Renaissance Humanism

This article explores the impact of Catholic confessionalism on humanist scholarship by focusing on the edition of Augustine of Hippo’s collected works produced by the Leuven theologians in 1577–8. This edition replaced Erasmus’ controversial version and claimed to provide an authoritative, Catholic text. Yet an analysis of the paratextual presentation shows that the result was a neutralised Augustine, rather than a paragon of Tridentine Catholicism. The editors avoid controversial theology, while silently copying substantial parts of Erasmus’ censurae and marginal notes. Local politics and publishing interests explain the intriguing survival of Erasmus and exemplify the disparate implementation of Trent in Catholic Europe.

John Skelton is a central literary figure and the leading poet during the first thirty years of Tudor rule. Nevertheless, he remains challenging and even contradictory for modern audiences.

This book aims to provide an authoritative guide to this complex poet and his works, setting him in his historical, religious, and social contexts. Beginning with an exploration of his life and career, it goes on to cover all the major aspects of his poetry, from the literary traditions in which he wrote and the form of his compositions to the manuscript contexts and later reception. Contributors: Tom Betteridge, Julia Boffey, John Burrow, David Carlson, Helen Cooper, Elisabeth Dutton, A.S.G. Edwards, Jane Griffiths, Nadine Kuipers, Carol Meale, John Scattergood, Sebastian Sobecki, Greg Waite

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A headless herm of Menander is stored in the Museum of Antiquity of Turin. A long Greek inscription of thirteen lines is laying on. The modern history of Menander's herm begins with sixtheenth century humanists who first mentioned it and recalls also the ambitious projects of Carlo Emanuele I, Duke of Savoy, who bought it in the early seventheenth century. A renewed autopsy and a new edition of the text led to reading improvements and innovative conclusions on the artifact's history and its inscribed text.

Grazie all’opera di artisti e intellettuali, nel Rinascimento emerge una consapevolezza inedita del divenire storico che favorisce il culto del nuovo nelle arti, in letteratura, in filologia e nelle scienze. Il nuovo prendeva il posto del culto, una liturgia umana subentrava a quella divina. Questa rivoluzione tocca anche la cultura ebraica, motore e agente di un rinnovamento senza precedenti. Lo studio di Giuseppe Veltri ricostruisce la vita intellettuale ebraica nel Rinascimento italiano ed europeo, mettendo in luce momenti salienti del dibattito del tempo: la coscienza storica del divenire e la secolarizzazione, la funzione della poesia dantesca come ponte fra mondo ebraico e mondo cristiano, l’uso del volgare come simbolo del connubio delle diverse tradizioni, la nascita del criticismo, l’atteggiamento scettico come strategia e sintomo della crisi politica e intellettuale, il dibattito sull’immortalità dell’anima.

This article analyzes the De Bellis Gothorum, a long neglected and misunderstood history of the ancient Goths written in 1472–73 by Nicholas of Modruš, the leading Croatian-Illyrian bishop at the papal curia. By placing the work in its proper context, this article reconstructs a previously unknown episode in the political history of the fifteenth-century Adriatic. It is argued that the De Bellis Gothorum was in fact a national history that was meant to provide a trans-Adriatic network of Croatian and Bosnian nobles and churchmen with support from Naples and the papacy for their border wars against the Ottomans and reestablishment of their national kingdom.

This ambitious book is about a way of building that for centuries dominated the making of monumental architecture – yet now not only is it lost as practice, knowledge of its very existence is consigned to oblivion. In pre-modern Europe, the architect built not just with imagination, brick and mortar, but with time, using vast quantities of duration to erect monumental buildings that otherwise would have been impossible. Not mere medieval muddling-through, this entailed a sophisticated set of norms and practices. Virtually all the great cathedrals of Europe were built under this regime. In particular, the major works of pre-modern Italy, from the Pisa cathedral group to the new St Peter’s – the apotheosis of the practice – are thus cast in an entirely new light.  Even as ‘Building-in-Time’ flourished, the fifteenth-century Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti proposed a new temporal regime whereby time would ideally be excluded from the making of architecture (‘Building-outside-Time’). Planning and building, which had formed one fluid, imbricated process, were to be sharply divided, and the change that always came with time excluded from architectural facture. Ironically, it was Brunelleschi, as creator of the cupola of Florence cathedral and one of the supreme practitioners of Building-in-Time, who was the lynchpin of Alberti’s turn to the arts in the mid-1430s. That he arrived in Florence just at the moment Brunelleschi’s dome was being completed was crucial to Alberti’s subsequent career in visual culture.  In telling this story, Trachtenberg rewrites the history of medieval and Renaissance architecture in Italy and recasts the turn to modernity in new terms. Recovering this lost element allows us also to see the present in a new way: temporality is not a neutral or secondary factor in modern architecture culture, but an epistemic condition that silently affects all production and experience of the built environment.

