The subject of these essays is politics and culture in early modern Europe; themes long regarded as central to the historiography of the period. As separate and distinct areas of human experience and as the interaction of ideas and values with the necessities of power and interest, politics and culture have occupied the scholarly attention of H. G. Koenigsberger for the last thirty or more years. His interests and expertise have ranged, in geographical terms, from Sicily and Spain to Germany, France and The Netherlands. In cultural terms, he has excelled at analyzing figures as diverse as Machiavelli and Monteverdi, themes as disparate as artistic inspiration and political corruption – all of which has been both inspiring and somewhat daunting to his students. The contributors to this volume pay tribute to Helli Koenigsberger's interests, and to their remarkable yield, by taking up themes that resonated through his lectures and seminars as well as in his published writings. As his former students, most of us know that spoken legacy intimately; for those among us who are peers there have been the many hours of conversation and reading that have enabled us to share, and to attempt to emulate, the subtlety and enthusiasm which continue to inform his work.