European history: Renaissance Books

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisScholarship has come to value the uncertainties haunting early modern knowledge cultures; indeed, awareness of the fragility and plurality of knowledge is now offered as a key element for understanding early modern science as a whole. Yet early modern actors never questioned the possibility of certainty itself and never objected to the notion that truth is out there, universal, and therefore safe from human manipulation. This book investigates how early modern actors managed not to succumb to postmodern relativism, despite the increasing uncertainties and blatant disagreements about the nature of God, Man, and the Universe. An international and interdisciplinary team of experts in fields ranging from the history of science to theology and the history of ideas analyses a number of practices that were central to maintaining and functionalizing the notion of absolute truth. Through such an interdisciplinary research the book shows how certainty about truth could be achieved, and how early modern society recognized the credibility of a wide plethora of actors in differentiating fields of knowledge.Trade Review"This remarkable collection of essays explores the processes of negotiation underlying the construction of truth in early modern Catholicism. [...] The essays gathered in this volume, as well as the excellent introduction by the editors, make a significant contribution to the history of early modern Catholicism and its relations to Europe and the world; to the history of science, and of its connection with religion; and to the expanding historiography on early modern uncertainty and doubt."- Marco Faini, Research Institute of the University of Bucharest – ICUB, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 44.3 (2021) "This volume is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarly and critical work being done on forms and practices of early modern Catholicism at the intersection of intellectual history and cultural materialist methodologies." - Lowell Gallagher, Church History Journal, March 2023Table of ContentsBruno Boute, Andreea Badea, Marco Cavarzere, and Steven Vanden Broecke: A Product's Glamour: Credibility, or the Manufacture and Administration of Truth in Early Modern Catholicism PART I. ACCOMMODATING 1. Rudolf Schuessler: Scholastic Approaches to Reasonable Disagreement 2. Marco Cavarzere: Regulating the Credibility of Non-Christians. Oaths on False Gods and Seventeenth-Century Casuistry 3. Steven Vanden Broecke: How to be a Catholic Copernican in the Southern Netherlands 4. Brendan Röder: Appearance and Essence. Speaking the Truth about the Body in the Early Modern Catholic Church PART II. PERFORMING 5. Bruno Boute: Saving Truth. Roman Censorship and Catholic Pluralization in the Confessionals of the Habsburg Netherlands, 1682-1686 6. Birgit Emich: The Production of Truth in the Manufacture of Saints: Procedures, Credibility, and Patronage in Early Modern Processes of Canonization 7. Andreea Badea: Credibility of the Past. Writing and Censoring History within Seventeenth-Century Catholicism 8. Leen Spruit: Heresy and Error in the Assessment of Modern Philosophical Psychology 9. Maria Pia Donato: Modern Philosophy and Ancient Heresies: New Wine in Old Bottles? PART III. EMBEDDING 10. Vittoria Fiorelli: Experiences are not a Successful Accompaniment toward the Knowledge of the Truth.' The Trial of the Atheists in Late Seventeenth-Century Naples 11. Cecilia Cristellon: Choosing Information, Selecting Truth. The Roman Congregations, the Benedictine Declaration, and the Establishment of Religious Pluralism 12. Rivka Feldhay: Disciplining the Sciences in Conflict Zones. Pre-Classical Mechanics between the Sovereign State and the Reformed Catholic Religion Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Spanish Pacific designates the space Spain colonized or aspired to rule in Asia between 1521 -- with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan -- and 1815 -- the end of the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade route. It encompasses what we identify today as the Philippines and the Marianas, but also Spanish America, China, Japan, and other parts of Asia that in the Spanish imagination were extensions of its Latin American colonies. This reader provides a selection of documents relevant to the encounters and entanglements that arose in the Spanish Pacific among Europeans, Spanish Americans, and Asians while highlighting the role of natives, mestizos, and women. A-first-of-its-kind, each of the documents in this collection was selected, translated into English, and edited by a different scholar in the field of early modern Spanish Pacific studies, who also provided commentary and bibliography.Trade ReviewSelected as one of the Best Historical Materials from 2020-21 by the Reference and User Services Association, an affiliate of the American Library Association! "Each selection ends with a bibliography pertinent to the issues illuminated by the primary source, which will be particularly useful for graduate students, and a brief biography of the selection’s editor. The volume as a whole provides fascinating glimpses into the lives of peoples who interacted, mostly in the Philippines, but also within and across the vast space of the Pacific Ocean."