Description
Book SynopsisExplores the Renaissance movement known as humanism that spread from Italy eventually to all of Western Europe, transforming early modern culture in ways that are still being debated.
Trade Review“A splendid collection. Fubini’s studies offer a powerful and coherent account of Italian humanism from Petrarch to Valla. They make a strong case for the seriousness of humanism as an intellectual movement, rather than a simply literary or pedagogical one. They thus do us the important service of making our image of humanism at once more complex and more responsive to primary sources. . . . Fubini lays the basis for a whole new approach to humanist texts.”—Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
“Fubini is a major figure in the study of Italian humanism today. In this collection he addresses what has always been since Burckhardt a central issue in the interpretation of humanism, namely, to what extent and in what ways is the humanist movement responsible for secularizing Western cultural traditions at the end of the Middle Ages. His is an important voice urging us to see the full range and complexity of humanist attitudes to religion and helping us to situate the humanists more precisely vis a vis the Protestant Reformers and the Deists and philosophes of the Enlightenment.”—James Hankins, Harvard University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. Consciousness of the Latin Language among Humanists:
Did the Romans Speak Latin? 2. Humanist Intentions and Patristic References:
Some Thoughts on the Moral Writings of the Humanists 3. Poggio Bracciolini and San Bernardino:
The Themes and Motives of a Polemic 4. The Theater of the World in the Moral and Historical Thought of Poggio
5. An Analysis of Lorenzo Valla’s
De Voluptate: His Sojourn in Pavia and the Composition of the Dialogue Notes
Index