BISLAM. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Recentiorisque Aevi. II Censimento onomastico e letterario degli autori latini del medioevo. Identificazione, classificazione per genere letterario e bibliografia fondamentale è un repertorio onomastico, biografico, bibliografico e storico-letterario della letteratura mediolatina. Il volume offre agli studiosi e ai catalogatori un ausilio alla risoluzione dei problemi di identificazione degli autori attivi tra la fine del V e l’inizio del XVI secolo, fornendo sintetiche notizie biografiche, un elenco delle varianti dei loro nomi in latino e nelle lingue moderne, nonché un primo orientamento bibliografico, con l'indicazione dei principali generi letterari delle loro opere. Gli strumenti di ricerca dei quali è dotato il cd-rom che correda l’opera permettono un rapido reperimento delle informazioni contenute nel volume, consentendo anche di incrociare numerosi parametri onomastici, biografici, cronologici e storico-letterari. Con questa nuova edizione della Bibliotheca Scriptorum Latinorum Medii Recentiorisque Aevi, la Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino porta a compimento la pubblicazione dei risultati di dodici anni di ricerca che hanno prodotto il catalogo bio-bibliografico, onomastico e letterario degli autori latini del medioevo. Essa comprende 13.174 voci su altrettanti autori e 83.124 varianti dei loro nomi. Mentre la prima edizione, pubblicata nel 2003, censiva circa 5.300 autori e 12.500 varianti nominali, questa edizione, che comprende la prima al suo interno, va ampiamente oltre, non soltanto per il numero di autori trattati, ma per la quantità di informazioni offerte su ciascuno di essi. Infatti, oltre alle diverse forme dei nomi, fornisce anche le date nelle quali essi furono attivi, l'indicazione dei momenti più importanti della loro carriera, dei generi letterari che hanno praticato e brevi note che spiegano i principali problemi di identificazione e di attribuzione delle loro opere. Ciascuna notizia è corredata dei riferimenti alle fonti consultate. Le informazioni presenti sono il risultato dello spoglio integrale di 47 repertori specialistici, scelti per affidabilità e completezza. I dati estratti sono stati valutati criticamente e corretti conformemente agli studi recenti più autorevoli, integrandoli con un numero quanto mai ampio di edizioni, saggi specialistici, enciclopedie, bibliografie e cataloghi. Corredata da un cd-rom, l’opera si configura attualmente come il più esauriente repertorio onomastico e bio-bibliografico sugli autori della letteratura latina medievale.

Monarchia della verità indaga una componente ideologica fondamentale della Controriforma: l’ossessione ecclesiastica per la 'veritas', concepita nella versione dogmatica di 'doctrina' e ortodossia in opposizione alla formulazione umanistica della 'veritas' come ricerca. Da Poggio Bracciolini a Montaigne, gli umanisti esprimono un concetto di 'religio' coincidente con la ricerca stessa della verità, rinunciando a definizioni esclusive o dogmatiche e astenendosi da difese di carattere polemico o controversistico. I teologi adottano invece il concetto dogmatico di 'doctrina', identificando la 'veritas' nell’ortodossia e favorendo il formarsi di un clima di oscurantismo clericale e di generale intolleranza nei confronti dell’autonomia umanistica, dell’individualismo religioso e del libero pensiero, con Valla, Erasmo e Machiavelli in testa.
In questo libro l’autore prende in esame il primato normativo della verità nella Chiesa del Cinquecento e del primo Seicento con lo scopo di illustrare modelli culturali e pedagogici della Controriforma e rilevarne i miti: cronotassi pontificia, agiografia e culto delle reliquie, concetto eroico del documento, didattica figurativa, giurisdizione curiale, temporalismo papale. Tuttavia, la sopravvivenza della tradizione umanistica e il suo confrontarsi dialetticamente con le culture dogmatiche di Riforma e Controriforma si evidenziano in momenti significativi della storia culturale e religiosa della prima età moderna: in particolare, nel dibattito europeo 'de puniendis haereticis' originato dal tragico rogo di Michele Serveto, nel ricorso all’elemento storico in sede di polemica confessionale, nei processi di Bruno e Galilei e nelle discussioni sulla 'libertas investigandi', nel nicodemismo di artisti, scienziati e anticlericali cristiani, infine nella ripresa – specialmente in Olanda e nelle aree della diaspora sociniana – del pacifismo erasmiano e dell’utopismo di Thomas More, associati alla critica del Valla e all’irenismo di Sebastiano Castellione. Un esempio insigne è la proposta irenica di Jakob Arminius, calvinista di cultura umanistica, formulata a Leida nel 1605 con l’intento di superare i contrasti tra cristiani e realizzare la pacificazione sociale e religiosa.

