European history: Renaissance Books

Book SynopsisIncomparable Realms offers a vision of Spanish culture and society during the Golden Age, the period from 1500 to 1700 when Spain unexpectedly rose to become the dominant European power. But in what ways was this a ‘Golden Age’, and for whom? The relationship between the Habsburg monarchy and the Church shaped the period, with both constructing narratives to bind Spanish society together. Incomparable Realms unpicks the impact of these on thought and culture, and examines the people and perspectives such powerful projections sought to eradicate. The book shows that the tension between the heavenly and earthly realms, and in particular the struggle between the spiritual and the corporeal, defines Golden Age culture. In art and literature, mystical theology and moral polemic, ideology, doctrine and everyday life, the problematic pull of the body and of the material world is the unacknowledged force behind early modern Spain. Life is a dream, as the title of Calderón’s famous play of the period proclaimed, but there is always a body dreaming it.

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Book SynopsisA monumental and exhilarating history of European thought, from the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD to the Scientific Revolution thirteen centuries later. The Awakening traces the recovery and refashioning of Europe's classical heritage from the ruins of the Roman Empire. The process of preservation of surviving texts, fragile at first, was strengthened under the Christian empire founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century; later, during the High Middle Ages, universities were founded and the study of philosophy was revived. Renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought provided the intellectual impetus for the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whose ideas – aesthetic, political and scientific – were disseminated across Europe by the invention of the printing press. Equally momentous was Europe's encounter with the New World, and the resulting maritime supremacy which conferred global reach on Europe's merchants and colonists. Vivid in detail and informed by the latest scholarship, The Awakening is powered not by the fate of kings or the clash of arms but by deeper currents of thought, inquiry and discovery, which first recover and then surpass the achievements of classical antiquity, and lead the West to the threshold of the Age of Reason. Charles Freeman takes the reader on an enthralling journey, and provides us with a vital key to understanding the world we live in today. Praise for The Awakening: 'The subject of this stimulating and erudite book is nothing less than the development of the Western mind from the demise of classical civilisation in the fifth century AD, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. The Awakening is a work of serious scholarship by an author who has clearly been everywhere, seen everything and read voraciously. But it is also a work written with great elan and, given its scope, undertaken with considerable courage... An arrestingly clear design, combined with numerous judiciously chosen illustrations, completes an extraordinary achievement' Christopher Lloyd, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, 1988-2005 'The Awakening recounts the slow evolution of Western thought that restored legitimacy to independent examination and analysis, that eventually led to a celebration, albeit a cautious one, of reason over blind faith. In the process, Freeman reminds us that quality, engaging narrative history has not gone extinct, while demonstrating that it is possible to produce a work that is so well-written it is readable by a general audience while meeting the rigorous standards of scholarship demanded by academia' Stan Prager 'The Awakening is a very timely book and an excellently written and produced one. Freeman is a good host, a superb narrator and tells his story with aplomb... His elegant prose is a treat for the mind and the accompanying illuminations a treat for the eye' International TimesTrade ReviewCharles Freeman has done it again – amassed a vast body of knowledge on a major subject and infused it with historical understanding and humane wit. Above all else, he makes us realise why the twelve centuries between late Antiquity and early Modernity remain urgently relevant to the world of the twenty-first century. Aquinas, Erasmus, Dante, Descartes... theirs and a host of others' mindbending ideas are made to leap off the page, grab us by the throat and demand our undivided attention -- Paul Cartledge, AG Leventis professor of Greek Culture Emeritus, University of CambridgeA remarkable work of scholarship by esteemed historian Charles Freeman... The book is a fine production, adorned with coloured images of frescos and ancient manuscripts' * Irish Times *My favourite book of the year... The wonderful images of the art, architecture and books bring to life the detailed argument of Awakening... Freeman makes the subject matter alive and relevant in a way that few historians of ideas can... A book to read slowly, to ponder and enjoy leisurely * Goodreads *PRAISE FOR THE CLOSING OF THE WESTERN MIND: 'An elegant story, engagingly told. Freeman has a talent for narrative history and for encapsulating the more arcane disputes of ancient historians and theologians' Independent. 'There is much here to admire... It is a panoramic view that Freeman handles with grace, erudition and lucidity' Washington Times. 'Entertaining... An excellent and readable account of the development of Christian doctrine' * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisEveryday life in the teeming metropolis during William Shakespeare's time in the city. Shakespeare's London was a bustling, teeming metropolis that was growing so rapidly that the government took repeated, and ineffectual, steps to curb its expansion. From contemporary letters, journals and diaries, a vivid picture emerges of this fascinating city, with its many opportunities and also its persistent problems. By far the largest city in the country, it was the centre of government, the law and the church, the focus of politics and culture. It had a vigorous economy, with a range of industries and a lucrative trade in luxury goods for the courtiers and wealthy citizens. Growth produced overcrowding and high mortality, with shockingly high death tolls during the periodic plague epidemics, yet London attracted an endless stream of people, who were absorbed into its diverse communities and economic structures. Here the first playhouses were built, patronised by large audiences, who were treated to a rich and varied diet of plays to keep them, and the court, entertained. The London that Shakespeare knew was an expanding, changing and exciting city.Trade ReviewA meticulous recreation of a vibrant world - echoes with the living voices of Londoners' -- GILLIAN TINDALLA lucid and cogent narrative of everyday life in Shakespeare's place of work' * SHAKESPEARE BIRTHPLACE TRUST *A vivid account' * THES *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1. A Little World in Itself 2. A Great Multitude of People 3. The Greatest City of the Christian World 4. The World Runs on Wheels 5. The Whole Trade of Merchandise 6. The Time of Life is Short 7. A Quick Eye & a Nimble Hand 8. A World of People References Bibliography List of Illustrations Index

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Book SynopsisChristian Tobler makes a deep dive into the fighting traditions of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, particularly as recorded by Johannes Liechtenauer (1300-1389). It was a time of plague, of the Hundred Years War, of the Peasants’ Revolt, but also a time when the origins of the European Renaissance were formed. In the later years of this turbulent time a shadowy figure named Johannes Liechtenauer systematized lessons for swordsmanship, wrestling, armoured and mounted combat. Recorded in cryptic, rhyming verses, it fell to masters of the 15th and 16th century to record, clarify and expand the grandmaster’s instructions in an extensive body of fencing manuals. As the world of the knight receded into history, these texts — many extensively and beautifully illustrated — were forgotten by all but German-language antiquarians and fencing historians until the last decade of the 20th century, when they were rediscovered by a new audience of martial artists and historians. No author has done more to reveal this lost world of German knightly martial arts to a modern audience than Christian Tobler. Lance, Spear, Sword and Messer is a rich collection of Tobler’s work, containing extensive material on topics as diverse as the two-handed sword, spear, poleaxe, wrestling, and the use of long shields, combined with thought-provoking analysis and historical commentary that will occupy the mind–and challenge the preconceptions–of students and historians of medieval German martial arts. In addition, the martial career–in arms and in the literature of arms–of Emperor Maximilian I, often called “the Last Knight,” who was himself a devoted student of the tradition, serves as a capstone of this collection. Maximilian’s literary output, including a planned but unwritten fight book, was a similar capstone in his own lifetime at the waning of the Middle Ages and start of the Northern Renaissance.

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Book SynopsisThe sense of reading as an intimate act of self-discovery—and of communion between authors and book lovers—has a long history. Lina Bolzoni returns to Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Tasso, exploring how Renaissance humanists began to represent reading as a private encounter and a dialogue across barriers of time and space.Trade ReviewA Marvelous Solitude is a marvelous book: erudite, accessible, elegant. Bolzoni focuses on the intricate web of myths and metaphors that early modern thinkers spun around the activity of reading, yet there is much here that still whispers to our experience as readers today. -- Virginia Cox, author of The Prodigious MuseThis stimulating book offers a vivid survey of illustrious readers from Petrarch to Proust, woven in a dazzling verbal and visual tapestry that will delight the mind and eye of contemporaries still dwelling in the Gutenberg Galaxy. -- David Marsh, author of Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine HumanistLina Bolzoni’s magisterial book is about reading, but it’s also about writers presenting themselves as readers who converse with the past, other texts, and other worlds through books—and then write their way out of these ‘theaters of reading.’ How many readers emerged as writers from the crucible of these reflections? How many more will by reading this book? -- Alexander Nagel, author of The Controversy of Renaissance ArtLina Bolzoni’s love affair with books is palpable in these pages dedicated to a remarkable cohort of writers and readers from Petrarch to Proust. Books in early modernity took on lives of their own, as readers saw in them opportunities for dialogue with the absent and the dead—and were often inspired to add to the conversation themselves. Bolzoni demonstrates that the marvelous—if occasionally risky—thing about the solitude of reading is that it’s never solitary, but full of friends. -- Jane Tylus, author of Reclaiming Catherine of Siena