- Carla Rahn Phillips, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 98:1Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures Introduction. Christina Lee and Ricardo Padrón 1. An Early Transpacific Account on the Spice Islands by Andrés de Urdaneta (1536). Jorge Mojarro 2. Domingo de Salazar's Letter to the King of Spain in Defense of the Indians and the Chinese of the Philippine Islands (1582). Christina Lee 3. Juan Cobo's Map of the Pacific World, 1593. Ricardo Padrón 4. A Royal Decree of Philip III Regulating Trade between the Philippines and New Spain (1604). Natalie Cobo and Tatiana Seijas 5. Manila's Sangleys and a Chinese Wedding (1625). Miguel Martínez 6. Don Luis Castilla Offers to Sell Land in Manila (1629). Regalado Trota José 7. Idolatry and Apostasy in the 1633 Jesuit Annual Letter. John Blanco 8. The Will of an India Oriental and her Chinos in Peru (1644). Leo Garofalo 9. Francisco de Combés's History of Mindanao and Jolo (1667). Ana M. Rodríguez Rodríguez. Translation assisted by Cortney Benjamin 10. Between Fiction and History in the Spanish Pacific: The Misfortunes of Alonso Ramírez (1690). Nicole Legnani 11. A Moluccan Crypto-Muslim before the Transpacific Inquisition (1623-1645). Ryan Dominic Crewe 12. Constitutions and Rules of the Beatas Indias (1726). Kathryn Santner 13. The Poetics of Praise and the Demands of Confession in the Early Spanish Philippines: Notes and Documents. Vicente L. Rafael 14. The Pacific Theater of the Seven Years' War in a Latin Poem by an Indigenous Priest, Bartolomé?Saguinsín (1766). Stuart M. McManus 15. A Prohibition on Digging Up the Bones of the Dead (1813). Ino Manalo Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisDuring the early modern period, objects of maritime material culture were removed from their places of origin and traded, collected and displayed worldwide. Focusing on shells and pearls exchanged within local and global networks, this monograph compares and connects Asian, in particular Chinese, and European practices of oceanic exploitation in the framework of a transcultural history of art with an understanding of maritime material culture as gendered. Perceiving the ocean as mother of all things, as womb and birthplace, Chinese and European artists and collectors exoticized and eroticized shells’ shapes and surfaces. Defining China and Europe as spaces entangled with South and Southeast Asian sites of knowledge production, source and supply between 1500 and 1700, the book understands oceanic goods and maritime networks as transcending and subverting territorial and topographical boundaries. It also links the study of globally connected port cities to local ecologies of oceanic exploitation and creative practices.Trade Review"This fascinating study is meticulously researched and presented with verve. Anna Grasskamp is a rare scholar who is equally conversant with the European archives and the Chinese ones. Her examination of shells and other maritime organisms as collectible transcultural objects casts new light on these objects, and reveals attitudes towards alien creatures, faraway places, and the natural world that are quite different from modern attitudes."- Dorothy Ko, Barnard College “Grasskamp’s exquisitely illustrated study …offers interpretations of individual objects and the Chinese and/or Occidental symbolism associated with them, while at the same time, she tries to embed her findings in larger cultural patterns, variegated forms of local belief, and neglected traditions. … Conchophiles who wish to find out why and how the well-to-do adored nautilus shells and similar specimens will discover many fascinating details in Grasskamp’s account. … Art and Ocean Objects … will inspire scholars to explore the story of marine products in new ways; it is a lively contribution to the field of Euro-Asian (art) history and cultural exchange.”