Renaissance

Alison Brown is Emeritus Professor of Italian Renaissance History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work has focused on the history of Florence during the Medici and Savonarolan regimes and the revolution in political thinking and language at this time. Her most recent publications include The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence (2010) and Piero di Lorenzo de’ Medici and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy (2020).

• PART ONE: INTRODUCTION 1. The Problem of Interpretation 2. The Concept of Revival 3. Earlier Renaissances, 800-1300 PART TWO: CONTEXT: POLITICS AND RELIGION 4. Italian Communes and City-States, c. 1300 5. The Rise of Lordships and the Black Death 6. Florence, Venice and Naples 7. Rome and the Papacy PART THREE: RENAISSANCE PASSIONS 8. Petrarch: self-love and the love of books 9. New Schools 10. Liberty and Republicanism 11. Art and Architecture 12. Man the Measure of all things: humanism and gender 13. Religion ancient and modern PART FOUR: SOCIETY AND THE CIRCULATION OF NEW IDEAS 14. Commerce and the Classics in Europe and the East 15. Portugal, Spain and the New World 16. The Invention of Printing 17. Representation and the Renaissance Theatre PART FIVE: ASSESSMENT 18. Globalism and the Renaissance PART SIX: DOCUMENTS