Description
Book SynopsisThis volume brings together some of the most exciting renaissance scholars to suggest new ways of thinking about the period and to set a new series of agendas for Renaissance scholarship. * Overturns the idea that it was a period of European cultural triumph and highlights the negative as well as the positive.
Trade Review"This volume would be a useful tool in an academic library providing students of the period with a valuable source of both traditional and new thought on the Renaissance world. The essays are involved and need to be considered in some detail to fully appreciate the scholarly thought. Perhaps most useful as a stepping-stone to further study, it is an excellent volume that deserves shelf space in all non-specialist academic libraries and libraries that serve history lovers."
Louise Ellis-Barrett, Assistant Librarian, Dulwich College, London "This companion sets new agendas for research and explores some refreshing ways of thinking about the Renaissance. Contributors include scholars from many disciplines. Recommended for scholars, researchers, upper-division under-graduates and graduates students" Choice
"This most impressive volume deserves considerable praise. The editor, in his helpful and wide-ranging introduction, ensures a fascinating and valuable volume." Journal of European Studies
"This Companion (with notes, and a rich composite bibliography) is strongest on social history and literature, as well as for historical insights and literary merits" History Today
"The articles are not simply factual summaries: they all have their own arguments, and many of them suggest places where the present state of knowledge is inadequate, so that the book is rich in suggestions for further research.... Ruggiero asks his readers to "applaud if you have enjoyed our performance"; yes, it is greatly enjoyable." John Considine, University of Alberta
Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors viii
Introduction: Renaissance Dreaming: In Search of a Paradigm 1
Guido Rumiero
PART I THE COURSE of RENAISSANCEE EVENTS 21
1 The Italian Renaissance 23
Gene Brucker
2 The European Renaissance 39
Randolph Starn
3 The Renaissance and the Middle East 55
Linda T. Darling
4 The Renaissance World from the West 70
Matthew Restall
5 The Historical Geography of the Renaissance 88
Peter Burke
PART 11 THE WORLDS AND WAYS OF POWER 105
6 Governments and Bureaucracies 107
Edward Muir
7 Honor, Law, and Custom in Renaissance Europe 124
James R. Farr
8 Violence and its Control in the Late Renaissance: An Italian Model 139
Gregory Hanlon
9 Manners, Courts, and Civility 156
Robert Muchembled
10 Family and Clan in the Renaissance World 173
Joanne M. Feeraro
11 Gender 188
Elissa B. Weaver
12 The Myth of Renaissance Individualism 208
John Jeffiies Martin
PART I11 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC WORLDS 225
13 Social Hierarchies: The Upper Classes 227
Matthew Ester
14 Social Hierarchies: The Lower Classes 243
James S. Amelang
15 Tools for the Development of the European Economy 259
Karl Appuhn
16 Economic Encounters and the First Stages of a World Economy 279
John A. Marino
PART IV CULTURAL WORLDS 297
17 The Subcultures of the Renaissance World 299
David C. Gentilcore
18 High Culture 316
Ingrid D. Rowland
19 Religious Cultures 333
R. Po-chia Hsia
20 Art 349
Loren Partridge
21 Literature 366
James Grantham Turner
22 Political Ideas 384
John M. Najemy
23 The Scientific Renaissance 403
William Eamon
PART V ANTI-WORLDS 425
24 Plague, Disease, and Hunger 427
Mary Lindemann
25 Renaissance Bogeymen: The Necessary Monsters of the Age 444
Linda Woodbridge
26 Violence and Warfare in the Renaissance World 460
Thomas F. Arnold
27 Witchcraft and Magic 475
Guido Ruggiero
28 The Illicit Worlds of the Renaissance 491
Ian Frederick Moulton
Consolidated Bibliography 506
Index 543
