependent on continental Europe for its economic resilience in the mid-sixteenth century, and Sir Thomas Gresham’s fortune piggy-backed off the special relationship with Antwerp.
This opening lecture of the series, with musical illustrations, will use documents, poetry and images to bring the instrument to life, with a particular focus on the autobiography of the beguiling Tudor musician Thomas Whythorne.