Keep pulling the thread on Ada Palmer.
Francis Bacon and Galileo applied Machiavelli's method of using history as a casebook to the natural world, forming the basis of the modern scientific method.
The Medici family gained control of Florence's lottery-based government by ensuring a statistical plurality of their employees and allies would be selected for any given ruling council.
The initial business model for the printing press failed because while it enabled mass production, there were no established distribution networks to sell books beyond the local market.
The Protestant Reformation was enabled by the development of pamphlet distribution networks, which allowed Martin Luther's 95 Theses to reach London from Wittenberg in just 17 days.
The majority of texts from classical antiquity were lost between 400 and 600 AD as papyrus scrolls disintegrated, and the high cost of parchment forced monks to selectively copy only a fraction of the existing works.
Censorship regimes are technologically incapable of suppressing information that moves on the fastest available distribution network, such as pamphlets in the 16th century or social media today.
Historical censorship bodies, such as the 18th-century French authorities and the Inquisition, consistently misjudged which ideas were truly revolutionary, focusing on minor theological disputes like Jansenism while ignoring figures like Voltaire and Machiavelli.
In the late 17th century, the Inquisition operated the most extensive experimental scientific laboratory in Europe to verify the claims in books submitted for censorship, effectively inventing peer review.
The Medici family of Florence used patronage of art and classical learning as a propaganda tool to gain legitimacy and project power, transforming their status from "merchant scum" to respected figures on the European stage.
The initial Renaissance project, championed by Petrarch, to create virtuous rulers by educating them with classical texts failed, producing figures like Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia instead of philosopher-princes.
Niccolò Machiavelli proposed a new use for classical texts, treating history as a casebook of examples to derive effective political strategies, which can be considered an early form of political science.
By the 12th century, Florence had a male literacy rate of 90% due to the necessities of commerce, though most literate individuals had not read books, only letters and account books.