-Roderich Ptak, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 2023, 86, 2 “Drawing on fields as diverse as art history, object studies, the history of science, and area studies to inform its robust methodology of material culture, the book brings much-needed nuance to the study of the transregional material culture of early modern Europe and China through the maritime world. …Drawing on this new perspective on connected maritime history, the book distinguishes itself by paying almost equal attention to the visual and material cultures of early modern Europe and China, at times articulating their connectivity through objects such as nautilus cups carved in Guangzhou and mounted in Europe, while also comparing patterns of knowledge and gendered imagination generated by shells in the two regions. Although connection and comparison are well-established methods in transregional and global history, Grasskamp adds nuance and complexity to them by way of (transmedial) materiality. …Art and Ocean Objects of Early Modern Eurasia successfully portrays seashells as boundary-crossing objects that went far beyond (re)connecting Europe and China to challenge the entrenched binaries of inanimate things and living organisms, reality and fantasy, secular and religious worlds, and human and non-human entities.“ - Kyoungjin Bae, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CAA Reviews , 2023, June “Art and Ocean Objects is an important contribution to material culture studies and a model for inter- and cross-cultural studies. It is ambitious in tackling such a large subject—shells and the creatures that build them, the use of shells in art and as art, and common iconographies of shell art (maritime, marginal, erotic, and the feminine)—across the European and Asian cultures that made and collected such works. …. This study shows both the challenges and opportunities of exploring a broad geography and body of works. Grasskamp moves deftly between literary, philosophical, and religious texts and material and visual culture, weaving a rich and nuanced account, made possible by her comfort working with sources across time, cultures, and languages.”- Marsely Kehoe, June in West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 2023, 30, 1 “Grasskamp explores these associations …in her richly illustrated new book, Art and Ocean Objects, on the multicultural complexity of marine objects in early modern Eurasia. Through her expertise in both Asian and European art history (and languages) she is able to situate shells at the crossroads of China and Europe as natural objects and material entanglements…”-Marika Kebluse, Renaissance Quartely, LXXVI, 3,2023Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 Shell Connections: The Exoticization and Eroticization of Asian Maritime Material Culture From Guangzhou to Florence: Parrot Cups as “Actors” Layers of Exoticization: Chinese and European Shell Surfaces Surfaces and Skins: The European Eroticization of Asian Shells Conclusion – Shell Connections 2 Shell Bodies: The Creative Agency of Molluscs across Cultures Clever Objects Shell Agency Clam Creations Female Features Bird Bodies Cultured Connections Conclusion 3 Shell Worlds: Maritime Microcosms in EurAsian Art and Material Culture Shells in Flux Coralscapes Conclusion 4 Woman with a Shell: Transcultural Exchange, Female Bodies and Maritime Matters Women on Shells Women in Shells Women with Shells Women with EurAsian Shells Conclusion – Woman with a Shell Conclusion Cited Primary and Secondary Sources Acknowledgments Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1454 the Sienese painter Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei faced litigation from the Mercanzia in Siena for defaulting on a contract from one of the leading Franciscan confraternities in the city. Two fellow Sienese artists, Giovanni di Paolo and Sano di Pietro, had recently completed a new altarpiece for the same entity. Anabel Thomas considers how the two commissions were linked and questions why Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei’s brief to fresco the confraternity chapel remained unfinished. In a wide ranging analysis of mainly unpublished records, focussing on the artist’s association with key members of Sienese society, fellow artisans and government officials, Thomas concludes that Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei might have honoured his contract had he not become immersed in the military strategy, diplomacy and visual propaganda of the Republic of Siena.Table of ContentsPreface Structure of the book Illustrations Introduction PART ONE – Art and Diplomacy Chapter One: The Politics of Journeyman Painting Chapter Two: The Diplomat Leonardo Benvoglienti and his friend, the Painter Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei PART TWO – Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei: Conflicting Career Options Chapter One: Workshop Training and Neighbourhood Networking Chapter Two: Military Action in Defence of Siena’s Southern Territories PART THREE – Giovanni di Paolo, Sano di Pietro and Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei and the ‘chompangnia e fraternita di san franciescho posta nel chonvento di san franciescho’ Chapter One: The Fraternity Chapter Two: A New Altarpiece Chapter Three: Fresco Work in the Company Chapel PART FOUR – Francesco di Bartolomeo Alfei, ‘Trusted Servant’ Inside and Outside the Walls of Siena Chapter One: Arbitrator and Scribe for the Trecerchi Chapter Two: Martinozzi Patronage Chapter Three: Government sponsored work inside Siena and official postings in Montalcino, the Val di Chiana and Vergelle PART FIVE – The Ponte d’Arbia Project – Preserving the ‘honour’ of Siena Conclusion

