1st Edition

Culture and Politics in Early Renaissance Padua

By Benjamin G. Kohl Copyright 2001
    332 Pages
    by Routledge

    The essays collected here reflect the author's work over three decades on the history and cultural life of the early Renaissance in Italy, focusing upon the city of Padua. The first section opens with studies on the place of the humanist Petrarch in Paduan culture, then looks at the life, works and manuscript tradition of one of his principal followers, Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna. These are followed by articles on the art of Giusto de' Menabuoi and the changing use of the term 'studia humanitatis' in early Renaissance Italy. The second part, complementing the author's monograph on politics and society in Carrara Padua (1318-1405), seeks to illuminate the social composition and political values of the city's governing elite.

    Contents: Preface; Petrarch, Giovanni Conversini and Paduan culture: Petrarch's prefaces to De Viris Illustribus; Giovanni Conversini's Consolatio ad Donatum on the death of Petrarch; Mourners of Petrarch (in collaboration with James Day); The works of Giovanni di Conversino da Ravenna: a catalogue of manuscripts and editions; The manuscript tradition of some works of Giovanni da Ravenna; Readers and owners of an early work of Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna: New College, Oxford, MS D.155; Giusto de Menabuoi e il mecenatismo artistico in Padova; The changing concept of the Studia Humanitatis in the early Renaissance; Valerius Maximus in the 14th century: the commentary of Giovanni Conversini da Ravenna; Politics and society in Carrara Padua: The De Monarchia attributed to Apuleius (in collaboration with N.G. Siraisi); Government and society in Renaissance Padua; The Scrovegni in Carrara Padua and Enrico’s will; The Paduan élite under Francesco Novello da Carrara (1390-1405): a selected prosopography; Diplomatic dreams: marriage alliances of the Carrara dynasty in Trecento Padua; Addendum and corrigenda; Index.
    '... a complete and exhaustive picture of the interplay between culture and politics in early Renaissance Padua.' Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance