Brian Maxson | East Tennessee State University (original) (raw)

Books by Brian Maxson

This book explores a series of common myths about early modern Europe. It combines short original... more This book explores a series of common myths about early modern Europe. It combines short original introductions and suggested readings with reprints of primary source excerpts in order to complicate many of these myths.

Publisher's description: This widely used guide for students has long emphasized the excitement ... more Publisher's description:
This widely used guide for students has long emphasized the excitement of historical discovery rooted in writing about the past. This new edition continues that emphasis while also affirming the contemporary significance of the search for truth in historical writing. It includes new and revised sections related to electronic technologies as well as updated examples of recent historical scholarship throughout. It maintains the welcoming, accessible, and inclusive tone of previous editions while walking students through complex ideas and established writing standards. As it has since its inception, the tenth edition of A Short Guide to Writing about History helps students confront and conquer any of the challenges they might face in writing about history.

Bloomsbury, 2023

Publisher's Description: The innovative city culture of Florence was the crucible within which Re... more Publisher's Description:
The innovative city culture of Florence was the crucible within which Renaissance ideas first caught fire. With its soaring cathedral dome and its classically-inspired palaces and piazzas, it is perhaps the finest single expression of a society that is still at its heart an urban one. For, as Brian Jeffrey Maxson reveals, it is above all the city-state – the walled commune which became the chief driver of European commerce, culture, banking and art – that is medieval Italy's enduring legacy to the present.

Charting the transition of Florence from an obscure Guelph republic to a regional superpower in which the glittering court of Lorenzo the Magnificent became the pride and envy of the continent, the author authoritatively discusses a city that looked to the past for ideas even as it articulated a novel creativity. Uncovering passionate dispute and intrigue, Maxson sheds fresh light too on seminal events like the fiery end of oratorical firebrand Savonarola and Giuliano de' Medici's brutal murder by the rival Pazzi family. This book shows why Florence, harbinger and heartland of the Renaissance, is and has always been unique.

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c. 1494-c.1559, 2022

This volume offers the first comprehensive survey of regime change in Italy in the period c.1494-... more This volume offers the first comprehensive survey of regime
change in Italy in the period c.1494-c.1559.
This book will appeal to researchers and students alike
interested in cultural, military and political history

"In moving past the constraints imposed by the so-called Baron thesis, the essays in this volume ... more "In moving past the constraints imposed by the so-called Baron thesis, the essays in this volume allow for an innovative focus on Renaissance humanism as a set of 'practices' determined more by social structures and networks than by specific historical events. In so doing, a number of these studies open up new areas of scholarly exploration." -Scott Blanchard, Misericordia University "The essays collected in this volume are remarkable for both the variety of their approaches and the depth of their analysis. Spanning no less than five centuries of Italian history and evaluating their interpretation by some of the most influential modern scholars, they once again prove the Renaissance to be a crucial time period when discussing such issues as the role of the humanities in shaping a state's identity and providing paradigms of civic behaviour." -Stefano Baldassarri, International Studies Institute, Florence

This book offers the first synthetic interpretation of the humanist movement in Renaissance Flore... more This book offers the first synthetic interpretation of the humanist movement in Renaissance Florence in more than fifty years. Florence was the epicenter of the culture produced during the Italian Renaissance, and the humanist movement underlay the style of the city's visual and literary arts. Brian Jeffrey Maxson demonstrates that the Renaissance in Florence was a far more popular movement than is usually assumed, spearheaded by scholars as well as wealthy citizens who dabbled in the reading of ancient texts and modern treatises translated from Latin into the vernacular. Indeed, only a fraction of the humanist club could read and write Latin, but these learned readers were usually the only people in cities like Florence with enough social status to put the ideas of civic humanism into practice. Maxson shows how this network of humanists enabled the launch of a cultural movement that established Florence as the preeminent center of learning in Italy and that spread beyond Italy to the rest of Europe.

Articles and Book Chapters by Brian Maxson

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c. 1494-c.1559, 2022

This article examines the efforts of Pope Adrian to construct and the cardinals in Rome to oppose... more This article examines the efforts of Pope Adrian to construct and the cardinals in Rome to oppose a new regime after the death of Leo X.

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c. 1494-c.1559, 2022

Rivista di Letteratura Storiografica Italiana, 2022

An English version of "Les chanceliers entre..." with slight modifications.

Portrait Cultures of the Early Modern Cardinal, 2021

This article argues that context helped determine the choices of artists and writers to focus on ... more This article argues that context helped determine the choices of artists and writers to focus on group or individual characteristics in works of cultural production.