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Book SynopsisAldus Manutius (c. 1451–1515) was the most important scholarly publisher of the Renaissance. His Aldine Press was responsible for more first editions of classical literature, philosophy, and science than any other publisher before or since. This volume presents Aldus’s prefaces to Latin classics and modern humanist writers, translated into English.Trade ReviewThis priceless I Tatti volume collects and translates into English, many for the first time (although with the I Tatti Library, that almost goes without saying), the prefaces Manutius wrote for the volumes that came off his presses, the allurements intended for potential customers, the introductions to often complex subject matters, and, delightfully, some of that extensive correspondence, which lays bare both the artful flattery that comes with the territory when doing business in Venice and the knowingly public confidentiality in which every arriviste revels when they find themselves hob-nobbing with household names…Humanism and the Latin Classics makes the perfect bookend with the earlier Aldus Manutius volume The Greek Classics, and taken together or separately, they bring to the reader the whirring and clacking of the printer’s shop, the wheeling and wheedling of the time’s book industry, and most of all the burbling and rumorous and striving intellectual atmosphere of the Renaissance in its full flower, when books and learning and reading and writing seemed to awake from centuries of slumber and begin ferociously multiplying again in every town and city and seat of learning from London to Baghdad. Aldine books were everywhere during that explosion, carried in pockets, bought and traded, discussed by all, and these I Tatti volumes take readers inside the tornado and introduce them to the man in the eye of it all. -- Steve Donoghue * Open Letters Monthly *

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A History Today Book of the Year""[An] excellent new study."---Andrew Hadfield, Times Literary Supplement"A fascinating window onto Tudor life at its best, worst and most complicated."---Noel Malcolm, Daily Telegraph"Thoroughly enjoyable and enlightening."---Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal"Andersson profiles in this diligent study 16th-century court jester William Somer, Henry VIII’s favored ‘fool.’ . . . The result is an illuminating look into Somer’s role as a source of broad humor and stress relief in a tumultuous court ruled by a mercurial king." * Publishers Weekly *"Andersson has given us a vivid, tantalising portrait of [Will Somer] and a nuanced exploration of how he and those around him negotiated one another. . . .Will Somer’s ghost has life in it yet."---Matthew Lyons, History Today"Anyone who wants to know about this oddly central figure in Tudor life will find Andersson’s book worthwhile."---Alec Ryrie, The Conversation"A fascinating look at Will Somer, Henry VIII’s court fool. . . .A book that makes a great case for looking at history through those who are often disregarded."---Nandini Das, History Today"Even by the end of this biography, you will wonder how much you know about Will Somer, and that is all to the good. . . . [Andersson] provides a therapeutic rebuke to much of the nonsense written about Somer."---Carl Rollyson, New York Sun

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Book SynopsisWhile Venice is better known for soft light and atmospheric painters, this elegant new volume transforms our understanding of Venetian sculpture and its place in the city’s artistic tradition.A feast for the eyes and an entertaining, erudite read, this book opens with an illustrated survey of the 120 doges who led the Venetian Republic before continuing with a detailed survey of the incredible array of sculptures and monuments that memorialize them.Although celebrated for painting and music, Venice has a sculptural tradition that was overshadowed by Florence and Rome. Based on new scholarship, this volume reveals the true magnificence of six centuries of Venetian sculpture. With the oldest works dating to the thirteenth century, these masterpieces fill the city’s churches and include pieces by great masters from the Lombardo family to Antonio Rizzo, Jacopo Sansovino, Alessandro Vittoria, and Baldassare Longhena.The sculptural marvels of VeniceTrade Review"If you want to understand the great serenity of La Serenissima, look no further than its succession of doges. Through its stable leadership, Venice’s ducal republic endured for over a thousand years, even influencing America’s founding, until its destruction by Napoleon in 1797. Venice and the Doges: Six Hundred Years of Architecture, Monuments, and Sculpture, a lavish new book from Rizzoli Electa, looks to the history of the 120 doges through their surviving funerary monuments. Written by Toto Bergamo Rossi, the director of the Venetian Heritage Foundation, with photographs by Matteo de Fina, the book reveals such highlights as Pietro Mocenigo’s monument in the Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (1476) and the Contarini tomb in the Church of San Francesco della Vigna (1624/84). Taken together, the book’s elegant memorials speak to the life, and lives, of the Venetian Republic." —The New Criterion"Embark on a visually captivating journey through this remarkable book, delving into Venetian history and its remarkable sculptural heritage. From the illustrious doges who guided the Venetian Republic to the breathtaking sculptures and monuments that immortalize them, this volume unveils six centuries of magnificence. Discover hidden masterpieces by esteemed artists like the Lombardo family, Antonio Rizzo, and Jacopo Sansovino. With engaging text and stunning photography, this book reveals the grandeur and cultural significance of Venetian sculpture. Experience the adventures, triumphs, and lives of legendary figures in this concise exploration of Venice’s sculptural marvels." ~Indulge

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPálffy offers a complex representation of the two centuries by not only depicting the military and political struggle for the liberation and the restoration of the unity of the Kingdom of Hungary. The result is a differentiated description of the developing institutions, infrastructure, economy, social structure and demographic development. -- Marta Fata * Sehepunkte *Written in an elegant and seductive way, well-balanced, with assessments that are not only unique, but also solidly argued, with an exceptional iconographic support (maps, illustrations etc.) wonderfully distributed throughout the book, professor Gèza Pálffy's book will surely impose itself as an original synthesis with a substantial echo among the readers who are both historians and history enthusiasts. -- Ionut Costea * Philobiblon *This important volume introduces English readers to one of the most critical periods of Central European history when "Hungary became the periphery and battleground of two empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy." . . . Pálffy has written a masterpiece that goes well beyond introductory accounts so common in English-language academic publishing. The author provides both a window on the fascinating complexities of early modern Hungarian history as well as a refreshing reevaluation of traditional Hungarian historiography. In a more general sense, anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe will appreciate how Pálffy illustrates the richness of Hungarian political, demographic, economic, and cultural developments. The book will benefit specialists, students, and general readers interested in the history of Hungary, its relationships with the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, and Hungary's place in early modern Europe. Students and scholars alike are well advised to put Pálffy's volume on their reading lists. -- Georg B. Michels * Hungarian Studies Review *Filling a glaring lacuna in the English-language literature on late medieval and early modern Hungary, Pálffy's study critically challenges modern scholarship in ways that feel both timely and relevant given the troubling political climate in modern Hungary and much of the West. -- Christopher M. Van Demark * Hungarian Cultural Studies *Pálffy has written a masterpiece that goes well beyond introductory ac- counts so common in English-language academic publishing. The author provides both a window on the fascinating complexities of early mod- ern Hungarian history as well as a refreshing reevaluation of traditional Hungarian historiography. In a more general sense, anyone interested in Central and Eastern Europe will appreciate how Pálffy illustrates the rich- ness of Hungarian political, demographic, economic, and cultural devel- opments. -- Georg B Michels - University of California * Hungarian Studies Review *Table of ContentsList of FiguresList of MapsList of TablesAcknowledgmentsNote on Terms and NamesList of AbbreviationsPolitical and Military Chronology, 1526–1711IntroductionPart I: Hungary after Mohács: A Century of Direction Seeking, 1526–16061. On the Frontier of Two Empires2. Roads from Istanbul to Vienna: The Ottomans in Hungary3. The Bumpy Road to Vienna: The Habsburgs and the Hungarians4. The Road to Istanbul: The State of King John Szapolyai and His Son5. On a Narrow Path: The Principality of Transylvania6. Society Finds Its Way7. The Economy and Its Roads to Europe8. The Search for a New Home: Ethnic and Demographic Changes9. Finding Faith: Hungary's New Religion10. Seeking a Language: A Cultural Golden Age11. Looking in Vain for a Way Out: The Long Turkish War, 1591–1606 Part II: Decay and Rejuvenation: The Janus-Faced Seventeenth Century, 1606–17111. Peace or Civil War on the Border of the Two Empires?2. New Ottoman Campaigns to Achieve an Old Goal3. The Rise of the Hungarian Estates and the Break with Vienna4. Transylvania Flourishes, Then Decays5. Militarization and Self-Administration: Changes in Society6. Economic Decline and Reorganization7. Hungarian Populations Fall—Other Ethnic Groups Rise8. The Revival of Catholicism—a Prolonged War of Religion9. Half a Century of Cultural Progress—Half a Century of Military Crisis10. A Country Liberated but Ravaged: The Long Turkish War, 1683–169911. Independence Movement and Civil War: The Rákóczi Uprising, 1703–1711GlossaryList of Rulers and Highest DignitariesSelect Bibliography (Monographs and Collected Studies)Name IndexPlace Index

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Book SynopsisAn award-winning historian’s revisionary account of the early modern world, showing how apocalyptic ideas stimulated political, religious, and intellectual transformationsTrade Review“Martin’s case that the apocalypse is the midwife of modernity seems self-evidently right to me. My main frustration is that we need a second volume, on how the apocalypse has fared since 1800.”—Alec Ryrie, Financial Times“[A] beautifully produced book. . . . Martin’s book ends beautifully as it begins, its apocalypse in the eternal now.”—Jonathan Locke Hart, Renaissance and Reformation“What does it mean to live near the end of time and await the world’s rebirth, as generations of Jews, Christians and Muslims did? A Beautiful Ending is a masterful synthesis of the prognostications of faith, knowledge, and politics on a global stage. Martin’s book illuminates one of the enduring themes that shaped the medieval and early modern world.”—Paula E. Findlen, Stanford University“In his elegantly braided analysis of the apocalyptic imagination among Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers, John Jeffries Martin recasts the world-making events of the late medieval and early modern periods. A Beautiful Ending is a beautiful book.”—Alan Mikhail, author of God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World“Martin’s masterful and wide-ranging study places ideas about the end of the world in their historical context, demonstrating how the apocalyptic imagination allowed historical actors to confront difficult and often frightening circumstances. Their experiences inform our own contemporary historical moment.”—Elizabeth Horodowich, New Mexico State University“A sweeping history of early modern apocalyptic and millenarian thought among Christians, Muslims, and Jews, when the end of history brought expectations of a golden age of peace. Martin provides a powerful history of the hopes and horrors produced by these apocalyptic fantasies with an eye to their continuity into our own times. Few books make early modern history more relevant to the present.”—Stuart Schwartz, Yale University“In his richly detailed new book, John Jeffries Martin advances the striking hypothesis that apocalyptic thinking not only did not go away with the advent of modernity; it was one of the key forces that gave us our modern world. If he’s right, much of what we thought we knew bears rethinking.”—Benjamin M. Friedman, author of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism “Engaging and profoundly original, A Beautiful Ending treats Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thought about End Times as a source of modernity. Martin’s deft argument convinces that the proverbial rise of modern secularism is a myth.”—Edward Muir, Northwestern University

