Download or read book Renaissance in the Fields written by Duccio Balestracci and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1980s, Duccio Balestracci discovered in a Sienese archive two account books kept from 1450 to 1502 by a Tuscan peasant named Benedetto del Massarizia. Benedetto knew how to read but not how to write. Infected by the urban habit of detailed personal record keeping, he asked various of his literate acquaintances to put into writing the details of his daily affairs. The resulting account books offer an unparalleled glimpse into the economic and social world of late medieval peasants. In Renaissance in the Fields, Balestracci uses these account books and a host of supporting archival records to explore the lives of Benedetto and his family over the course of the fifteenth century. In Benedetto we see how country people could organize land and capital and protect themselves, at least a little, from rapacious landlords and urban administrators. By capturing the changing realities of life in the countryside, Renaissance in the Fields offers the best introduction to how the peasant economy really worked, and to how most people actually lived during the Italian Renaissance.
Download or read book The Darker Vision of the Renaissance written by Robert S. Kinsman and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2024-03-29 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Darker Vision of the Renaissance explores political, literary, social, religious, medical, and artistic events between 1300 and 1670 that led beyond the bounds of reason into the nonrational, irrational, and suprarational phenomena of the European Renaissance. Robert S. Kinsman’s introduction examines Renaissance uses of ratio, “fancy” and “folly,” melancholy, anxietas, and alienation. Lynn White Jr. presents the essential thesis of the collection in his view that the years 1300–1650 constituted one of the most psychically disturbed eras ever in European history. The “world-alienation” of the period is analyzed by Donald R. Howard, illustrated by two poems of the late fourteenth century: Gawain and the Green Knight and Toilus and Criseyde. The flourishing of hermetic, magical, cabalistic, and astrological practices in the Renaissance is described by John G. Burke. The gentleman and courtier’s physical and psychological tensions resulting from literal exile or from psychic alienation from his lesser fellows are investigated by Lauro Martines. An analysis of the “structures” of Renaissance mysticism is provided by Kees W. Bolle. Gilbert Reaney’s essay examines ratio as the basis for the “measured” music of the fourteenth century, against which the newer duple and triple rhythms that came into prominence in the later half of the century were assessed. An essay by Marc Bensimon concerns itself with Renaissance modes of perception—as illustrated in works of art, of literature, and of philosophic speculation—that seem shaped by primordial anxieties caused by the passing of time and the fear of death. The reflections of theological notions about the “dreadful hidden will of God” in such pieces as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus are given full background and perceptive treatment by Paul R. Sellin. Robert Kinsman concludes with his study “Folly, Melancholy, and Madness: Shifting Styles of Medical Analysis and Treatment, 1450–1675.” This title is part of UC Press’s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.
Download or read book Looking at the Renaissance written by Charles R. Mack and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Mack examines the evolving context of Renaissance art while offering fresh insight into the meaning of the Renaissance.
Download or read book Petrarch written by Christopher S. Celenza and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2022-08-22 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enlightening study of the contradictory character of this canonical fourteenth-century Italian poet. Born in Tuscany in 1304, Italian poet Francesco Petrarca is widely considered one of the fathers of the modern Italian language. Though his writings inspired the humanist movement and subsequently the Renaissance, Petrarch remains misunderstood. He was a man of contradictions—a Roman pagan devotee and a devout Christian, a lover of friendship and sociability, yet intensely private. In this biography, Christopher S. Celenza revisits Petrarch’s life and work for the first time in decades, considering how the scholar’s reputation and identity have changed since his death in 1374. He brings to light Petrarch’s unrequited love for his poetic muse, the anti-institutional attitude he developed as he sought a path to modernity by looking backward to antiquity, and his endless focus on himself. Drawing on both Petrarch’s Italian and Latin writings, this is a revealing portrait of a figure of paradoxes: a man of mystique, historical importance, and endless fascination. It is the only book on Petrarch suitable for students, general readers, and scholars alike.
Download or read book The Darker Side of the Renaissance written by Walter Mignolo and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the role of the book, the map, and the European concept of literacy in the conquest of the New World
Download or read book Illegitimacy in Renaissance Florence written by Thomas Kuehn and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the complex social and legal issues surrounding illegitimate offspring in Renaissance Florence
Download or read book Renaissance Characters written by Eugenio Garin and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-05-09 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance is brief—little more than two centuries, extending roughly from the mid-fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century—and largely confined to a few Italian city states. Nevertheless, the epoch marked a great cultural shift in sensibilities, the dawn of a new age in which classical Greek and Roman values were "reborn" and human values in all fields, from the arts to civic life, were reaffirmed. With this volume, Eugenio Garin, a leading Renaissance scholar, has gathered the work of an international team of scholars into an accessible account of the people who animated this decisive moment in the genesis of the modern mind. We are offered a broad spectrum of figures, major and minor, as they lived their lives: the prince and the military commander, the cardinal and the courtier, the artist and the philosopher, the merchant and the banker, the voyager, and women of all classes. With its concentration on the concrete, the specific, even the anecdotal, the volume offers a wealth of new perspectives and ideas for study.
