Thomas More

Thomas More painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1527, tempera on wood, 74,2 x 59 cm. Also see the source gallery.

Sir Thomas More was one of the greatest humanist scholars and writers of the period of the Northern Renaissance. In ‘Utopia’, his best known and most enduring work, he describes a fictional island, where the inhabitants are undivided by the desire for personal gain, where government is always righteous, and where religion is pluralistic and tolerant.

More was executed for his refusal to accept Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England; in 1935, he was canonized.