Description
Book SynopsisEssays demonstrating the importance and inflence of Italian culture on medieval Britain. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the rise of international trade, the growth of towns and cities, and the politics of diplomacy all helped to foster productive and far-reaching connections and cultural interactionsbetween Britain and Italy; equally, the flourishing of Italian humanism from the late fourteenth century onwards had a major impact on intellectual life in Britain. The aim of this book is to illustrate the continuity andthe variety of these exchanges during the period. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (book collection, historiography, banking, commerce, literary production), highlighting the significance of the productive interchange ofpeople and ideas across diverse cultural communities; it is the lived experience of individuals, substantiated by written evidence, that shapes the book's collective understanding of how two European cultures interacted with eachother so fruitfully. MICHELE CAMPOPIANO is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; HELEN FULTON is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol. Contributors: Helen Bradley, Margaret Bridges, Michele Campopiano, Carolyn Collette, Victoria Flood, Helen Fulton, Bart Lambert, Ignazio del Punta
Trade Review[T]hese essays succeed admirably in assessing specific aspects of English economic, political, religious, and cultural life * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY *
[A]n excellent collection. -- David Wallace * Speculum *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Historical and Literary Connections between Britain and Italyin the Middle Ages - Michele Campopiano Writing, Translating and Imagining Italy in the Polychronicon - Margaret Bridges Richard de Bury, Petrarch and Avignon - Carolyn P Collette Roman Law in the North: York and Italian Juridical and Political Thinkers, c. 1380-1414 - Michele Campopiano Italian Firms in Late Medieval England and their Bankruptcy: Re-reading an Old History of Financial Crisis - Ignazio Del Punta 'Nostri Fratelli da Londra': The Lucchese Community in Late Medieval England - Bart Lambert 'Saluti da Londra': Italian Merchants in the City of London in the Late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries - Helen Bradley Political Joachism and the English Franciscans: The Rumour of Richard II's Return - Victoria Flood Urban History in Medieval and Early Modern Britain: The Influence of Classical and Italian Models - Helen Fulton Afterword: The Nature of Anglo-Italian Cultural Exchanges - Helen Fulton Bibliography Index