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Book SynopsisIn the study of Shakespeare since the eighteenth century, four key concepts have served to situate Shakespeare in history: chronology, periodization, secularization, and anachronism. Yet recent theoretical work has called for their reappraisal. Anachronisms, previously condemned as errors in the order of time, are being hailed as alternatives to that order. Conversely chronology and periods, its mainstays, are now charged with having distorted the past they have been entrusted to represent, and secularization, once considered the driving force of the modern era, no longer holds sway over the past or the present. In light of this reappraisal, can Shakespeare studies continue unshaken? This is the question Four Shakespearean Period Pieces takes up, devoting a chapter to each term: on the rise of anachronism, the chronologizing of the canon, the staging of plays in period, and the use of Shakespeare in modernity's secularizing project. To read these chapters is to come away newlyTrade Review"There is a great deal to appreciate and to enjoy in this theory-rich book, which moves as freely as a willful anachronism through material across its four central essays. . . . de Grazia’s work in particular offers so much of promise to scholars as well as lay readers of Shakespeare that it practically ensures that the next generation of Shakespeareans will have plenty in the way of bardological thinking to do.” * Times Literary Supplement *"One takes one’s leave of Four Shakespearean Period Pieces, as I have now done twice, with the feeling of being smarter—more critically sophisticated—than was previously the case." * Los Angeles Review of Books *"This thought-provoking book investigates four interrelated critical axioms that Margreta de Grazia regards as having set the direction of Shakespeare scholarship and criticism since the late eighteenth century." * Modern Philology *"Bold, exciting and illuminating: as energizing as any of {de Grazia's] work. . . . de Grazia picks apart our foundational assumptions about the constituted parameters of Shakespeare studies." * Shakespeare Studies *"The eloquent and lucid analysis in this volume will be of interest to Shakespeare scholars of all stripes. Each essay stands on its own but also connects thematically with the work as a whole, and its arguments are intelligent and learned. Readers familiar with de Grazia's oeuvre will recognize overlaps with themes covered in her earlier work . . . but the questions and concerns here are developed in a new and characteristically sophisticated fashion. Four Shakespearean Period Pieces invites us to sit with the moments in which time in and around Shakespeare feel out of joint, and to think through what these moments might mean for our own practices as literary scholars. In this sense, this work could not be more timely." * Renaissance Quarterly *“Perhaps de Grazia’s most accessible book to date… A brilliant bit of writing with important implications for the practices at the core of Shakespeare studies.” * Come to the Pedlar *“The originality and importance of Four Shakespearean Period Pieces excites my enormous interest and admiration. Teasing out the origin and intention of terms that have been central to discussions of Shakespeare, de Grazia discloses a tangle of problems, misleading assumptions, blind confidence, and distortion. An exercise of scholarly demolition, at once relentless, resourceful, and cunning, this book will shake the grand house of literary criticism.” -- Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University“Four Shakespearean Period Pieces is wonderful. Lucid, original, learned, and readable, it forms a pendant to de Grazia’s foundational work. She returns to the penetratingly smart intellectual and disciplinary history that she has made her own, surveying centuries of scholarship with powerful clarity. The scholarship is deep, authoritative, and approachable, moving from Augustine to Heidegger with brilliant accessibility. Her critical readings are revelatory, zinging with insight and larger intellectual context, and reverberating with ongoing challenges for humanistic scholarship in our own times.” -- Emma Smith, University of Oxford

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Book SynopsisThe story of England's first great queen – and how she wielded power with a meticulously crafted imageTrade Review“An introduction to the wonderful art of the Elizabethan age.” -- Tudor Times“Utterly fascinating and so well researched.” -- Tudor Blogger“If you’re interested in Elizabeth I & her image & portraiture you won’t want to miss Gloriana.” -- Dr Nicola Tallis“Fascinating insights into what portraiture can reveal about Elizabeth I.” -- Sarah Gristwood“Beautifully illustrated and highly recommended!” -- Alison Weir"GLORIANA does an incredible job of covering each aspect of Elizabeth's life and the Cult of Gloriana..." * All About History *

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Book SynopsisRethinking Catholicism in Renaissance Spain claims that theology and canon law were decisive for shaping ideas, debates, and decisions about key political and religious problems in Renaissance Spain.This book studies Catholic thought during the Spanish Renaissance, with the various contributors specifically exploring the ecclesiology and heresiology of the period. Today, these two subjects are considered to be strictly branches of theology, but at the time, they were also dealt with in the field of canon law. Both ecclesiology, which studied the internal structure of the Church, and heresiology, which identified theological errors, played an important role in shaping ideas, debates, and decisions concerning the major political and religious problems of the late medieval and early modern periods. In contrast to the conventional monolithic view of Spanish Catholic thought on ecclesiastical matters, the chapters in this book demonstrate that there was a wide spectrum ofTable of Contents0. Introduction 1. Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda’s Conciliarism in his Lost De potestate papae et concilii 2. Theorizing in Trent: Alfonso de Castro, Anti-Heretical Theory, and the Politics of Reform 3. Conflicting Loyalties: Church Freedom, Pastoral Care and Civil Duties in Diego de Álava y Esquivel 4. Conciliarism and Episcopalism in the Council of Trent. The Position of the Spanish Bishops 5. Heresy and the Language of Catholicism in Sixteenth Century Spain (1558-1560) 6. Antonio de Córdoba on the Relationship between Council and Pope 7. Christian Freedom and Natural Freedom: An Introduction to an Archeology of Catholic Controversies over Slavery 8. Ecclesiastical Romanism and Spanish Universalism: Post-Tridentine Ecclesiology in Light of the Intra-Ecclesiastical Doctrinal Controversies

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Book SynopsisIsabella Lazzarini is Professor of History at the University of Molise, Italy. She is the co-editor, along with Andrea Gamberini, of The Italian Renaissance State (2014).Table of ContentsIllustrations Introduction 1. Definitions of Peace 2. Human Nature, Peace, and War 3. Peace, War, and Gender 4. Peace, Pacifism, and Religion 5. Representations of Peace 6. Peace as Integration 7. Peace Movements 8. Peace, Security and Deterrence Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe first full biography of a trusted friend of Henry VIII. William Sandys was an important figure in the Tudor court, and this book is an important contribution to the history of the time. It looks at his contributions to county and court life, as well as military affairs.

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Book SynopsisNew in paperback - The first book to explore the lives and political impact of the Brandon men from King Henry VI to King Edward VI.Trade Review'A fascinating and intricately researched account.' -- Tracy Borman‘Bryson’s book sets the family vividly in their dramatic times.’ -- Professor Steven Gunn, author of Charles Brandon‘A gripping and well-researched account … A compelling and fast-paced triumph for the Brandons and their overdue champion Bryson.’ -- Nathen Amin, author of Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders

