Renaissance Characters

by Eugenio Garin, Lydia G. Cochrane

Overview

Compared to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance is brief—little more than two centuries, extending roughly from the mid-fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century—and largely confined to a few Italian city states. Nevertheless, the epoch marked a great cultural shift in sensibilities, the dawn of a new age in which classical Greek and Roman values were "reborn" and human values in all fields, from the arts to civic life, were reaffirmed.

With this volume, Eugenio Garin, a leading Renaissance scholar, has gathered the work of an international team of scholars into an accessible account of the people who animated this decisive moment in the genesis of the modern mind. We are offered a broad spectrum of figures, major and minor, as they lived their lives: the prince and the military commander, the cardinal and the courtier, the artist and the philosopher, the merchant and the banker, the voyager, and women of all classes. With its concentration on the concrete, the specific, even the anecdotal, the volume offers a wealth of new perspectives and ideas for study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226283555
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	11/15/1991
Series:	Science and Its Conceptual Foundations Ser.
Edition description:	1
Pages:	314
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Lydia G. Cochrane has translated numerous books for the University of Chicago Press.

Table of Contents

Introduction- Eugenio Garin
1. The Renaissance Prince- John E. Law
2. The Condottiere- Michael Mallett
3. The Cardinal- Massimo Firpo
4. The Courtier- Peter Burke
5. The Philosopher and the Magus-Eugenio Garin
6. The Merchant and the Banker- Alberto Tenenti
7. The Artist- André Chastel
8. The Woman of the Renaissance- Margaret L. King
9. Voyagers and Natives- Tzvetan Todorov
Index

Editorial Reviews

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Cesare Borgia, Christopher Columbus, and a host of subluminaries from the fleeting Renaissance of 14th to 16th- century Italy, are considered in nine essays. The collection was first published in Italian in 1988; the essays were originally in Italian, French and English. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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