Pythagoras and Renaissance Europe

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier is an internationally known and distinguished scholar. A three-times graduate of Harvard, she has published extensively in research journals, conference proceedings, and international catalogues on subjects ranging from classical literature to medieval architecture to Renaissance art and intellectual history. A recipient of grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities among others, she is the author of Jacopo Bellini: Selected Drawings, Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura: Meaning and Invention, and Measuring Heaven: Pythagoras and His Influence on Thought and Art in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

'… a beautiful job. Exceedingly well-written and entertaining, as well as informative. I don't know of anyone who has … come up with such a complete and rounded set of materials on Pythagoras. It was a brilliant idea, and [the] text is intelligent, learned and brilliant.' George L. Hersey, Yale University

• Part I. Pythagoras, Man for the Renaissance: 1. Prologue: the diffusion of knowledge about Pythagoras in the Renaissance; 2. The emergence of 'Saint' Pythagoras in the early Renaissance; 3. The apotheosis of Pythagoras in the sixteenth century; Part II. The Many Faces of Renaissance Pythagoreanism: 4. The Pythagorean tradition in the early fifteenth century; 5. The strengthening and deepening of Pythgoreanism in the later fifteenth century; 6. The maturation and vicissitudes of Pythagoreanism in the sixteenth century; Part III. Pythagoreanism in Architecture and Art: 7. Renaissance images of Pythagoras; 8. The search for harmony in architecture and art of the fifteenth century; 9. Finding harmony: form and meaning in architecture and art of the sixteenth century; 10. Conclusions: the prince of Italian philosophy and the birth of harmony as an aesthetic notion.