José María Pérez Fernández – författare

This book tells the material and intellectual history of several translations of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, from Lorenzo Valla's first Latin rendering in 1452, to the publication of Thomas Hobbes' English version in 1629. As Valla's manuscript passed through the hands of several editors and publishers who rendered it into print, the History of the Peloponnesian War also underwent a series of significant adaptations and changes, most telling in the vernacular versions in French (Claude de Seyssel, 1527), Italian (Francesco Strozzi, 1545), English (Thomas Nicholls, 1550), and Spanish (Diego Gracián, 1564) that eventually emerged. These translations were often motivated by various political or expedient uses, which the format of the printed manuscripts reveals. The book concludes with an in-depth look at the debut in print of one the most relevant political philosophers of modernity, Thomas Hobbes' Eight Bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre. Readers will come away understanding the profound extent to which the material history of a text conditions its reception and status, and our very sense of history itself.

The untold story of the greatest library of the Renaissance and its creator Hernando ColónThis engaging book offers the first comprehensive account of the extraordinary projects of Hernando Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, which culminated in the creation of the greatest library of the Renaissance, with ambitions to be universal––that is, to bring together copies of every book, on every subject and in every language. Pérez Fernández and Wilson‑Lee situate Hernando’s projects within the rapidly changing landscape of early modern knowledge, providing a concise history of the collection of information and the origins of public libraries, examining the challenges he faced and the solutions he devised. The two authors combine “meticulous research with deep and original thought,” shedding light on the history of libraries and the organization of knowledge. The result is an essential reference text for scholars of the early modern period, and for anyone interested in the expansion and dissemination of information and knowledge.