Read more less

Book SynopsisViewers in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were encouraged to forge connections between their physical and affective states when they experienced works of art. They believed that their bodies served a critical function in coming to know and make sense of the world around them, and intimately engaged themselves with works of art and architecture on a daily basis. This book examines how viewers in Medicean Florence were self-consciously cultivated to enhance their sensory appreciation of works of art and creatively self-fashion through somaesthetics. Mobilized as a technology for the production of knowledge with and through their bodies, viewers contributed to the essential meaning of Renaissance art and, in the process, bound themselves to others. By investigating the framework and practice of somaesthetic experience of works by Benozzo Gozzoli, Donatello, Benedetto Buglioni, Giorgio Vasari, and others in fifteenth- and sixteenth century Florence, the book approaches the viewer as a powerful tool that was used by patrons to shape identity and power in the Renaissance.Trade Review"Somaesthetic Experience and the Viewer in Medicean Florence, Renaissance Art and Political Persuasion, 1459-1580 (2020), provides not only a very nuanced interpretation of the theme indicated in the title, but also has a detailed account of the various philosophers’ and Renaissance scholars’ concepts of embodiment as a valuable source for shedding new light on the Florentine Renaissance. [The author] shows how the body's epistemology and the embodied experience have gradually occupied an increasingly prominent place in Renaissance research."- Else Marie Bukdahl, The Journal of Somaesthetics vol. 7, no. 2 (2021) "Seamlessly weaving together the social and political circumstances that fostered these dynamic interactions, Terry-Fritsch productively draws from the methodological approaches of ritual and performance studies to bring into focus a variety of viewing strategies employed by Florentine audiences in their daily engagement with art, convincingly demonstrating that the 'act of doing' was understood to be a 'way of knowing' (26)." - Victoria H. Ehrlich, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 2Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements 1 Activating the Renaissance Viewer: Art and Somaesthetic Experience Somaesthetics and Political Persuasion Patronage and the Construction of the Viewer in Medicean Florence 2 Mobilizing Visitors: Political Persuasion and the Somaesthetics of Belonging in the Chapel of the Magi Sensory Activation and the Signaling of the Patron Somaesthetic Emplacement in Immersive Artistic Programs Staging Belonging in Bethlehem 3 Staging Gendered Authority: Donatello's Judith, Lucrezia Tornabuoni de'Medici's sacra storia, and the Somaesthetics of Justice Medici Garden as a Theater in the Round Somaesthetic Cultivation of Audience and Narrator Collective Witnessing at the Scaffolds 4 Performing Virtual Pilgrimage: Somaesthetics and Holy Land Devotion at San Vivaldo Materializing the Holy Land Experience Somaesthetic Fashioning and Affective Devotion Possessing the New Jerusalem 5 Playing the Printed Piazza: Giovanni de'Bardi's Discorso sopra il giouco del calcio fiorentino and Somaesthetic Discipline in Grand-Ducal Florence The Florentine Piazza as Practiced Space of Calcio Antiquity and Historical Realism in Bardi's Discorso Battle Tactics, Vedute, and Somaesthetic Dominion Ritual Display and Restraint in the Noble Game of Calcio 6 Epilogue: Renaissance Somaesthetics and the Digital Age Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe sixteenth century was a period of crisis in the Catholic Church. Monastic reorganization was a major issue, and women were at the forefront of charting new directions in convent policy. The story of the Carmelite Reform has been told before, but never from the perspective of the women on the front lines. Nearly all accounts of the movement focus on Teresa de Avila, (1515-1582), and end with her death in 1582. Women Religious and Epistolary Exchange in the Carmelite Reform: The Disciples of Teresa de Avila carries the story beyond Teresa’s death, showing how the next generation of Carmelite nuns struggled into the seventeenth century to continue her mission. It is unique in that it draws primarily from female-authored sources, in particular, the letters of three of Teresa’s most dynamic disciples: María de San José, Ana de Jesús and Ana de San Bartolomé.Trade ReviewWinner of the GEMELA 2022 Award, Book Category! "Muchos elementos hacen de esta obra un trabajo de gran interés. El primero de ellos es que nos permite asomarnos a la historia de la Orden fundada por Teresa de Jesús, y a la misma historia de la Iglesia —en una época tan condicionante como es la contrarreformista— desde una perspectiva femenina, dejando hablar a las protagonistas. Más aún, acercándonos a la voz de su intimidad, recogiendo palabras privadas, como son las de la mayoría de las cartas."