Download or read book A Boccaccian Renaissance written by Martin Eisner and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together essays written by internationally recognized scholars in diverse national traditions to respond to the largely unaddressed question of Boccaccio’s impact on early modern literature and culture in Italy and Europe. Martin Eisner and David Lummus co-edit the first comprehensive examination in English of Boccaccio’s impact on the Renaissance. The essays investigate what it means to follow a Boccaccian model, in tandem with or in place of ancient authors such as Vergil or Cicero, or modern poets such as Dante or Petrarch. The book probes how deeply the Latin and vernacular works of Boccaccio spoke to the Renaissance humanists of the fifteenth century. It treats not only the literary legacy of Boccaccio’s works but also their paradoxical importance for the history of the Italian language and reception in theater and books of conduct. While the geographical focus of many of the essays is on Italy, the volume concludes with three studies that open new inroads to understanding his influence on Spanish, French, and English writers across the sixteenth century. The book will appeal strongly to scholars and students of Boccaccio, the Italian and European Renaissance, and Italian literature. Contributors: Jonathan Combs-Schilling, Rhiannon Daniels, Martin Eisner, Simon Gilson, James Hankins, Timothy Kircher, Victoria Kirkham, David Lummus, Ronald L. Martinez, Ignacio Navarrete, Brian Richardson, Marc Schachter, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr
Download or read book The Renaissance Cities written by Norbert Wolf and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luxurious and definitive exploration of how and why the Renaissance flourished in Italy for two centuries. The idea of “renaissance,” or rebirth, arose in Italy as a way of reviving the art, science, and scholarship of the Classical era. It was also powered by a quest to document artistic “reality” according to newly discovered scientific and mathematical principles. By the late 15th century, Italy had become the recognized European leader in the fields of painting, architecture, and sculpture. But why was Florence the center of this burgeoning creativity, and how did it spread to other Italian cities? Brimming with vivid reproductions of works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and others, this book showcases the creative achievements that traveled from Florence to Rome to Venice. Art historian Norbert Wolf explores the influence of secular and religious patronage on artistic development; how the urban structure and way of life allowed for such a rich exchange of ideas; and how ideas of humanism informed artists reaching toward the future while clinging to the ideals of the past. Insightful, accessible, and fascinating, this thoroughly researched book highlights the connections and mutual influences of Florence, Rome, and Venice as well as their intriguing rivalries and interdependencies.
Download or read book Building the Italian Renaissance written by Paula Kay Lazrus and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building the Italian Renaissance focuses on the competition to select a team to execute the final architectural challenge of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore--the erection of its dome. Although the model for the dome was widely known, the question of how this was to be accomplished was the great challenge of the age. This dome would be the largest ever built. This is foremost a technical challenge but it is also a philosophical one. The project takes place at an important time for Florence. The city is transitioning from a High Medieval world view into the new dynamics and ideas and will lead to the full flowering of what we know as the Renaissance. Thus the competition at the heart of this game plays out against the background of new ideas about citizenship, aesthetics, history (and its application to the present), and new technology. The central challenge is to expose players to complex and multifaceted situations and to individuals that animated life in Florence in the early 1400s. Humanism as a guiding philosophy is taking root and scholars are looking for ways to link the mercantile city to the glories of Rome and to the wisdom of the ancients across many fields. The aesthetics of the classical world (buildings, plastic arts and intellectual pursuits) inspired wonder, perhaps even envy, but the new approaches to the past by scholars such as Petrarch suggested that perhaps the creative classes are not simply crafts people, but men of ideas. Three teams compete for the honor to construct the dome, a project overseen by the Arte Della Lana (wool workers guild) and judged by them and a group of Florentine citizens who are merchants, aristocrats, learned men, and laborers. Their goal is to make the case for the building to live up to the ideals of Florence. The game gives students a chance to enter into the world of Florence in the early 1400s to develop an understanding of the challenges and complexity of such a major artistic and technical undertaking while providing an opportunity to grasp the interdisciplinary nature of major public works.
Download or read book Rereading the Renaissance written by Carol E. Quillen and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rereading the Renaissance - a study of Petrarch's uses of Augustine - uses methods drawn from history and literary criticism to establish a framework for exploring Petrarch's humanism. Carol Everhart Quillen argues that the essential role of Augustine's words and authority in the expression of Petrarch's humanism is best grasped through a study of the complex textual practices exemplified in the writings of both men. She also maintains that Petrarch's appropriation of Augustine's words is only intelligible in light of his struggle to legitimate his cultural ideals in the face of compelling opposition. Finally, Quillen shows how Petrarch's uses of Augustine can simultaneously uphold his humanist ideals and challenge the legitimacy of the assumptions on which those ideals were founded.