Il 29 luglio del 1473 approdò sulla scena perugina un antico anello di calcedonio, che la tradizione venerava come il pegno delle nozze di san Giuseppe con Maria di Nazaret. Prelevato in circostanze non del tutto chiare dalla cittadina di Chiusi, l'anello venne riparato nella cappella del palazzo dei Priori, in attesa che si completassero i lavori di ampliamento della cattedrale, dove fu trasferito il 31 luglio del 1488.

Per accedere alla "reliquia", racchiusa da uno splendido reliquiario cinquecentesco custodito in un forziere del 1473, occorrono ben quattordici chiavi che, custodite dalle massime autorità civili ed ecclesiastiche, ogni anno convergono in cattedrale nel giorno dell'ostensione, a simbolo e testimonianza di una sinergia che, oggi come allora, coinvolge la devozione verso uno dei "tesori" più preziosi della città di Perugia.

The Renaissance was a period in European history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It was the period of revival in different spheres of life. The period is so named because it is marked with a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman culture. It originated in Italy and spread throughout Europe. The philosophy of Humanism was a key element that helped to shape the artistic development of the Italian Renaissance. It fostered the idea that an individual's faith was not totally governed by institutional religion, thereby freeing artists from the influence of the clergy. We see the influence of the humanistic ideas in art, poetry, literature and architectures of this period

This dissertation seeks to define the importance of John Dee’s interpretation of mediaeval and Renaissance esoterica regarding the contacting of daemons and its evolution into a body of astrological and terrestrial correspondences and intelligences that included a Biblical primordial language, or a lingua adamica. The intention and transmission of John Dee’s angel magic is linked to the philosophy outlined in his earlier works, most notably the Monas Hieroglyphica, and so this dissertation also provides a philosophical background to Dee’s angel magic. The aim of this dissertation is to establish Dee’s conversations with angels as a magic system that is a direct descendant of Solomonic and Ficinian magic with unique Kabbalistic elements. It is primarily by the Neoplatonic, Hermetic, Kabbalistic, and alchemical philosophy presented in the Monas Hieroglyphica that interest in Dee’s angel magic was transmitted through the Rosicrucian movement. Through Johann Valentin Andreae’s Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459, the emphasis on a spiritual, inner alchemy became attached to Dee’s philosophy. Figures such as Elias Ashmole, Ebenezer Sibley, Francis Barret, and Frederick Hockley were crucial in the transmission of interest in Dee’s practical angel magic and Hermetic philosophy to the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The rituals of the Golden Dawn utilized Dee’s angel magic, in addition to creative Kabbalistic elements, to form a singular practice that has influenced Western esoterica of the modern age. This study utilizes a careful analysis of primary sources including the original manuscripts of the Sloane archives, the most recent scholarly editions of Dee’s works, authoritative editions of original documents linked to Rosicrucianism, and Israel Regardie’s texts on Golden Dawn practices.

Besides showing a strong interest in ancient Rome and its institutions, 15th century historiography gives a special place to the theme of the Western Roman Empire’s decline. In this light, some sections of the Laudatio Florentinae urbis and the Historiae Florentini populi by Leonardo Bruni as well as of the Decades by Biondo Flavio deserve mention. Unlike Bruni’s works, where the first cause of Rome’s decline was identified in the rejection of the republican model and the exercise of freedom that had embodied its foundations, Biondo’s treatises reveal the inclination to focus from a more structured perspective on the process which led to the end of ancient Rome’s Empire, without looking for a univocal cause. In general, beyond some parallel points of view between the two authors, such as, among others, a positive evaluation of Theodosius’ reign and the idea that, thanks to Rome’s decline, the conditions that allowed other cities in the Italian peninsula to later increase autonomously were created, Biondo’s considerations more particularly show a longue durée historiographical approach and the tendency to perceive Late Antiquity as an important transition phase as well as to remark the meaningfulness of some crucial historical episodes which characterized it.