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Book SynopsisThe Economy of Renaissance Florence offers both a systematic description of the city's major economic activities and a comprehensive overview of its economic development from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance to 1600.Trade ReviewRenaissance Florence has no more able defender in recent times than Professor Richard Goldthwaite. Washington Post Book World Richard Goldthwaite has served a long apprenticeship. As a dedicated student of the economy of Florence between the 13th and 16th centuries, he has published studies of the city's buildings and banks, its private wealth and the demand for its art. Now he has stood back and produced a magisterial history which brings all the strands of the story together and becomes, among its other virtues, a persuasive account of early capitalism. Economist 2009 Johns Hopkins University Press deserves praise for having so ably edited and published such a big book in this age of contraction and cost-cutting. It and the author have given us one of the most important books in Renaissance history to have appeared in many years: not simply a long-needed synthesis but a stimulating, insightful work that will guide research for a long time to come. -- Robert S. DuPlessis Renaissance Quarterly 2009 This book marks a crowning achievement of a distinguished academic career, and it achieves both authority in its exposition and modesty in its tone. An essential read for scholars interested in the study of Florence, and historical economics. -- Nicola Jones H-Italy, H-Net Reviews 2010 It is hard to do justice to so large, complex, and informative a work. A synthesis of the Florentine economy is a monumental undertaking. Goldthwaite offers a compelling image, which, like all such images, will draw its critics and admirers and set the parameters of the field for decades. -- Thomas Kuehn Journal of Modern History 2010 Masterful. So thorough, so inclusive, and so wide-ranging that its omission from the bibliography of on any future study on the Italian Renaissance will be a noticeable oversight. -- Brian Maxson Canadian Journal of History 2010Table of ContentsList of Tables, Figures, and MapsPrefaceIntroduction: The Commerical RevolutionEconomic Growth and Development in Italy to 1300Trade with the LevantLinks to the NorthThe Tuscan TownsFlorenceRise to PredominanceThe Dynamics of GrowthPart I: International Merchant Banking1. The NetworkPerformanceDynamics of ChangePeriodizationThe Era of the FlorinBalance of PaymentsStructuresThe FirmThe Conduct of BusinessInterfirm RelationsThe CenterFlorence and Regional TradeFlorence as International Emporium2. The Shifting Geography of CommerceNorthwestern EuropeNaples and Southern ItalyThe Western MediterraneanA Transport RevolutionThe Iberian PeninsulaSouthern FranceThe Later Sixteenth CenturyCentral Italy and RomeVenice, the Adriatic, and the LevantCentral Europe3. Banking and FinanceBankingDeposits and LoansInternational Transfer and ExchangeThe Bill of Exchange as Credit InstrumentThe International Exchange MarketGovernment FinanceLoans to RulersRisksThe PapacyCompetition and Innovation in the Sixteenth CenturyPart II: The Urban Economy4. The Textile IndustriesGeneral PerformanceThe Wool IndustryThe Silk IndustryLinen DrapersBusiness OrganizationThe FirmOperations beyond the FirmProductionThe ShopThe Work ForceRecapitulation: Wool, Silk, and the Economy5. Artisans, Shop keepers, WorkersThe Work ForceGuildsArtisansWorks on the Margins of the MarketPerformance of the Artisan SectorDemand-Driven GrowthParameters of the Local Market6. Banking and CreditBanking Institutions through the Fifteenth CenturyHistoriographical ProblemsLocal BanksPawnbrokersWelfare InstitutionsBanks and the GovernmentLack of a Banking SystemPerformance of the Banking SectorPracticesEconomic FunctionsBankruptciesBanking outside of BanksOffsettingThe Private Credit MarketNew Directions in the Sixteenth CenturyA Public Savings- and- Loan BankA Central Clearance Bank?Conclusion7. ContextsGovernment and the EconomyEconomic PolicyFiscal PolicyBusiness Interests and GovernmentThe Region and the CityUrban GeographyIndustrial ResourcesAgricultureEconomic IntegrationPrivate WealthSocial MobilityA Profile of Wealth Distribution in 1427Redistribution of Wealth in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth CenturiesConclusionEconomic CultureAttitudes and BehaviorNotions about the EconomyPerformanceThe Economy in the Short RunA Final JudgmentAppendix: Changing Values of the FlorinIndex

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Book SynopsisTraditionally history is cerebral: what did they believe, what did they think, what did they know?Woodsmoke and Sage is not a traditional book. Using the five senses, historian Amy Licence presents a new perspective on the material culture of the past, exploring the Tudors’ relationship with the fabric of their existence, from the clothes on their backs, the roofs over their heads and the food on their tables, to the wider questions of how they interpreted and presented themselves, and what they believed about life, death and beyond.Take a journey back 500 years and experience the sixteenth century the way it was lived, through sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.

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Book SynopsisJoachim Meyer (ca. 1537 - 1571) was one of the most influential fencing masters of the Renaissance--a prolific writer of fencing manuals. In this training guide, Robert Rutherfoord unpacks the complex and elegant art of Meyer's rapier in word and image, including over 200 easy to follow illustrations to bring the art to life. Meyer's monumental "A Thorough Description of the Free, Chivalric, and Noble Art of Fencing, Showing Various Customary Defenses, Affected and Put Forth with Many Handsome and Useful Drawings" was reprinted, adapted and outright plagiarized for over a century after his death. As a martial artist, he was both the last great master of the medieval Liechtenauer fencing tradition and a young innovator, who combined his native, German traditions with those of the Italian and Spanish fencing masters to create a wholly unique systems of fighting with a vast number of weapons. The centrepiece of his work, however, was the cut-and-thrust "sidesword" or "early rapier" which was rapidly eclipsing the knightly two-handed longsword in popularity. Meyer's synthesis not only adapted his native art to this Mediterranean weapon, but in some cases, his innovations prefigured the developments of rapier fencing that Italian masters would promote in the next quarter century after his untimely death.

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Book SynopsisNach wie vor besteht Unbehagen, eine evangelische Verhältnisbestimmung von Kirche und Staat mit Hilfe von Luthers Zwei-Reiche-Lehre vorzunehmen. Das liegt unter anderem auch daran, dass Luthers historische Voraussetzungen bislang nicht hinreichend untersucht wurden. Volker Mantey schließt diese Lücke, indem er sich der spätmittelalterlichen Traditionsgeschichte der Zwei-Reiche-Lehre Luthers widmet. Dies geschieht anhand einer Analyse der Zwei-Schwerter-Lehre ab 1300, wie sie für das Verhältnis von Staat und Kirche maßgeblich war. Sie wurde sowohl verwendet, um den päpstlichen Anspruch auf weltliche Oberhoheit zu untermauern, als auch, um sich gegen den Papst abzugrenzen und eine weltliche Eigenständigkeit zu behaupten.Der Autor stellt Luthers Zwei-Reiche-Lehre vor ihrem spätmittelalterlichen Horizont dar. Dabei zeigt sich, in welchem Verhältnis der Reformator sich theologisch zwischen Thomas von Aquin und Wilhelm von Ockham positioniert.

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Book SynopsisJan Löhdefink beschäftigt sich mit der Veränderung der Teufelsvorstellungen in der frühen Reformationszeit und deren Auswirkungen auf das Zeitbewusstsein. Er beschreibt die reformatorische Neumodulation der Trias von Vergangenheitsdeutung, Gegenwartsverständnis und Zukunftsperspektive, welche gerade in ihrer scharfen polemischen Kontrastierung mit konkurrierenden Entwürfen die eigenen Konstitutionsbedingungen der Zeitwahrnehmung zu erkennen gibt und auf einen grundlegenden Wandel des Zeitverständnisses verweist. Gemeinhin werden die Teufelsvorstellungen den rückwärtsgewandten Gehalten der Reformation zugeschrieben - kaum ein anderer Traditionsbestand gilt als derart "unmodern" wie der Teufel. Mit Blick auf die den spezifisch reformatorischen Teufelsvorstellungen inhärente Neukonfiguration der zeitgenössischen Temporalstrukturen jedoch verkehrt sich der Befund, wenn gerade die Reflexionsgestalt des Teufels zum Konstituens einer neuen, in die Moderne weisenden Zeitwahrnehmung avanciert: So "unmodern" der Teufel der Neuzeit auch erscheinen mag - für ihre Genese kommt ihm eine Schlüsselstellung zu.

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Book SynopsisBy far the best collection of sources to introduce readers to Renaissance humanism in all its many guises. What distinguishes this stimulating and useful anthology is the vision behind it: King shows that Renaissance thinkers had a lot to say, not only about the ancient world--one of their habitual passions--but also about the self, how civic experience was configured, the arts, the roles and contributions of women, the new science, the 'new' world, and so much more. --Christopher S. Celenza, Johns Hopkins UniversityTrade Review"An invigorating introduction to Renaissance humanism, both its 'core' and its periphery. Especially welcome is the attention given to women and other worlds. King is a lively and succinct writer who knows how to draw her readers into the big picture while entertaining them with the scintillating detail." --Jane Tylus, NYUA rich and coherent collection of primary sources spanning the 14th to the 17th centuries and the breadth of Europe. . . . Teachers will welcome this text for classes on the Renaissance and intellectual history. Students will benefit from King's thoughtful introductions to each author and work as well as suggestions for further reading and research in the appendix. --Nancy Bisaha, Vassar CollegeAn ideal coursebook, providing students the broadest range of humanist sources in English to date, and adding helpful introductions and bibliographies to each selection. --Timothy Kircher, Guilford College

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Book SynopsisExamines the scripting and performance of festivals in Spain between 1327 and 1620, offering a look at the different types of festivals that were held in Iberia during this crucial period of European history. This book focuses on the travels and festivities of Philip II, exploring the complex relationship between power and ceremony.Trade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012 "Accomplished historian Ruiz examines festivals in Spain from approximately 1200 to the mid-17th century. Starting from the premise that these events conveyed social, political, and ideological content, the author argues effectively that a close analysis over time of various festivals and related traditions--e.g., those associated with royal entries and visits to major municipalities; royal births, weddings, and funerals; Corpus Christi and Carnival--improves historians' understanding of changes in political processes and culture... The book provides information and insight that anthropologists, students of Spanish literature, and historians of Spain and colonial Spanish America will draw upon for many years."--Choice "[O]ne may recommend the present study as a labour of love--a detailed and interesting introduction to that colourful world of chivalry which, as he confesses, has captivated the author since his youth."--James Casey, European History Quarterly "Ruiz is ... a master storyteller. The chroniclers who originally recounted these festivities and processions in loving detail intended to recreate for their readers a complete vision of the clothing, music, food, decorative arches, dances, and jousts that constituted them, and Ruiz has done the same service for us."--Jodi Campbell, English Historical Review "This study brings to the forefront the Iberian Peninsula, a geographical area usually neglected in the studies of these celebrations, while it informs, enlightens, and entertains. A great read."--Candelas Gala, European LegacyTable of ContentsPreface ix Abbreviations xiii Chapter I: Festivals in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: An Introduction 1 Chapter II: The Meaning of Festivals: A Typology 34 Chapter III: Royal Entries, Princely Visits, Triumphal Celebrations in Spain, c. 1327-1640 68 Chapter IV: The Structure of the Late Medieval and Early Modern Royal Entry: Change and Continuity 113 Chapter V: A King Goes Traveling: Philip II in the Crown of Aragon, 1585-86 and 1592 146 Chapter VI: Martial Festivals and the Chivalrous Imaginary 193 Chapter VII: Kings and Knights at Play in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain 210 Chapter VIII: From Carnival to Corpus Christi 246 Chapter IX: Noncalendrical Festivals: Life Cycles and Power 293 Conclusion 331 Appendix: The Feasts of May 1428 at Valladolid 335 Bibliography 339 Index 345

