Including the most recent scholarship on the history of the Renaissance, this book examines politics, society, identity, gender, religion and science, and focuses on not only Italian developments in this crucial period of change, but also on aspects in Germany, France and England.
With contributions from the most highly regarded scholars in the field, the book studies humanists, artists and people and explores how how these people and places helped shape modernity.
From the history of the body, to the new ways of thinking about the relation of culture to power, students of the Renaissance will find this an essential addition to their reading lists.
1 Introduction - The Renaissance: Between Myth and History - John Jeffries Martin Part 1: The Renaissance paradigm in crisis 2. The Renaissance and the Drama of Western History - William James Bouwsma Part 2: Politics, language and power 3. The Dialogue of Power in Florentine Politics - John M. Najemy 4. The 'Baron Thesis' - James Hankins 5. Geographies of Power: the Territorial State in Early Modern Italy - Elena Fasano Guarini Part 3: Individualism, identity and gender 6. Burcjhardy Revisited from Social History - Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. 7. Psychoanalysis and Renaissance Culture - Stephen Greenblatt 8. Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy - Michael Rocke 9. The Single Self: Feminist Thought and the Marriage Market in Early Modern Venice - Virginia Cox Part 4: Art, Science and Humanism 10. Historia and Istoria: Alberti's Terminology in Context - Anthony Grafton 11. The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy - Katharine Park 12. Friendship Portrayed: a New Account of Utopia - David Wootton Part 5. Religion: Tradition and Innovation 13. The Virgin on the Street Corner: the Place of the Sacred in Italian Cities - Edward Muir 14. 'Civilized religion': from Renaissance to Reformation and Counter-Reformation - Euan Cameron
Biography
John Jeffries Martin
'This is a most welcome volume for students of the Renaissance. The essays collected here are of high quality and they fit together well, illustrating both the diversity of Renaissance culture and the variety of scholarly approaches to it. It would be a pleasure to teach a course on the basis of this collection.'- - Peter Burke, University of Cambridge
'This volume brings together a group of stimulating articles by distinguished scholars, each offering an original, penetrating view of the major issues confronting the Renaissance historian. It serves as a uniquely valuable introduction to the major debates in the field for anyone who wishes to know more about a fascinating and complex era that formed the basis for the modern age.'- Patricia Fortini Brown, Princeton University
