What was the 16th century ideal of beauty for women? Should one be fat or thin, blonde

or brunette, pale or tanned? How did women keep clean? Did Renaissance women remove their

body hair? What did they do if they had lice or ringworm or leprosaws that spoiled their

looks? Jule Burke is a professor of Renaissance visual and material cultures at the University

of Edinburgh. She's the author of the Italian Renaissance Nude and is just finishing a book

about how people in the Renaissance tried to look good, how to be a Renaissance woman. It

will be out next year. A few years ago, Professor Burke stumbled across an extraordinary 16th

century volume, some 750 pages thick and written in Italian, it contains over 1400 cosmetic

recipes. And it also gives a very clear idea of the ideals of beauty and the dilemmas over

beauty that existed in 16th century Italy. So I'm delighted that she joins me today to

introduce this amazing work and to share some Renaissance beauty secrets ahead of next

year's publication. Jule, this book that you are finishing up sounds so exciting, I can't

wait to read it. So tell me about the source that you're working from. So you've discovered

this amazing book. Tell us about it. Well, it's a book that was written in 1562 by an Italian

physician, a doctor called Giovanni Marinello, and the book is called in English the ornaments

of women. And basically, it's a book of beauty tips. It's about 400 pages or so, and it has

over 1200 recipes for beautification of the hair and body in a face. So it has things like

shampoo and conditioner or moisturizer, anti-wrinkle cream, it has dieting tips, it has everything

that you could find basically in a makeup counter or a personal carol of boots, it has

recipes for these things. And it also tells women the kind of look that they should seek to

achieve. So it tells them what kind of hair they should have, what kind of body shape, what

kind of facial features, what kind of skin. Although, since I've done research, I've found

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