- María José Pérez GonzálezTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: María de San José Chapter 1. The (Almost) Silenced Epistolary Pen of María de San José Chapter 2. Drama in Seville Chapter 3. On to Portugal Chapter 4. Battles Chapter 5. Trials Part II: Ana de Jesús Chapter 6. Paris and Beyond Chapter 7. In the Low Countries Part III: Ana de San Bartolomé Chapter 8. The Other Ana Chapter 9. Ana and the French Chapter 10. The Antwerp Foundation Chapter 11. Friends and Enemies. Chapter 12. The Ones Who Stayed Behind: The Letters of Catalina de Cristo to Ana de San Bartolomé Conclusion Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis path-breaking collection offers an integrative model for understanding health and healing in Europe and the Mediterranean from 1250 to 1550. By foregrounding gender as an organizing principle of healthcare, the contributors challenge traditional binaries that ahistorically separate care from cure, medicine from religion, and domestic healing from fee-for-service medical exchanges. The essays collected here illuminate previously hidden and undervalued forms of healthcare and varieties of body knowledge produced and transmitted outside the traditional settings of university, guild, and academy. They draw on non-traditional sources -- vernacular regimens, oral communications, religious and legal sources, images and objects -- to reveal additional locations for producing body knowledge in households, religious communities, hospices, and public markets. Emphasizing cross-confessional and multilinguistic exchange, the essays also reveal the multiple pathways for knowledge transfer in these centuries. Gender, Health, and Healing, 1250-1550 provides a synoptic view of how gender and cross-cultural exchange shaped medical theory and practice in later medieval and Renaissance societies.Trade ReviewCo-winner of the 2020 Collaborative Project Award by the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender (SSEMWG)! The awards committee states that Gender, Health and Healing 1250-1550 is exciting in conception and breadth, using "an integrative, hybrid model of analysis" that ranges far beyond "the narrow terrain of academic, text-based medicine" using new types of evidence about women's "acts of caring and curing." "This well-structured volume offers many original elements and makes an important contribution to research on health and healing in the period under consideration, especially concerning the role of women in everyday household care. Its notable features are the broad range of sources examined and the translation of relevant passages from (often unpublished) medieval and early modern works. The internal coherence of the volume and its overall clarity make it also suitable for a non-specialist readership."- Alessandra Foscati, KU Leuven, Leuven, Early Science and Medicine 26 (2021) "Taking us beyond the story of theoretical medicine, this volume significantly expands the source base to present a full portrait of what counted as medicine at this time. The eleven essays in this collection demonstrate clear and vivid links between women’s health care knowledge and healing practices and the lived experiences of pre-modern people, emphasizing both continuity and innovation in the centuries spanning the late medieval and Renaissance eras."- Lori Woods, Saint Francis University, Renaissance and Reformation 44.1 (Winter 2021) "This outstanding volume of essays presents exciting new research on gender and health care in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. [...] As stated in their introduction, Strocchia and Ritchey particularly aim to bring new sources and new methodologies to light, in order to demonstrate ‘the sheer complexity of everyday caregiving and health maintenance’ (p. 16). The book is resoundingly successful in these goals, and it is particularly effective at illuminating the continual intersections and interplay between intellectual, social, and cultural spheres of health and healing."