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A handsome new book by art and architecture historian Cammy Brothers, Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome helps to unravel the riddle of where Bramante got his knowledge of ancient building, and her history is a bold revision of the standard accounts. . . . This book is truly a brilliant, unprecedented scholarly achievement that should place her in the front rank of architectural historians working today."---Mark Alan Hewitt, Common Edge"Engagingly written and richly illustrated study of Giuliano da Sangallo. . . . Brothers’s study is a welcome intervention that reminds us that. . . . [Sangallo] was integral to how the next generations . . . produced their own vision of antiquity that informed urban renewal in the baroque Eternal City and beyond."---Robert John Clines, Renaissance Studies"[A] beautifully illustrated analysis of Sangallo's work." * Choice *"A very important and welcome contribution to architectural and art histories of the Italian Renaissance, to studies of Rome, and to the history of the book. It is synthetic and highly innovative, like Giuliano himself."---Mirka Benes, Renaissance and Reformation"A refreshingly original contribution to the field."---David Hemsoll, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians"An impressive, comprehensive presentation and an eye-opening reading of the marvelous drawings, contextualized in a rich and intelligent discussion of their position within the architectural practice of Giuliano da Sangallo and the architectural theory of his time."---Maia Fabricius Hansen, Renaissance Quarterly

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Rich, detailed, subtle and bold. . . . Eggert is fully alive to the duplicity of alchemy and its claims." * Times Literary Supplement *"Eggert approaches her esoteric subjects with deep learning, masterful analysis, and exceptionally clear prose. Scrupulous but never sloppy, Disknowledge makes us think differently not just about the history of fiction making but also about the forms of unknowing at the heart of early modern knowledge systems. It provides a compelling account of a society that experienced acutely what she calls 'epistemological risk' in the face of new global flows of wealth and learning." * Modern Philology *"In this sharp and original book, Katherine Eggert takes on the challenge of characterizing knowledge formation in the period between early humanism and the rise of Baconian empiricism . . .Disknowledge, in Eggert's clever framework, has its own methodologies for impeding progress, including conscious forgetting, skimming texts, or treating relevant knowledge as immaterial." * Review of English Studies *"Katherine Eggert's Disknowledge breathes new life into a topic whose quirky fascination in early modern studies has foreclosed more nuanced ways of reading the specificities of its cultural potency . . . Eggert's analysis convincingly shows how the alchemical expressions of disknowledge may indeed 'model for modernity a kind of nimble epistemological and literary inventiveness' that imagines how looking backward may sometimes be the best way to move forward, but not without risk." * Studies in English Literature. *"Disknowledge's vigour and curiosity are inspiring . . . Eggert's line of argument is usually stringent, always erudite, and all the while tends to anticipate possible counterarguments . . . a valuable, rich and frequently thought-provoking addition to its field." * Early Modern Culture Online *"Disknowledge is a stimulating read, as this book challenges and provokes the reader to think deeply about what we as historians have come to know, and why, inviting response to Eggert's stated position from diverse disciplinary perspectives. As a scholarly resource, Disknowledge is an important and useful work for the ways in which Eggert sheds light on the inherent messiness of the state of learning during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . . . [A] significant work for opening up new ways to probe the project of knowledge-making in early modern England, and beyond." * Early Science and Medicine *"An unusually wide-ranging and original book, written with real stylistic flair. Eggert shows how alchemy, as both a discourse and a set of knowledge-practices, illuminates problems in many different domains, from transubstantiation to Kabbalah to debates over anatomy and reproduction. By using alchemy as a guiding thread, she reveals how each domain points up the limits of humanism in the early modern period. A delicately balanced, timely study that will be widely of interest to scholars of literature, science, medicine, and intellectual history more broadly." * Henry S. Turner, Rutgers University *Table of ContentsNotes on Texts, Biblical Quotations, and Bibliography Introduction Chapter 1. How to Sustain Humanism Chapter 2. How to Forget Transubstantiation Chapter 3. How to Skim Kabbalah Chapter 4. How to Avoid Gynecology Chapter 5. How to Make Fiction Afterword Notes Select Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisThis important text will be of interest to a wide range of historians-of science, of scholarly practices and the book, and of early-modern intellectual and cultural history.Trade ReviewThis work provides an interesting historical examination of Galileo’s original text. Recommended—ChoiceRaphael’s book is an uncommon and very welcome contribution to the ever-growing Galileo scholarship.—Annals of ScienceEye-opening...Raphael's brilliant epilogue has far-reaching implications for narratives of change. Her critique of the prevailing historiography of the Scientific Revolution highlights deep flaws in its warfare model of change, in which traditionalists fight innovators and noncombatants are irrelevant. Leading by example, she suggests that researchers learn to appreciate that most readers neither embrace nor reject novelty in toto. The pick-and-choose eclecticism that Raphael has found among readers of Two New Sciences makes for less triumphalist melodrama, but much more convincing history.—Michael H. Shank, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Renaissance QuarterlyRenée Raphael's Reading Galileo: Scribal Technologies and the "Two New Sciences" gives a telling account of the reception of a seminal work of the Scientific Revolution, which has wider implications for the history of reading and of the nature of intellectual traditions at the time more generally.—Michael Hunter, Birkbeck, University of London, American Historical ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1 An anonymous annotator, Baliani, and the "ideal" readerChapter 2 Editing, Commenting, and Learning Math from GalileoChapter 3 Modifying authoritative reading to new purposesChapter 4 An annotated book of many usesChapter 5 The University of Pisa and a Dialogue between Old and NewChapter 6 Jesuit bookish practices applied to the Two New SciencesEpilogue NotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisSet within the context of the struggles in the Florentine Republic over the distribution of political power and the search for stability, Florence in the Age of the Medici and Savonarola, 1464–1498: A Short History with Documents illuminates a key moment of fifteenth-century Florentine history with a focus on the monumental personalities and actions of Lorenzo de’Medici and Fra Girolamo Savonarola.Trade Review"A brief narrative overview of the mainly political history of Florence to the end of the fifteenth century that also offers an attractive collection of illustrative documents, aimed to engage student interest and discussion." —Melissa Bullard, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"Bartlett cuts through the political complexities of fifteenth-century Florence to offer students an engaging and accessible narrative supplemented by a wide range of relevant primary documents. This story of a key turning point in Florentine history continues to have much relevance in our own society.” —Brian J. Maxson, East Tennessee State University

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Book SynopsisStructured around four interlocking themes-mobility, state development, commerce, and frontiers-this beautifully illustrated book brings new dimensions to the concepts of Mediterranean nationality and identity.Trade Review. . . handy. . .—Renaissance QuarterlyThe Mediterranean World succeeds as an accessible, up-to-date synthesis of recent interpretations of the Mediterranean for students and general readers. Specialists will undoubtedly be familiar with many of its interpretive points, and the book focuses more on stressing the consistent permeability of Mediterranean borders and boundaries than it does on defending a single overarching thesis. But this stress on synthesizing recent trends, coupled with the book’s enviable readability, will make it an excellent classroom text for undergraduates or even beginning graduate students. It is a book that defies assumptions about a Mediterranean splintered by religion, politics and culture and instead presents a nuanced view of a geographical body where divisions coexisted with deep connections that often traversed differences.—European History QuarterlyTable of ContentsList of MapsPrefaceA Note on Names and DatesIntroductionHistorians and the SeaApproaches and Themes1. The Waning of the Roman MediterraneanMare NostrumA Christian MediterraneanAn Eastern and a Western Mediterranean2. Forging New TraditionsAn Arabic MediterraneanBetween New Imperial CapitalsClimate Change and Collapse3. Early Medieval Economies and CulturesShifting Economies and Merchant NetworksCultural Capitals and Intellectual ExchangeReligious LifeReligious InstitutionsThe Rise of Religious Orthodoxies4. Reshaping Political CommunitiesNew Contenders for Power from the PeripheriesChristian Ideas of Holy War and the First CrusadeA Second Wave of Holy Warriors in the East and WestNew Monarchs, New States5. Crossing BoundariesIndividual and Community Lives on the FrontierConversion, Persuasion, and InquisitionMobility, Accommodation, and AcculturationMovement of Ideas and IntellectualsIntellectual and Artistic Cultures at Court6. Commerce, Conquest, and TravelCommercial Exchange and InnovationsTrade, Colonization, and the StateCompetition, Conflict, and CrusadeMobility of PeopleThe Bubonic Plague7. Crisis and Consolidation in State and SocietyNew Contenders for PowerThe Fourteenth-Century CrisisCivil Wars and Centralizing RegimesTransitions in the Eastern Mediterranean8. The Renaissance BazaarNetworks of Exchange and Material CultureIntellectual DiscoursesPatronage and Power9. Mediterranean EmpiresThe Ottoman EmpireHabsburg SpainVeniceCommon Friends, Common Enemies10. Life on the FrontierDefining and Mapping FrontiersMigration and MovementMediterranean SlaveryCorsairsRenegadesReligion and Life on the Frontier11. Mediterranean TransformationsThe EnvironmentDemographyDisease and FamineEconomyTravel and Literature12. The Waning of the Early Modern MediterraneanRussiaNapoleonCorsairs and SlavesCollecting the MediterraneanGuide to ResourcesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Fabrizio Nevola's beautiful book, Street Life in Renaissance Italy, is rich in detail and imagery.”—Emily Michelson, Times Higher Education"The quality of the present work is indisputable. The book makes a valuable contribution to recent developments within the architectural and urban history of the Italian Renaissance, and to reflections upon the mechanisms that have shaped, and continue to shape, the cities we inhabit. With his ability as a storyteller, Nevola will surely engage a wide variety of readers in a fascinating discovery of street life in Renaissance Italy."—Nele De Raedt, Architectural Histories"This is a beautifully produced and original book that reassesses urban life in ‘Renaissance Italy’ from the street up. It combines material from a wide range of written sources – chronicles, letters, sermons, biographies, statute laws, fictional tales, and architectural treatises – with the visual evidence of buildings, sites, and paintings […] an attractive and valuable contribution to both social and cultural history, and will become a standard point of reference and debate for many years."—Trevor Dean, Cultural and Social History"Nevola's book is an exercise in bridging this binary, between the street as a built environment envisioned by rulers and elites, and a space given meaning through the daily movements of its residents. Formed by multiple forces, Nevola argues, the pre-modern street was the ‘key ecosystem of everyday urban living’ (p. 269). […] The book presents a convincing framework for how to study the daunting complexities of street life. […] Because of the comparative approach and critical application of theory, there is plenty for those interested in other periods and disciplines to chew on. Not only wide-ranging and thorough, the book also raises questions and ideas beyond its scope. […] There may not be a blueprint for how to write about these complex, contested urban spaces, but by committing to look at streets from multiple perspectives Nevola has set a high standard."—Charlie Tavernor, Urban History"In this ambitious book, Fabrizio Nevola explores the interaction between buildings and people in the thoroughfares of the Italian Renaissance city. Street life, like musical performance, is ephemeral and its recovery is a challenging task for the historian. […] Working within [a] theoretical framework, Nevola draws on an impressive range of sources, including documents, chronicles, reports by travellers and ambassadors, novelle, maps, paintings, prints and public inscriptions, and he animates the imagery of urban life by starting each chapter with an anecdote or an extract from a novella."—Deborah Howard, Architectural History“[Street life in Renaissance Italy] offers us a diverse and nuanced account of the complexities of street life in the Italian Renaissance city. It sets a high standard for future research into this intriguing topic.”—David P. H. Napolitano, QFIAB