Download or read book The Book in the Renaissance written by Andrew Pettegree and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dawn of print was a major turning point in the early modern world. It rescued ancient learning from obscurity, transformed knowledge of the natural and physical world, and brought the thrill of book ownership to the masses. But, as Andrew Pettegree reveals in this work of great historical merit, the story of the post-Gutenberg world was rather more complicated than we have often come to believe. The Book in the Renaissance reconstructs the first 150 years of the world of print, exploring the complex web of religious, economic, and cultural concerns surrounding the printed word. From its very beginnings, the printed book had to straddle financial and religious imperatives, as well as the very different requirements and constraints of the many countries who embraced it, and, as Pettegree argues, the process was far from a runaway success. More than ideas, the success or failure of books depended upon patrons and markets, precarious strategies and the thwarting of piracy, and the ebb and flow of popular demand. Owing to his state-of-the-art and highly detailed research, Pettegree crafts an authoritative, lucid, and truly pioneering work of cultural history about a major development in the evolution of European society.
Download or read book Chicago Renaissance written by Liesl Olson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating history of Chicago’s innovative and invaluable contributions to American literature and art from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century This remarkable cultural history celebrates the great Midwestern city of Chicago for its centrality to the modernist movement. Author Liesl Olson traces Chicago’s cultural development from the 1893 World’s Fair through mid-century, illuminating how Chicago writers revolutionized literary forms during the first half of the twentieth century, a period of sweeping aesthetic transformations all over the world. From Harriet Monroe, Carl Sandburg, and Ernest Hemingway to Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks, Olson’s enthralling study bridges the gap between two distinct and equally vital Chicago-based artistic “renaissance” moments: the primarily white renaissance of the early teens, and the creative ferment of Bronzeville. Stories of the famous and iconoclastic are interwoven with accounts of lesser-known yet influential figures in Chicago, many of whom were women. Olson argues for the importance of Chicago’s editors, bookstore owners, tastemakers, and ordinary citizens who helped nurture Chicago’s unique culture of artistic experimentation. Cover art by Lincoln Schatz
Download or read book The Newberry Library written by Newberry Library and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Renaissance Bazaar written by Jerry Brotton and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-05-22 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than ever before, the Renaissance stands as one of the defining moments in world history. Between 1400 and 1600, European perceptions of society, culture, politics and even humanity itself emerged in ways that continue to affect not only Europe but the entire world. This wide-ranging exploration of the Renaissance sees the period as a time of unprecedented intellectual excitement and cultural experimentation and interaction on a global scale, alongside a darker side of religion, intolerance, slavery, and massive inequality of wealth and status. It guides the reader through the key issues that defined the period, from its art, architecture, and literature, to advancements in the fields of science, trade, and travel. In its incisive account of the complexities of the political and religious upheavals of the period, the book argues that Europe's reciprocal relationship with its eastern neighbours offers us a timely perspective on the Renaissance as a moment of global inclusiveness that still has much to teach us today.
Download or read book The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy written by Abigail Brundin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy explores the rich devotional life of the Italian household between 1450 and 1600. Rejecting the enduring stereotype of the Renaissance as a secular age, this interdisciplinary study reveals the home to have been an important site of spiritual revitalization. Books, buildings, objects, spaces, images, and archival sources are scrutinized to cast new light on the many ways in which religion infused daily life within the household. Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences such as miracles and visions, frequently took place at home amid the joys and trials of domestic life — from childbirth and marriage to sickness and death. Breaking free from the usual focus on Venice, Florence, and Rome, The Sacred Home investigates practices of piety across the Italian peninsula, with particular attention paid to the city of Naples, the Marche, and the Venetian mainland. It also looks beyond the elite to consider artisanal and lower-status households, and reveals gender and age as factors that powerfully conditioned religious experience. Recovering a host of lost voices and compelling narratives at the intersection between the divine and the everyday, The Sacred Home offers unprecedented glimpses through the keyhole into the spiritual lives of Renaissance Italians.
Download or read book The A to Z of the Renaissance written by Charles G. Nauert and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2006-02-23 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few periods have given civilization such a strong impulse as the Renaissance, which started in Italy and then spread to the rest of Europe. During its brief epoch, most vigorously from the fourteen to the sixteenth centuries, Europe reached back to Ancient Greece and Rome, and pushed ahead in numerous fields: art, architecture, literature, philosophy, banking, commerce, religion, politics, and warfare. This era is inundated with famous names (Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Cervantes, and Shakespeare), and the heritage it left can hardly be overestimated. The A to Z of the Renaissance provides information on these fields through its chronology, which traces events from 1250 to 1648, and its introduction delineating the underlying features of the period. However, it is the dictionary section, with hundreds of cross-referenced entries on famous persons (from Adrian to Zwingli), key locations, supporting political and social institutions, wars, religious reformations, achievements, and failures, which is the heart of this book. Further research is facilitated by the bibliography.
