Jonathan Bate is Provost of Worcester College, Oxford. He was formerly Professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick. He is the editor of the highly acclaimed
RSC William Shakespeare: Complete Works and the author of many books, including
Soul of the Age: A Biography of the Mind of William Shakespeare and
English Literature: A Very Short Introduction. He is on the Board of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Dora Thornton is curator of Renaissance collections at the British Museum. She is the author of numerous publications including Objects of Virtue: Art in Renaissance Italy (with Luke Syson) and The Scholar in His Study: Ownership and Experience in Renaissance Italy.