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Book SynopsisOrdering Customs explores how Renaissance Venetians sought to make sense of human difference in a period characterized by increasing global contact and a rapid acceleration of the circulation of information. Venice was at the center of both these developments. The book traces the emergence of a distinctive tradition of ethnographic writing that served as the basis for defining religious and cultural difference in new ways. Taylor draws on a trove of unpublished sources—diplomatic correspondence, court records, diaries, and inventories—to show that the study of customs, rituals, and ways of life not only became central in how Venetians sought to apprehend other peoples, but also had a very real impact at the level of policy, shaping how the Venetian state governed minority populations in the city and its empire. In contrast with the familiar image of ethnography as the product of overseas imperial and missionary encounters, the book points to a more complicated set of origins. Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 The Study of Customs 2 Ambassadors as Ethnographers 3 Ethnography and the Venetian State 4 Reading Ethnography in Early Modern Venice 5 Ethnography, the City, and the Place of Religious Minorities Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis original and provocative engagement with Erasmus’ work argues that the Dutch humanist discovered in classical Stoicism several principles which he developed into a paradigm-shifting application of Stoicism to Christianity. Ross Dealy offers novel readings of some lesser and well-known Erasmian texts and presents a detailed discussion of the reception of Stoicism in the Renaissance. In a considered interpretation of Erasmus’ De taedio Iesu, Dealy clearly shows the two-dimensional Stoic elements in Erasmus’ thought from an early time onward. Erasmus’ genuinely philosophical disposition is evidenced in an analysis of his edition of Cicero’s De officiis. Building on stoicism Erasmus shows that Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane was not about the triumph of spirit over flesh but about the simultaneous workings of two opposite but equally essential types of value: on the one side spirit and on the other involuntary and intractableTrade Review‘This meticulous study of 16th century thinking can be dense, but the picture of Erasmus that emerges will prove worth the effort.’ -- D.A. Brown * Choice Magazine vol 55:01:2017 *"The Stoic Origins of Erasmus’ Philosophy of Christ contains many interesting ideas, which Dealy presents in an engaging way and is a welcome addition to the literature. " -- George Lazaroiu * Sixteenth Century Journal vol. 49, no. 1 2018 *"The Stoic Origins of Erasmus’ Philosophy of Christ is a challenging and thought-provoking book. It is a book that goes to the heart of the philosophical subject matter that is everywhere apparent in Erasmus’s writings, but hardly ever studied in serious ways." -- Han van Ruler, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam * Renaissance Quarterly, vol 71 4, Winter 2018 *"The Stoic Origins of Erasmus’ Philosophy of Christ makes an important contribution to Erasmus scholarship through a close reading of two of Erasmus’ early works that are rarely considered alongside one another, the De taedio Iesu and the Enchiridion, in an attempt to trace their considerable Stoic elements."v -- Kirk Essary, University of Western Australia * Erasmus Studies, vol 39 *Table of ContentsPreface Abbreviations Introduction A Philosophy Beneath The Rhetoric Part I The Fifteenth-Century Background Part Ii Erasmus' Two-Dimensional Stoicism Part Iii Stoic Natural Instinct and Christ's Fear of Death, De Taedio Iesu Part Iv Larger Philosophical Issues Part V Correcting a Thousand Years of Christology Part Vi Beyond Devotionalist Assumptions Part Vii Spiritual Warfare Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe thrilling story of the Jews in Venice and the truth behind one of Shakespeare''s most famous characters.Millions of visitors flood to Venice every year. Yet many are unaware of its history one of dramatic expansion but also of rapid decline. And essential to any history of Venice during its glory days is the story of its Jewish population. Venice gave the world the word ghetto. Astonishingly, the ghetto prison turned out to be as remarkable a place as the city of Venice itself.With sound scholarship and a narrator''s skill, Harry Freedman tells the story of Venice's Jews. From the founding of the ghetto in 1516, to the capture of Venice by Napoleon in 1797, he describes the remarkable cultural renaissance that took place in the Venice ghetto. Gates and walls notwithstanding, for the first time in European history Jews and Christians mingled intellectually, learned from each other, shared ideas and entered modernity together. When it came to culturTrade ReviewIf Shakespeare had travelled to Venice, he would have experienced the vibrant, bustling, conflicted life of the Ghetto, vividly evoked in Harry Freedman’s gallery of memorable characters. This book shows how Shylock’s real contemporaries, confined within a narrow space, made their voices heard far and wide. * Professor Shaul Bassi *Harry Freedman has written an attractive account of the history and culture of the Venetian Ghetto. The book is readable, well-researched, and incorporates the figure of Shylock in new ways. As Freedman adeptly shows, the Venetian Ghetto was an intellectual and creative hothouse – from music and poetry to medicine and Kabbalah – which included many extraordinary individuals such as Leon Modena and Sara Copia Sulam. Shylock’s Venice demonstrates that the ghetto had a reach far beyond the Venetian Empire. * Bryan Cheyette, author of The Ghetto: A Very Short Introduction (2020) *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Crossing the Lagoon 2 Confrontation and Segregation 3 Crossing Boundaries 4 Concord and Dispute 5 More Trouble 6 Stability and Friction 7 The Lion Who Roared 8 Music and Culture in the Ghetto 9 Politics and Diplomacy 10 Edging Towards Modernity 11 Decline Epilogue Acknowledgements Notes Bibliography Index A Note on the Author

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Book SynopsisLorenzo Lotto''s Portrait of Andrea Odoni is one of the most famous paintings of the Italian Renaissance. Son of an immigrant and a member of the non-noble citizen class, Odoni understood how the power of art could make a name for himself and his family in his adopted homeland. Far from emulating Venetian patricians, however, he set himself apart through the works he collected and the way he displayed them. In this book, Monika Schmitter imaginatively reconstructs Odoni''s house essentially a ''portrait'' of Odoni through his surroundings and possessions. Schmitter''s detailed analysis of Odoni''s life and portrait reveals how sixteenth-century individuals drew on contemporary ideas about spirituality, history, and science to forge their own theories about the power of things and the agency of object. She shows how Lotto''s painting served as a meta-commentary on the practice of collecting and on the ability of material things to transform the self.Trade Review'Focusing on Lorenzo Lotto's extraordinary Portrait of Andrea Odoni, this book is an engaging art historical detective story. The sitter, Andrea Odoni, is well known to Venetian specialists, largely from his portrait by Lotto and his appearance in the diary of Marcantonio Michiel, but the writer fleshes out this picture with new information yielded by enterprising archival and primary source research. She offers several overlapping portraits: of the Venetian cittadini as a caste, of Odoni himself, of his house and collection of art and antiquities, of the birth of collecting in Venice, and ultimately, of Lotto's hermetic erudition and his extraordinary inventive skills in creating a portrait that is far more than a portrait.' Patricia Fortini Brown, Professor Emeritus, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University'Lucidly written and meticulously documented, The Art Collector in Early Modern Italy reveals how a case study of an individual can open up new ways of thinking about immigration and social class, the imbrication between objects and the self, and the architectural presence of a home museum in urban space. Monika Schmitter offers us a compelling account of Venetian art and society which will be read, discussed, and enjoyed by a new generation of scholars.' David Kim, Associate Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania'This brilliant book takes us deep into the world of sixteenth-century Venice through the figure of Andrea Odoni, tax collector turned art collector. Marshalling period sources, works of art, and a range of interdisciplinary approaches, Monika Schmitter delves into Odoni's milieu and what made him tick. This persuasive study explores the ways in which Odoni's house and collections were typical of his social class and his time – and the ways in which they were exceptional. Odoni's Venice offers precedents for many of today's notions about collecting, museums, art conservation, and the role of culture to define our identities.' Frederick Ilchman, chair of the Art of Europe at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and chairman of Save Venice'This excellent book … marks an impressive advance in our understanding of Lotto's portrait, largely because it also provides an unpredecentedly detailed an thoughtful analysis of the sitter, his house and his collection. Along the way these aspects of [Odoni's] personality and self-expression are illuminatingly integrated within a wider consideration of his social position and of the design and decoration of Venetian palaces in the first half of the sixteenth century as well as of strategies of display.' Peter Humfrey, Burlington Magazine'Rich in primary sources and well-illustrated, Schmitter's study … is invaluable in its coverage of the uniqueness of the surviving records and works: it provides a whole picture of a collector, the architectural spaces of his palace, and the range of materials and works on display.' Leah R. Clark, Journal of the History of CollectionsTable of Contents1. Venice in transition; 2. Second generation venetian; 3. Odoni's facade; 4. Creating Rome in Venice: the Antigaia; 5. The Portego; 6. The Camere; 7. Transmuting the self: Lotto's Portrait of Odoni.

