The Renaissance of Letters traces the multiplication of letter-writing practices between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Italian peninsula and beyond to explore the importance of letters as a crucial document for understanding the Italian Renaissance. This edited collection contains case studies, ranging from the late medieval re-emergence of letter-writing to the mid-seventeenth century, that offer a comprehensive analysis of the different dimensions of late medieval and Renaissance letters—literary, commercial, political, religious, cultural, social, and military—which transformed them into powerful early modern tools. The Renaissance was an era that put letters into the hands of many kinds of people, inspiring them to see reading, writing, receiving, and sending letters as an essential feature of their identity. The authors take a fresh look at the correspondence of some of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance, including Niccolò Machiavelli and Isabella d'Este, and consider the use of letters for others such as merchants and physicians. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Early Modern History and Literature, Renaissance Studies, and Italian Studies. The engagement with essential primary sources renders this book an indispensable tool for those teaching seminars on Renaissance history and literature.
We learn of their geographical and social origins, educational and professional training, travels, careers, standard of living, violent behaviour, and even their attitudes, beliefs, and ambitions."--BOOK JACKET.
Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects are and always have been central texts for the study of the Italian Renaissance. They can and should be read in many ways. Since their publication in the mid-sixteenth century, they have been a source of both information and pleasure. Their immediacy after more than four hundred years is a measure of Vasari's success. He wished the artists of his day, himself included, to be famous. He made the association of artistry and genius, of renaissance and the arts so familiar that they now seem inevitable. In this book Patricia Rubin argues that both the inevitability and the immediacy should be questioned. To read Vasari without historical perspective results in a limited and distorted view of The Lives. Rubin shows that Vasari had distinct ideas about the nature of his task as a biographer, about the importance of interpretation, judgment, and example - about the historian's art. Vasari's principles and practices as a writer are examined here, as are their sources in Vasari's experiences as an artist.
Agrippa's penetrating study of 'Occult Philosophy' is widely acknowledged as a significant contribution to the Renaissance philosophical discussion concerning the powers of magic and its relationship with religion. In a discriminating revival Agrippa pursued the 'natural' magic of Ficino and Pico, while relating it to Reuchlin's synthesis of magic and religion. Agrippa broadens the ideas he found in his sources to forge a much more comprehensive conception of the occult. The critical edition of De occulta philosophia clarifies a number of controversies about the interpretation of this magical work. More generally, this Renaissance 'magus' proves to be driven by a deep scholarly curiosity, which seeks to come to grips with the intellectual and religious problems of his time.
Through an examination of material and institutional circumstances, through the study of work shop practices and of technical and aesthetic experimentation, this book seeks to give an account of the ways in which Renaissance prints were realized, distributed, acquired, and handled by their public.
Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, accused of heresy by the Inquisition. His life took him from Italy to Northern Europe and England, and finally to Venice, where he was arrested. His six dialogues in Italian, which today are considered a turning point towards the philosophy and science of the modern world, were written during his visit to Elizabethan London, as a gentleman attendant to the French Ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. He died refusing to recant views which he defined as philosophical rather than theological, and for which he claimed liberty of expression. The papers in this volume derive from a conference held in London to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death. A number focus specifically on his experience in England, while others look at the Italian context of his thought and his impact upon others. Together they constitute a major new survey of the range of Bruno's philosophical activity, as well as evaluating his use of earlier cultural traditions and his influence on both contemporary and more modern themes and trends.
"Like the other volumes in the series, Music in the Renaissance brings a fresh perspective to the study of music by emphasizing social, cultural, intellectual, and political contexts of the music. Richard Freedman looks far beyond the notes on the page or the details of composers’ lives to embrace audiences, performers, institutions, and social settings. For example, the text shows how new technologies of music printing in the Renaissance permitted composers to align notation with sound, causing audiences accustomed to aural transmission to rethink the concept of a musical work."--Résumé du site web de l'éditeur.
The innovative work in design, typography, and content of music printer and publisher Ottaviano Petrucci (1446-1539) became the standard by which all following printers measured themselves. He created the defining moment when Italy took the lead in book printing in the Renaissance.This book is a bibliographic study of the output of the Petrucci presses, laying emphasis on the professional career of Petrucci. It includes a detailed study of technique and house-style, examining the market forces that drove Petrucci's publishing decisions, and provides a detailed catalogue of editions and copies.Stanley Boorman has made a study of the output of Petrucci's presses for 25 years. This long-awaited contribution to the field of bibliography will have an audience both in music and in rare book bibliography.