Par une analyse lexicale systématique il est possible de reconnaître dans l’œuvre de Nostradamus plusieurs éléments sémiologiques appartenant au registre d’un syndrome obsessionnel associé au domaine autistique. Une étude comparative des Prophéties avec sa Lettre XLI permet aussi de confirmer que cette œuvre est celle d’un personnage mystique souffrant de singularités psycho-linguistiques ayant rendu son expression incompréhensible pendant longtemps. Mais l’exploitation des dernières connaissances scientifiques en neuro-psychiatrie appliquée aux domaines littéraire, historique et religieux autorise maintenant une bien meilleure intelligibilité des obscurités nostradamiennes. Refuser d’emprunter ce chemin escarpé conduit aussi à préfèrer la magie à la science, l’illusion au raisonnement critique et l’erreur à la pertinence. L’auteur démontre aussi que le médecin apothicaire, ayant lui-même déclaré souffrir de comitialité, laisse supposer avoir eu recours à une pharmacopée anxiolytique encore inconnue pour calmer ses troubles obsessionnels avivés par les turbulences d’une époque violemment agitée. Concernant l’astrologie, il appert que l’expression littéraire de cette Lettre adressée à un ami alchimiste s’accorde précisément avec une sémantique allégorique obsessionnelle, et non pas avec un délire matérialiste et profane. Éprouvant l’infernale désunion du lien social spirituel, l’enfant de marranes pronostiquait son évolution selon un schéma déjà scénarisé depuis l’Antiquité par les historiens et les philosophes. De tout cela il apparaît également que les quatrains excessivement redondants des Prophéties n’ont recyclé qu’un très petit nombre de prédictions publiées antérieurement par des auteurs déjà connus.

The paper focuses on the interpretation of Roman Italy and its geographical borders in the Early Modern period, with particular attention to its rebirth in Biondo Flavio’s work - Key words: Italia romana, historical borders, regiones, Augustus, Pliny the Younger, Decretum Rubiconis, Alpine districts, Augusta Praetoria,  tropaeum Alpium, La Turbie, Aquileia, Histria, river Formio,  Tridentum.

The tale of a meeting between Leonardo and Savonarola in the summer of 1495, later reported by Vasari (1550 and 1568) but confirmed by a memorandum remained in Leonardo's possession (Codex Atlanticus, f. 628 r), which refers explicitly to a "mission" assigned to him (presumably by Ludovico Sforza) to go to Florence, in order to get (through a competent mediator, probably Bernardo Rucellai) a detailed report about the new political rules promoted by the friar, lends credibility to a hypothesis of comparison between their anthropological conceptions, especially as they emerge from their "transfigured" use of the prophetic semantics, despite their shared repudiation of astrological quackery. If, on the one
hand, Savonarola's preaching does not have any properly predictive character, in terms of intentional "divination", standing rather as a projection or representation of the contingency of the current days, in purely political terms, Leonardo's riddles, which he literally called "prophecies", on the other hand - and similarly - transform the genre of presages or predictions into entertainment tools for courtly audiences, that, however, in some cases, become a vehicle for a critical evaluation of the troubles of contemporary society. The likelihood that, on the occasion of his convocation in Florence in 1495, Leonardo was able to listen to Savonarola's sermons, so steeped in apocalyptic prophecy, may provide an
explanation to the appearance of writings called "prophecies", among his notes, just in the last five years of the century. Their underlying vision of man, clearly pessimistic, offers significant points of contact with the negative anthropology advocated by Savonarola's preaching, which also makes use of animal apology, especially in the conceptual and ideological interpretation of the "anti-human" conflictuality among men, that makes them "beasts" towards themselves, in a sort of anticipation of Hobbes' famous motto homo homini
lupus.

Se indaga el sentido de la conferencia de Sloterdijk
“Normas para el Parque humano” así como las
polémicas por ella suscitada. Se realiza un diagnóstico
de la capacidad crítica del humanismo tradicional. En el
marco del naufragio del humanismo como escuela y
utopía domesticadora humana -marco en el que
Sloterdijk reclama una revisión genético-técnica de la
humanidad- se indaga ¿qué criterios pueden
establecerse para normar las inevitables luchas por los
derechos de la crianza humana? ¿Quiénes y sobre qué
bases debieran hoy detentar el derecho a la crianza?
¿Cómo determinar quiénes son los que educan y los que
son educados? Se proponen nuevos caminos que
tienen en la mediación de la técnica su formulación
discursiva y sus orígenes en las disidencias que, desde
la propia tradición filosófica, reducían la estancia del
hombre en el mundo a su expresión leída y escrita.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE (published November 26, 2016) constitutes the third edition of the THE RENAISSANCE IN EUROPE first published in 2005 (London: Laurence King; New York: McGraw-Hill). Attached are final proofs of the front matter, including Table of Contents and Introduction. The blurb from the original edition: Usually portrayed as a period dominated by the extraordinary achievements of great men, leading scholar Margaret L. King recasts the Renaissance as a more complex cultural movement rooted in a unique urban society that was itself the product of many factors and interactions. These included commerce, papal and imperial ambitions, artistic patronage, scientific discovery, aristocratic and popular violence, legal precedents, peasant migrations, famine, plague and invasion. Together with literary and artistic achievements, therefore, today's Renaissance history includes the study of power, wealth, gender, class, honour, shame, ritual and other categories of historical investigation opened up in recent years. Incorporating the most recent research, Professor King traces the diffusion of the Renaissance from Italy to the rest of Europe.

