4.16 Lucrezia Borgia (3) A pearl in this world
/Lucrezia emerges from her self-imposed isolation, starts a family and meets the next great love of her life - and I don’t mean her husband.
4.15 Lucrezia Borgia (2) Chestnuts and mares
/Lucrezia is pulled out of mourning to get married for the third, and final, time - but not before getting embroiled in scandal.
4.14 Lucrezia Borgia (1) The loose end
/History has many great femme fatales - but the very byword for femme fatale, the archetype for centuries, is Lucrezia Borgia.
4.13 Caterina Sforza (3) A daughter of iniquity
/Caterina takes on her most powerful yet - the Borgias
4.12 Caterina Sforza (2) The Tigress of Forli
/With her husband indisposed after an illness and treasury empty, Caterina would need to work hard to prove herself once more as the regent of Imola and Forli.
4.11 Caterina Sforza (1) Veni, vidi, da Vinci
/Caterina Sforza was married young to a scheming relative of the Pope. She would find quickly that to survive, she would need to take matters into her own hands.
4.10 Catherine of Siena (2) Setting the world on fire
/Catherine's fame and influence grow, leading her to the papal court itself in Avignon and the heat of the ruptures that would lead to the Great Schism.
4.09 Catherine of Siena (1) Speaking truth to power
/Introducing the writer, church doctor and eventual saint, Catherine of Siena.
CHAT: Hallie Rubenold on the victims of Jack the Ripper
/I speak to historian and author Hallie Rubenhold about the victims of Jack the Ripper, why they have been forgotten and the importance of social history.
Buy The Five The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
4.08 Joanna of Naples (4) The new Jezebal
/Now nearly 40, Joanna had given up hope of producing a natural heir, meaning that now she had to solve a bit of a conundrum - who should succeed her as ruler of Naples?
4.07 Joanna of Naples (3) Return of the Queen
/Joanna sits in triumph back in her capital city, but her kingdom still faced three terrible foes: invaders, plague and internal foes.
4.06 Joanna of Naples (2) On trial for her life
/Following the grisly murder of her husband, Joanna ends up facing war from within and without her kingdom, all of which would end up with her on trial for her life in Avignon.
4.05 Joanna of Naples (1) Two houses both alike in dignity
/We travel to fourteenth-century Naples to hear about one of the most powerful female rulers of the whole medieval period. Joanna of Naples is one of very few queens regnant in the Middle Ages - her reign was action-packed.
4.04 Marozia: Ruling the Pornocracy
/Call it the Dark Century, Rule of the Harlots, or, as I have, the Pornocracy, the tenth century was a nadir in papal history, with powerful nobles calling the shots. And at the centre of it all its matriarch: Marozia
4.03 Pope Joan: What is myth can never die
/The legend of Pope Joan is quite possibly the most intriguing and enduring of Vatican myths. But how could the Papacy allow a story this astonishing, this embarrassing, to survive for centuries?
4.02 Pontifact's Bry Jensen on the Papacy
/The Papacy, which is going to be a hugely important factor in this series, is a two-thousand-year institution - where do you start? Well, talking to the host best papal podcast around seems like a good start. Today I talk to Bry Jensen, one half of the Pontifacts podcast, about what the Papacy is, and how it has affected European history.
4.01 Popesses: Female power and the papacy
/Introducing the topic for the fourth season of The Other Half Podcast
CHAT: Ellen Alpsten on The Tsarina's Daughter
/In what feels to me a lifetime ago, but was actually only about 12 months, I spoke to Ellen Alspten on the podcast about her book 'Tsarina.
Since then - and I can only assume because of it - the book has gone on to be tremendously successful. It has been shortlisted for the Author’s Club’s Best First Novel award, got a starred review from Booklist and has sold so well that it already has a sequel - 'The Tsarina's Daughter'.
I spoke to Ellen earlier this week about it. Enjoy!
3.21 The Samurai, the Wrestler and the Slave
/To finish off the third season of The Other Half, we cover three final women: Tomoe Gozen, Khutulun and Escrava Anastacia.
3.20 Rani of Jhansi (2) Written in blood that cannot be erased
/As rebellion sweeps India, Rani Lakshmibai fights for her nation's independence and becomes its most famous heroine.