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Book SynopsisBeacon Lights of History is a 14-volume set first published in 1902. This collection of John Lords lectures spans 6,000 years of European and American history. The first 12 volumes are all Lords work; the 13th was completed from his notes and the 14th is follow-ups by other authors.

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Book SynopsisWhy are the plots of Shakespeare and his contemporaries so different from those of his predecessors? This book argues that the answer is in part that certain forms of expectation were largely undeveloped in the medieval period. More broadly, it suggests that many of the causal and temporal thought processes that are second nature to us operated very differently or had not been developed in the minds of most medieval people. And conversely, it suggests that other mental faculties (such as the ability to respond to some of the elemental appeal of poetry) may have become dulled by the post-renaissance rationalist emphasis in our culture.In addition to drawing on a broad range of etymological and literary evidence (from the 10th century Gnomic verses to 16th-century drama) the book delves into medieval history, and draws many anthropological parallels. This is a significant study in the nature of narrative and an important investigation into the mental and cultural worlds of Shakespeare and his predecessors.Trade Review“Maintains that the Renaissance did not just introduce new ideas into Western culture but radically changed cognitive processes, the way people thought…raises enormous issues…rich and interesting.” — Studies in English Literature“Fascinating ideas…succeeds in demonstrating the emergence of a new cognitive faculty in Western culture.” — The Toronto Star“Intriguing, interesting and original!” — American Historical Review“Startles and compels attention…impressively detailed.” — The Kingston Whig-StandardTable of ContentsPrefacePart I: The Issue of Cognitive Processes Anthropological Perspectives Historical Perspectives Literary Perspectives Part II: The Roots of Expectation Expectation The Dawn of the Artificial Day: Medieval Temporal Thought Processes Thinking Across the Past Thinking into the Future Causation and Probability Part III: Literary Expectations Expectation and Literary Plots The Ways of Thought of Medieval Literature Shakespeare and the Revolution in Literary Plotting Illusion: Expectation's Dramatic By-Product Simon Forman's Expectations Postscript: Zimbabwe, 1985Notes and ReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisPetrarch fashioned so many different versions of himself for posterity that it is an exacting task to establish where one might start to explore. . . . Hainsworth's study meets this problem through examples of what Petrarch wrote, and does so decisively and succinctly. . . . [A] careful and unpretentious book, penetrating in its organization and treatment of its subject, gentle in its guidance of the reader, nimble and dexterous in its scholarly infrastructure—and no less profound for those qualities of lightness. The translations themselves are a delight, and are clearly the result of profound meditation and extensive experiment. . . . The Introduction and the notes to each work form a clear plexus of support for the reader, with a host of deft cross-references. --Richard Mackenny, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkTrade ReviewHainsworth's translations from the Italian are first-rate, both in terms of accuracy to the intent of the originals . . . and in terms of conveying the force of Petrarch’s imagery. The translations from the Latin read freshly and easily . . . they are sure-footed, managing to capture the mix of pride and playfulness which characterizes Petrarch's composite prose style. The notes to the individual poems are well-judged, just enough to keep the reader on track without parading off-putting erudition. --Jonathan Usher, Emeritus, University of EdinburghA judicious selection of the varied writings of the great humanist, translated from both Latin and Italian. The Introduction is admirably structured, clear, and coherent, and presents Petrarch to the reader without didacticism or oversimplification. Hainsworth has a light editorial touch. . . . All in all, a luminous portrait of the 'father of humanism'. --David Marsh, Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyTable of ContentsIntroduction: Mending a Broken Lineage: Women, Writing, Theology; Fear & Women's Writing: Choosing the Better Part; 'A Wretched Choice?': Evangelical Women & the Word; 'My God Became Flesh': Angela of Foligno Writing the Incarnation; Speaking Funk: Womanist Insights into the Lives of Syncletica & Macrina; 'A Moor of One's Own': Writing & Silence in Sara Maitland's "A Book of Silence"; With Prayer & Pen: Reading Mother E J Dabney's "What It Means to Pray Through"; Writing a Life, Writing Theology: Edith Stein in the Company of the Saints; Writing Hunger on the Body: Simone Weil's Ethic of Hunger & Eucharistic Practice; The Body, to be Eaten, to be Written: A Theological Reflection on the Act of Writing in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's "Dictee"; Not with One Voice: The Counterpoint of Life, Diaspora, Women, Theology, & Writing; Embodying Theology: Motherhood as Metaphor/Method; Postscript: Wounded Writing / Healing Writing.

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Book Synopsis"A superb anthology of primary sources relating most directly to sixteenth-century Reformation movements. The initial selection is from the late fourteenth century and the final two from the mid-eighteenth century. The fifty texts here are wide and well focused. They are drawn from forty-one authors with diversities across many categories— birth, occupation, gender, religious orders, and 'the rest married women of middling and noble rank.' Fifteen are Roman Catholic with twenty-six coming from Lutheran, Reformed, and radical movements. King notes that genres include 'treatise, lecture, pamphlet, letter, speech, devotional work, martyr testament, diary, memoir, and autobiography.' So this is as representative a group of documents as one can imagine, spanning 400 years and conveying essential insights that fueled Reformation thought. "In addition to the judicious selection of pieces, the book is clearly organized. It features perceptive, focused descriptions of each selection conveying its backgrounds and contexts, and providing insights for readers to help in understanding and comprehending the content and importance of the piece. This is an immense benefit. King gives true texture and brings her masterful teaching instincts to bear on the selections. Her annotations in themselves are an instructive guide through Reformation movements. The selections are short but well-focused. They are accessible in form, and thirty-eight of the fifty pieces have been newly translated by King from a number of languages. Spelling, punctuation, and diction of pieces that have appeared in earlier English editions (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries) have been modernized. The New International Version (NIV) has been used for biblical quotations in the narratives. In short, every effort has been made—and has succeeded—in providing a reliable, accessible, and truly useful anthology to serve a number of functions. "This book has many excellencies. It can be highly recommended as a well-conceived collection of well-constructed presentations and as an eminently useful textbook." —Donald K. McKim, in Renaissance QuarterlyTrade Review"King's anthology could prove very useful in sparking debate between students of the Reformation. It is a good supplement to a historiographical study of Reformation thought, because it shows that the people involved in the great religious upheaval of the early modern era cannot easily be simplified. It was a time of great diversity and depth of thought, when individuals took hold of their faith for themselves. King’s anthology successfully re-creates this atmosphere." —Angela Ranson, University of York, in Renaissance and Reformation"Source readers can be interesting barometers of how certain fields have changed over the years. Margaret King's Reformation Thought is an intriguing case in point as it effectively illustrates how our understanding of the Reformation world has shifted in at least two significant ways. First is an expanded chronology. . . . The second distinctive feature is the determined effort on her part to include a broad range of voices. . . . Though there are a number of Reformation readers on the market today, King's volume is a welcome addition. Her selections are judicious, and the breadth that she offers distinguishes Reformation Thought from some of its competitors. . . . Finally, Hackett Publishing should be commended for their commitment to producing primary source anthologies at an attractive price point. Indeed, the price alone makes the volume well worth considering for any course on the Reformation world." —Howard Louthan, University of Minnesota, in Journal of Jesuit Studies"A highly approachable collection of selections both canonical (but not less important for that; one can't teach the Reformation without key texts from Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, et al.) and less well known. The latter texts—from Mantova, Melancthon, Beza, Riedeman, Campion, Hoby, Pole, and others—are illuminating and useful in every case. The decision to carry the story to the late seventeenth and even eighteenth century and bring in the overseas perspective was an excellent one. King's characteristic ability to choose important pieces—and translate and annotate them accurately and well—is on full display here. The introductions to the chapters and to the individual selections are well written and concise." —Thomas Kuehn, Clemson University"This invaluable little anthology delivers exactly what it promises and a little bit more. There was a time when a source collection titled 'Reformation Thought' would have consisted entirely of extracts from the principal published works of the best-known Protestant theologians – and that would not be a bad thing: the Reformation was a revolution of ideas led by scholars, and unless students are willing to engage with those ideas they will not grasp much of what it was all about. So it is pleasing that, amongst Margaret L. King’s fifty short extracts, we have five from Martin Luther and ten more from major Protestant thinkers, plus five from Erasmus. The extracts are brief but well-chosen, and will give novices a decent overview of some of the most burning issues in the Reformation debates. "The book’s real value, however, is in its recognition that Reformation studies is now a much broader discipline than just big name theologians. As is now conventional, the Protestant Reformation is joined by its Catholic counterpart. Where King moves beyond convention is in the extent of her inclusion of women's voices: fully ten of her fifty sources are written wholly or partly by women, a mixture of well-known figures like Teresa of Ávila, representative voices of female piety such as the English diarist Margaret Hoby, and strikingly fresh and undeservedly neglected theological interventions like that of Marie Dentière, who not only insisted on the legitimacy of women's theology, but added, 'they will not be able to stop us' (p. 94)." –Alec Ryrie, Durham University, in the Journal of World HistoryTable of ContentsIntroduction; In Search of Christ: Steps Toward Reformation; Erasmus: The Egg That Luther Hatched?; Luther the Rebel; Luthers Lieutenants ; The Swiss Response; The Radical Reformation; The English Compromise; Catholic Reform & Renewal; The Expanding Reformation ; The Reformation Overseas ; Texts & Studies; Index.