- Alisha Rankin, Tufts University, USA, Social History of Medicine, 2021 "The chapters raise a broader methodological question for historians, literary scholars, art historians, and scholars of religious studies: After excavating such stories, how can we alter our histories of women’s health and healing to make them the central subjects and characters that they clearly were? [...] In that vein, a number of the contributions in this volume contain transcriptions, translations, and reproductions of primary sources that will serve as important resources in our classrooms, where we must teach histories that are more inclusive and representative."- Hannah Marcus, Harvard University, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 52, Number 1, Summer 2021 "The volume as a whole significantly advances our awareness of the variety, persistence, and pervasiveness of women’s contributions to the maintenance and restoration of health, as well as how their medical and caring roles were understood and represented."- Sandra Cavallo, Reviews in History, March 2021Table of ContentsIntroduction Gendering Medieval Health and Healing: New Sources, New Perspectives Sara Ritchey and Sharon Strocchia PART 1: Sources of Religious Healing Caring by the Hours: The Psalter as a Gendered Healthcare Technology Sara Ritchey Female Saints as Agents of Female Healing: Gendered Practices and Patronage in the Cult of St. Cunigunde Iliana Kandzha PART 2: Producing and Transmitting Medical Knowledge Blood, Milk and Breastbleeding: The Humoral Economy of Women's Bodies in Late Medieval Medicine Montserrat Cabré and Fernando Salmón Care of the Breast in the Late Middle Ages: The Tractatus de Passionibus Mamillarum Belle S. Tuten Household Medicine for a Renaissance Court: Caterina Sforza's Ricettario Reconsidered Sheila Barker and Sharon Strocchia Understanding/Controlling the Female Body in Ten Recipes: Print and the Dissemination of Medical Knowledge about Women in the Early Sixteenth Century Julia Gruman Martins PART 3: Infirmity and Care Ubi non est mulier, ingemiscit egens? Gendered Perceptions of Care from the Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries Eva-Maria Cersovsky Domestic Care in the Sixteenth Century: Expectations, Experiences, and Practices from a Gendered Perspective Cordula Nolte Bathtubs as a Healing Approach in Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Medicine Ayman Yasin Atat PART 4: (In)fertility and Reproduction Gender, Old Age, and the Infertile Body in Medieval Medicine Catherine Rider Gender Segregation and the Possibility of Arabo-Galenic Gynecological Practice in the Medieval Islamic World Sara Verskin Afterword: Healing Women and Women Healers Naama Cohen-Hanegbi Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisRené de Challant, whose holdings ranged from northwestern Italy to the Alps and over the mountains into what is today western Switzerland and eastern France, was an Italian and transregional dynast. The spatially dispersed kind of lordship that he practiced and his lifetime of service to the house of Savoy, especially in the context of the Italian Wars, show how the Sabaudian lands, neighboring Alpine states, and even regions further afield were tied to the history of the Italian Renaissance. Situating René de Challant on the edge of the Italian Renaissance helps us to understand noble kin relations, political networks, finances, and lordship with more precision. A spatially inflected analysis of René’s life brings to light several themes related to transregional lordship that have been obscured due to the traditional tendencies of Renaissance studies. It uncovers an ‘Italy’ whose boundaries extend not just into the Mediterranean, but into regions beyond the Alps.Trade Review"This is a thoroughly researched study based on vast archival materials in over a dozen different archives in France, Italy, and Switzerland. And as a study of lordship—the exercise of noble privileges and responsibilities, or as the author puts it, the exercise of spatial politics—this is a fascinating and significant case study that deserves a wide readership."- Mack P. Holt, Renaissance and Reformation, 43.4 (Fall 2021) "C’est donc un bel ouvrage qui, en plus de renouveler le regard sur un personnage important des guerres d’Italie et pour le duché de Savoie, propose de reconsidérer le rôle de l’État durant la Renaissance italienne en partant de la subsistance de liens féodaux étendus à l’échelle européenne."