L'humanisme au pouvoir? Figures de chanceliers dans l'Europe de la Renaissance (XVe-XVIe siecles) , 2020

This article uses a case study of exchanges between Leonardo Bruni and Cristoforo Turrettini to e... more This article uses a case study of exchanges between Leonardo Bruni and Cristoforo Turrettini to explore the conception and manipulation of private and public spheres during the Italian Renaissance.
Text translated into French by Clemence Revest.

Bullettino dell'Istituto Italiano per il Medio Evo 122, 2020

The bookseller and biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci recorded Giannozzo Manetti’s unfinished atte... more The bookseller and biographer Vespasiano da Bisticci recorded Giannozzo Manetti’s unfinished attempt to publish his correspondence. Vespasiano listed well-known books like Manetti’s On the Excellence and Worth of Man and his Translator’s Defense, as well as less popular titles like his Consolation Treatise and Life of Nicholas V. Vespasiano listed Manetti’s orations, which Manetti had published individually, as well as many other works. Within this lengthy list Vespasiano claimed that Manetti had begun to compile a book of letters but that the work was incomplete at the time of his death . This article attempts to, in some ways, complete this unfinished task by listing all the known private letters to or from Manetti and offering the first edition of four new ones. Additionally, this article offers a chronological analysis of each letter within their relevant social, political, biographical, and intellectual contexts.

Florence in the Early Modern World, 2019

This essay looks at texts by Poggio Bracciolini, Matteo Palmieri, and Giannozzo Manetti to argue ... more This essay looks at texts by Poggio Bracciolini, Matteo Palmieri, and Giannozzo Manetti to argue that fifteenth-century Florentine culture fit into a theoretically international readership, even as the city's politics focused on much more regional concerns.

Florence in the Early Modern World, 2019

Introduction to the volume, Florence in the Early Modern World.

Diplomacy has never been a politically neutral field of historical research, even when it was con... more Diplomacy has never been a politically neutral field of historical research, even when it was confined to merely reconstructing the context of wars and revolutions. Since the nineteenth century, Renaissance Italy has been at the forefront of scholarship on diplomacy; today, with increasing awareness of the long history of the subject as well as a broader spectrum of case studies, the study of Italian diplomacy has become sophisticated and highly articulated, offering scholars many new directions for further exploration.
During the period ca. 1350–ca. 1520 covered by the present volume, diplomatic sources became extremely rich and abundant. This sourcebook presents a selection of primary materials, both published and unpublished, which are mostly unavailable to English readers: a broad range of diplomatic sources, thematically organized, are introduced, translated, and annotated by an international team of leading scholars of the Italian Renaissance. The aim of this volume is to illustrate the richness of diplomatic documents both for the study of diplomacy itself as well as for other areas of historical investigation, such as gender and sexuality, crime and justice, art and leisure, and medicine.

in Languages of Power in Italy, 1300-1600, edited by Daniel Bornstein and Laura Gafurri (Turnhout: Brepols Publishing, forthcoming (awaiting proofs)

The political negotiations of fifteenth-century diplomats overlay an unstated, multi-layered exch... more The political negotiations of fifteenth-century diplomats overlay an unstated, multi-layered exchange of symbolic capital between states. First, rulers selected whether to send a letter or a diplomat to deal with an external issue. By sending a diplomat, a ruler expressed his or her real or feigned seriousness regarding the diplomat’s charge. Beyond this initial statement, rulers throughout the Italian peninsula evaluated the political and social status of the diplomats sent. Diplomats of one state had to match the quality of those sent by other powers or risk showing up allies and insulting host rulers. In addition, rulers had to weigh the power and status of the host ruler in relation to other European rulers. Diplomats to more powerful rulers had to carry more social status while less powerful rulers received less prestigious ones. Only individuals with the right amount of status, not too much and not too little, could avoid sending disastrous insults to observant third parties. To complicate matters even further, if an ally had requested a diplomatic mission, the selection process also had to factor in the status of the ally on whose behalf the diplomat would speak. This article investigates this unstated world of Renaissance power and diplomacy through a case study of a diplomatic mission from Florence to Jacopo Piccinino in 1458. In this example, the Florentines ostensibly sought to honor the Pope by sending a diplomat to Jacopo Piccinino; however, their efforts were complicated by the need to maintain a solid front with the diplomatic representation sent by Milan. As this example shows, the vacillation of their ally changed the identity of the Florentine diplomat abroad, but it did not hinder a Florentine government skilled at manipulating the usually unstated world of diplomatic gifts, symbols, and status towards practical diplomatic ends.

