Thomas Head
Professor Frazier has illuminated the unexpectedly large and relatively unstudied world of Italian humanist hagiography. She demonstrates how Italian humanists transposed late medieval hagiography into a new literary key. Her carefully nuanced study will challenge conventional wisdom on the relationship of humanism to late medieval piety.
— Thomas Head, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Simon Ditchfield
In this book Alison Frazier proposes a fresh and radical re-reading of Renaissance humanism that is both deeply learned and utterly compelling. Moving beyond the conventional definitions of humanism in terms of secular ethics or rhetorical eloquence, Frazier reclaims for our considered attention the hitherto ignored 'hagiographic renaissance'. Her nuanced and suggestive analysis of the extensive and complex engagements of Italian humanists with saints' life writing (1420-1520 ca) is complemented by an invaluable catalogue of extant authors and their (mostly unpublished works). Taken together, these elements of the book constitute a tour-de-force of scholarship and interpretation, whose implications for our understanding of this seminal period of religious and cultural history are as wide-ranging as they are profound.
— Simon Ditchfield, University of York, UK
Daniel Bornstein
Alison Frazier opens grand vistas on a vast new continent of literature: the hundreds of works by Renaissance humanists on saints and sanctity. Her elegant case studies reveal the fascinations of these neglected and often peculiar writings, while her catalogue of authors and texts constitutes a fundamental resource for future scholarship.
— Daniel Bornstein, Texas A&M University