- Jean Sénié, Laboratoire italien, October 2020 "Specialists in the wide range of fields that Vester touches on, especially for those with interests in transregional connections, will find his work a treasure trove of useful information for comparative purposes. The breadth, depth, and thoroughness of Vester’s scholarship are truly impressive, and offer a good indication of what research in the history of smaller states and less well-known political actors might yet produce." - James R. Smither, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 2Table of ContentsAbbreviations List of maps and tables List of figures Acknowledgments Chapter 1 On the edge of the Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance The Renaissance nobility Spatial analysis and mobility Chapter 2 René's early career to 1536 René's early life René and Sabaudo-Swiss politics prior to 1536 The lordship of Valangin and the counts of Neuchâtel Before the storm, 1531-1534 Chapter 3 René's growing influence during the war years, 1536-1553 The invasions of 1536 Valangin, the Reform, and relations with the Countess of Neuchâtel Political leadership and mobility during a time of uncertainty Struggling for the sovereignty of Valangin, 1542-1565 Chapter 4 René and Duke Emanuel Filibert René and Emanuel Filibert Vercelli capture and efforts to get released The twilight of a career Family matters and René's last years Historiographic perspectives of René's life Chapter 5 Kinship and noble life Kin relations Relations with wives and children Nobles and domestic life Legal issues Chapter 6 The Challant political networks René's networks -The regional scope of René's ties -René's ecclesiastical network -René's key subordinates Mencia's network Letters and information Relations with officials Chapter 7 Finance and brokerage Nobles and finance René as borrower and broker -The financial situation inherited by René -1526-1536: Finance and Swiss negotiations -Finance during the war years to 1545 -From the 1545 'restructuring' to the second imprisonment The financial implications of ransom Financial recovery Chapter 8 Lordship Valangin during the war years Beaufremont René and the practice of lordship -Fiefs and fiscality -Sample castellany accounts: Châtillon, 1559-1560 -Administration of the fiefs Chapter 9 The embodiment of spatial politics Index

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis study of ludic literary society in sixteenth-century France addresses Italianate practices of philosophical and literary sociability as they took root there. It asserts that entertainment activities of women-led circles illustrate the richly complex precursors of the seventeenth-century salons. Notions from the philosophy of play, such as those developed by Johan Huizinga, Eugen Fink, and Roger Caillois, who argue that play is critically intertwined with the development of society, provide a theoretical path across these periods of women’s engagement in literary culture. The barrister Estienne Pasquier, whose voluminous network of literary and legal connections permitted him entry into the society of such women, acts as an eyewitness to sixteenth-century circles. Ultimately, we see that the ludic activities in such society produced powerful influences that extended beyond the confines of the groups in question to shape ideas, attitudes, and activities—such as those of the salon cultural norms to come.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on the Text List of Illustrations Introduction: Women, Entertainment, and Precursors of the French Salon, 1532-1615 Chapter One: At Play in Italy and France: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Social Continuities Chapter Two: Marie-Catherine de Pierrevive and the Dames des Roches: Proto-Salon Entertainment in Lyon and Poitiers Chapter Three: Antoinette de Loynes and Madeleine de l’Aubespine: Entertainment among the Parisian Noblesse de robe Chapter Four: Claude-Catherine de Clermont: Amusement and Escapism among the Noblesse d’épée and Royal Milieu Chapter Five: Marguerite de Valois and Proto-Précieuse Taste Chapter Six: L’Histoire de La Chiaramonte: A Divertissement for the Circle of Marguerite de Valois Conclusion: Sixteenth-Century Société Mondaine and the Persistence of Entertainment Practices Appendix: Estienne Pasquier and His Social Network Bibliography Index

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisWhere previous accounts of the Renaissance have not fully acknowledged the role that music played in this decisive period of cultural history, Laurenz Lütteken merges historical music analysis with the analysis of the other arts to provide a richer context for the emergence and evolution of creative cultures across civilizations. This fascinating panorama foregrounds music as a substantial component of the era and considers musical works and practices in a wider cultural-historical context. Among the topics surveyed are music's relationship to antiquity, the position of music within systems of the arts, the emergence of the concept of the musical work, as well as music's relationship to the theory and practice of painting, literature, and architecture. What becomes clear is that the Renaissance gave rise to many musical concepts and practices that persist to this day, whether the figure of the composer, musical institutions, and modes of musical writing and memory.

Read more less