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Book Synopsis"A superb anthology of primary sources relating most directly to sixteenth-century Reformation movements. The initial selection is from the late fourteenth century and the final two from the mid-eighteenth century. The fifty texts here are wide and well focused. They are drawn from forty-one authors with diversities across many categories— birth, occupation, gender, religious orders, and 'the rest married women of middling and noble rank.' Fifteen are Roman Catholic with twenty-six coming from Lutheran, Reformed, and radical movements. King notes that genres include 'treatise, lecture, pamphlet, letter, speech, devotional work, martyr testament, diary, memoir, and autobiography.' So this is as representative a group of documents as one can imagine, spanning 400 years and conveying essential insights that fueled Reformation thought. "In addition to the judicious selection of pieces, the book is clearly organized. It features perceptive, focused descriptions of each selection conveying its backgrounds and contexts, and providing insights for readers to help in understanding and comprehending the content and importance of the piece. This is an immense benefit. King gives true texture and brings her masterful teaching instincts to bear on the selections. Her annotations in themselves are an instructive guide through Reformation movements. The selections are short but well-focused. They are accessible in form, and thirty-eight of the fifty pieces have been newly translated by King from a number of languages. Spelling, punctuation, and diction of pieces that have appeared in earlier English editions (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries) have been modernized. The New International Version (NIV) has been used for biblical quotations in the narratives. In short, every effort has been made—and has succeeded—in providing a reliable, accessible, and truly useful anthology to serve a number of functions. "This book has many excellencies. It can be highly recommended as a well-conceived collection of well-constructed presentations and as an eminently useful textbook." —Donald K. McKim, in Renaissance QuarterlyTrade Review"King's anthology could prove very useful in sparking debate between students of the Reformation. It is a good supplement to a historiographical study of Reformation thought, because it shows that the people involved in the great religious upheaval of the early modern era cannot easily be simplified. It was a time of great diversity and depth of thought, when individuals took hold of their faith for themselves. King’s anthology successfully re-creates this atmosphere." —Angela Ranson, University of York, in Renaissance and Reformation"Source readers can be interesting barometers of how certain fields have changed over the years. Margaret King's Reformation Thought is an intriguing case in point as it effectively illustrates how our understanding of the Reformation world has shifted in at least two significant ways. First is an expanded chronology. . . . The second distinctive feature is the determined effort on her part to include a broad range of voices. . . . Though there are a number of Reformation readers on the market today, King's volume is a welcome addition. Her selections are judicious, and the breadth that she offers distinguishes Reformation Thought from some of its competitors. . . . Finally, Hackett Publishing should be commended for their commitment to producing primary source anthologies at an attractive price point. Indeed, the price alone makes the volume well worth considering for any course on the Reformation world." —Howard Louthan, University of Minnesota, in Journal of Jesuit Studies"A highly approachable collection of selections both canonical (but not less important for that; one can't teach the Reformation without key texts from Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, et al.) and less well known. The latter texts—from Mantova, Melancthon, Beza, Riedeman, Campion, Hoby, Pole, and others—are illuminating and useful in every case. The decision to carry the story to the late seventeenth and even eighteenth century and bring in the overseas perspective was an excellent one. King's characteristic ability to choose important pieces—and translate and annotate them accurately and well—is on full display here. The introductions to the chapters and to the individual selections are well written and concise." —Thomas Kuehn, Clemson UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction; In Search of Christ: Steps Toward Reformation; Erasmus: The Egg That Luther Hatched?; Luther the Rebel; Luthers Lieutenants ; The Swiss Response; The Radical Reformation; The English Compromise; Catholic Reform & Renewal; The Expanding Reformation ; The Reformation Overseas ; Texts & Studies; Index.

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Book SynopsisSet within the context of the struggles in the Florentine Republic over the distribution of political power and the search for stability, Florence in the Age of the Medici and Savonarola, 1464–1498: A Short History with Documents illuminates a key moment of fifteenth-century Florentine history with a focus on the monumental personalities and actions of Lorenzo de’Medici and Fra Girolamo Savonarola.Trade Review"A brief narrative overview of the mainly political history of Florence to the end of the fifteenth century that also offers an attractive collection of illustrative documents, aimed to engage student interest and discussion." —Melissa Bullard, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"Bartlett cuts through the political complexities of fifteenth-century Florence to offer students an engaging and accessible narrative supplemented by a wide range of relevant primary documents. This story of a key turning point in Florentine history continues to have much relevance in our own society.” —Brian J. Maxson, East Tennessee State University"Bartlett does an excellent job of illustrating events and issues relevant to the historical period. [His introduction] succeeds in placing the history of Renaissance Florence in a broader geographical and chronological context, not only by explaining how the rise of the Medici family was possible but also by illustrating the dynamics that linked the Republic of Florence to other Italian and non-Italian states. . . . The style is very clear, the narrative is effectively structured, and the text, while avoiding oversimplification, is easily accessible. "The brilliant first part [of this book] provides an enjoyable and informative introduction to the subject for English-speaking readers. . . . The sources show how Renaissance Florence's extraordinary historical players, such as Cosimo and Piero de' Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Girolamo Savonarola, were perceived by their contemporaries. The wide range of different kinds of documents, such as chronicles, letters, diaries, and sermons, is ideal for students who want to get a glimpse of what and how fifteenth-century people used to write." —Stefano Dall'aglio, in Renaissance and Reformation"Bartlett has pulled together an enormous amount of historical documentation and illumination into a small book, including a tasty selection of source documents and an indispensable glossary. The writing is artfully compact and efficient, not sacrificing a copious amount of detail that discreetly illustrates this colorful story. The book would be ideal for a survey course, students of Florentine history, or anyone wanting a good explanation of complicated issues during this period of enormous artistic expression. It is also recommended for students of political history for its insight into the dynamics of how a people struggle for liberty against existing powers. It would be fair to say that this book may even shed light on some of the current struggles for democracy, given its broad theme of the distribution of wealth and power." —David R. Bass, in Sixteenth Century Journal

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Book SynopsisPeter Hainsworth's sparkling, eminently readable new English translation of The Book of the Courtier, Baldesar Castiglione's (1478–1529) literary and philosophical masterpiece, captures all the nuance, stylistic flair, and humor of this foundational work of Renaissance humanism.Trade Review"Peter Hainsworth's fresh translation of The Book of the Courtier will gladden those who have known this quintessentially important work through the available translations that are, after several decades, somewhat dated. Hainsworth's version is more accessible to contemporary readers because, first, it is more easily read, and second, because it deftly places Castiglione's classic discussion of manners, gender roles, language, and love in historical context. Instructors especially will welcome the Introduction’s establishment of the biographical, political, and cultural framework of Castiglione's dialogue; the explanatory notes that amply supply the information students will need to appreciate the conversation; and the guidance provided by an analytically enriched table of contents that groups the chapters meaningfully while highlighting the Courtier's principal themes. For 150 years, the ideals expressed in Castiglione's Courtier guided the European elite. Hainsworth’s robust new English edition will help students understand how and why." —Margaret L. King, Professor of History Emerita, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

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Book SynopsisPeter Hainsworth's sparkling, eminently readable new English translation of The Book of the Courtier, Baldesar Castiglione's (1478–1529) literary and philosophical masterpiece, captures all the nuance, stylistic flair, and humor of this foundational work of Renaissance humanism.Trade Review"Peter Hainsworth's fresh translation of The Book of the Courtier will gladden those who have known this quintessentially important work through the available translations that are, after several decades, somewhat dated. Hainsworth's version is more accessible to contemporary readers because, first, it is more easily read, and second, because it deftly places Castiglione's classic discussion of manners, gender roles, language, and love in historical context. Instructors especially will welcome the Introduction’s establishment of the biographical, political, and cultural framework of Castiglione's dialogue; the explanatory notes that amply supply the information students will need to appreciate the conversation; and the guidance provided by an analytically enriched table of contents that groups the chapters meaningfully while highlighting the Courtier's principal themes. For 150 years, the ideals expressed in Castiglione's Courtier guided the European elite. Hainsworth’s robust new English edition will help students understand how and why." —Margaret L. King, Professor of History Emerita, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

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