Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism

Angelo Mazzocco, Ph.D. (1973) in Romance Languages and Literatures, University of California, Berkeley is Professor emeritus of Italian and Spanish at Mount Holyoke College. He has published extensively on antiquarianism, historical linguistics, Dante, and Renaissance humanism including Linguistic Theories in Dante and the Humanists (Brill, 1993).

"In sum, this is an exaltation of essays by well-established scholars united by an important set of concerns. The essays could have appeared independently, of course: but thus assembled they react with each other in interesting and fruitful ways, even as they testify to the midlife vitality still of humanist studies."Michael J. B. Allen, University of California, Los Angeles, Renaissance Querterly"Thirteen distinguished senior scholars contribute an essay each to this exploratory volume on Renaissance humanism--mainly in Italy, but with attention to England, Germany, and France--from the 13th to the 16th century. These are neither experts for whom humanism has become a dirty word, nor followers of a party line of pietistic reverence. The essays vary in length, approach, and implication as they explore the nature, origins, and influence of the movement later ages would label humanism. One salutary common theme is the development of what Paul Grendler, writing on education, here calls "a culture of criticism." At the origins of humanism Robert Black identifies, in 13th-century Italy, "a return to classical authors ... connected with antipathy to contemporary aristocratic society dominated by ... hierarchical values." Alison Brown's excellent final piece shows how around 1500 the university lecturer Marcello Adriani employed texts by the dangerously impious Roman poet Lucretius to attack superstitious practice in contemporary Italy. The book both asserts in argument and demonstrates in practice the vigor of cultural critique as developed in the Renaissance.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty."E. D. Hill, Mount Holyoke College, Choice

• PrefaceContributorsIntroduction, Angelo MazzoccoPART I1. Kristeller’s Humanists as Heirs of the Medieval Dictatores, Ronald G. Witt2. The Origins of Humanism, Robert Black3. Humanism: Ancient Learning, Criticism, Schools and Universities, Paul F. Grendler4. Curial Humanism Seen Through the Prism of the Papal Library, Massimo Miglio5. Humanism and the Medieval Encyclopedic Tradition, Giuseppe MazzottaPART II6. Humanism and Scholasticism: Toward an Historical Definition, Riccardo Fubini7. Religion and the Modernity of Renaissance Humanism, James Hankins8. Rethinking “Christian Humanism”, Charles G. Nauert9. Renaissance Humanism: the Rhetorical Turn, Eckhard Kessler10. Literary Humanism in the Renaissance, Arthur F. KinneyPART III11. Petrarch: Founder of Renaissance Humanism?, Angelo Mazzocco12. Angelo Poliziano, Aldo Manuzio, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and Chapter 90 of the Miscellaneorum Centuria Prima (With an Edition and Translation), John Monfasani13. Reinterpreting Renaissance Humanism: Marcello Adriani and the Recovery of Lucretius, Alison BrownBibliographyIndex