Il saggio intende dimostrare che, subito dopo la pubblicazione, da parte di Alberico Gentili, dei De iuris interpretibus Dialogi sex (1582) e delle Lectiones et Epistolae (1583-1584) i rapporti fra Jean Hotman e il giurista di San Ginesio divennero molto difficili e burrascosi. Lo dimostrano alcune epistole scritte da Hotman ad autorevoli giuristi (ad es. Bodin), e ad alcuni umanisti (Bergmann, Payne, Cuffe, Th. Savile) contenenti critiche molto dure e severe ai Dialogi gentiliani. Malgrado ciò, e malgrado le opposizioni dei puritani, Gentili riuscirà ad ottenere la cattedra di Civil Law a Oxford.Il saggio contiene anche notizie circa il tentativo compiuto, dal Gentili, di ottenere un insegnamento a Tubinga nel 1580.

Yüzyıllar boyunca kültürler, bu korkunç gizemi tanınır kılmak için ölümü karakterize etti. Modern bilim, biyolojik süreçlerini ifşa ederek ölümün gizemini çözdü, ancak geriye birçok soru kaldı. Ölümü incelemek, acımasız bir kaderin hastalıklı bir hatırlatıcısı olmak değil, yaşayanların yaşamlarını iyileştirmenin bir yoludur[1].

This is the first of several discourses for all intellectuals about dogma, mental expansion and the liberation of intellect.  “For intellectuals, spiritual progress is always delayed, and the reason is this – that their intellectual body goes on increasing,” according to P. R. Sarkar, “but for want of the apexed mentality, the goal remains far away. But when the intellectual body is highly enlarged, it is sure to become one with the Macrocosm. And when this enlarged ectoplasmic structure becomes one with the Cosmic ectoplasmic structure, certainly a person will feel his oneness with the Supreme.” P. R. Sarkar, (1921-1990), was a spiritual teacher (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) in the tradition of Shiva and Krishna, who founded Renaissance Universal to promote a new global renaissance, and who founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (“the Path of Bliss”).  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, May 6, 2021.

This paper aims to revisit two of William Shakespeare's works: Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet in order to provide a feminist reading which examines his female characters further. As a Renaissance playwright, Shakespeare is fascinated by adding classical Greek elements in his own work; thus, he believes that tragedy is the epitome of literature and that beauty is to be idolized and sometimes feared. Combining both attributes, Shakespeare seems to be bewitched by killing most of his fair characters, especially women; to crown them as more impeccable, beautiful, and tragic. Using the concept of "angel of death," first scored by Alexander Welsh and further explained by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, this paper inspects and discusses the repetitive dramatized death of Shakespeare's most prominent beautiful female figures: Juliet and Ophelia.

Named after the youngest of the Parcae, Clotho got its name after the deity responsible for spinning the thread of life; thus the journal seeks to create a new space of creativity, exploration, and learning in the field of classical studies. Wilamowitz famously defined classical scholarship “by its subject-matter – Graeco-Roman civilization in its essence and in every facet of its existence.” Following in those footsteps, Clotho welcomes exploring Greek and Latin language – lexicography, grammar, and the broader issues of linguistics. It seeks to investigate the traditional fields of classical studies, literature, textual criticism, rhetoric, philosophy, and history; as well as archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy, papyrology, and paleography. Above all, the journal is committed to the idea of interdisciplinarity. As such, it accepts antiquity-related contributions from the spheres of art, music, science, religion, and law; as well as the classical tradition and classical reception, history of classical scholarship, and last but foremost, translation.

The paper is an analysis of a funeral oration by Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584). The oration was written for the funeral of Kochanowski's brother, Kacper in 1577. The author analyses the speech as a sample of a rhetorical genre belonging to the genus demonstrativum. He also puts the speech in the context of poetical works by Kochanowski.