This article publishes two new texts by the humanist Giannozzo Manetti as well as a detailed anal... more This article publishes two new texts by the humanist Giannozzo Manetti as well as a detailed analysis of their cultural and political contexts. The article explores the political actions, friendships, and humanist as well as artistic patronage of three generations of Pandolfini patriarchs between the 1410s and 1460s. It argues that these men defy clear categorization as "Medicean" or "anti-Medicean" and instead should be conceived as pursuing their own ends, somewhere between subservience to Florence's leading family and exile for outright opposition to them.

Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society, 2016

Full citation: Brian Jeffrey Maxson, "The Lost Oral Performance: Giannozzo Manetti and Spoken Or... more Full citation:
Brian Jeffrey Maxson, "The Lost Oral Performance: Giannozzo Manetti and Spoken Oratory in Venice in 1448," in Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society, edited by Stefano Dall'Aglio, Brian Richardson, and Massimo Rospocher, pp. 84-96 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016).

This article uses a range of archival and literary evidence to reconstruct the content and stylistic differences between an ephemeral spoken oratorical performance by Giannozzo Manetti in 1448 and his published written version.

Bloomsbury, 2023

The Culture and Politics of Regime Change in Italy, c. 1494-c.1559, 2022

Rivista di Letteratura Storiografica Italiana, 2022

An English version of "Les chanceliers entre..." with slight modifications.

Portrait Cultures of the Early Modern Cardinal, 2021

L'humanisme au pouvoir? Figures de chanceliers dans l'Europe de la Renaissance (XVe-XVIe siecles) , 2020

Bullettino dell'Istituto Italiano per il Medio Evo 122, 2020

Florence in the Early Modern World, 2019

Introduction to the volume, Florence in the Early Modern World.

in Languages of Power in Italy, 1300-1600, edited by Daniel Bornstein and Laura Gafurri (Turnhout: Brepols Publishing, forthcoming (awaiting proofs)

Voices and Texts in Early Modern Italian Society, 2016

This article examines the domestic and Italian political context for the Certame Coronario, a ver... more This article examines the domestic and Italian political context for the Certame Coronario, a vernacular poetry contest held in Florence in October 1441. It argues that the event together with its theme "friendship" served as a performative ritual to calm tensions in and outside the city. The article looks at the relationship between Neri di Gino Capponi and Cosimo de' Medici; the assassination of the condottiere Baldaccio d'Anghiari; and the anger of pope Eugenius IV at the Florentines during these years.

This article opens up an important but overlooked chapter in the political and diplomatic history... more This article opens up an important but overlooked chapter in the political and diplomatic history of Florence, as well as that of fifteenth-century Franco-Italian relations more broadly. In late 1461, the city of Florence elected ambassadors to go to France to congratulate King Louis XI on his accession to the throne. Intended as a purely ceremonial mission, the Florentine diplomat Piero de' Pazzi ignored his commission and pursued policies that explicitly promoted French interests in Italy. By doing so, Piero sought to improve the standing of his own family, both domestically and abroad, at the expense of the Medici regime in Florence and the anti-French Italian League that the Medici supported. This article offers for the first time a full investigation of a surprisingly early example of tensions between the Medici and the Pazzi, tensions that famously erupted in the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478.

In 1432 Leonardo Bruni delivered a short Latin oration before the condottiere Niccoló da Tollenti... more In 1432 Leonardo Bruni delivered a short Latin oration before the condottiere Niccoló da Tollentino, the Florentine government, and the city’s population at the climactic moment of the ritual marking the transfer of command over the Florentine armies from the government to its primary mercenary captain. Bruni’s words were indebted to Cicero, just as later Florentine orators on similar occasions derived their words from Bruni. Each these speakers catered his words to the ritual of command, a ceremony designed to reassure anxious Florentines about the powerful military leader standing before them. After all, yielding such power had been a disaster for republican governments, not just in Florence, but also for the Roman Republic itself. Julius Caesar had used his military authority to impose an illegal government over Rome, just as Walter of Brienne, Duke of Athens, had done to Florence in the fourteenth century. To combat potential new tyrants, Bruni and later humanists combined word and action to implicitly imbue the baton, transferred from Florence to their hired military commander, with the power to hold the mercenary’s loyalty to Florence and keep the city’s liberty intact. Their words reinforced the ritualized actions and were reminiscent of contemporary magical spells, which also sought to use language to attain specific ends through imbuing physical objects with powerful forces. This interpretation contrasts sharply with the existent historiography on these orations, which has mostly removed them from their socio-political setting and approached them through the history of ideas, with a special focus on the views of Bruni and later humanists on Republican versus monarchial governmental forms or citizen militias. This essay will argue that such an approach overemphasizes the agency of the speakers in these settings, each of whom was charged with delivering a speech that had to follow specific generic and ritual rules. For the ritual of command, Bruni and other speakers adopted their learning to the active rather than the contemplative life, one of the primary characteristics of civic humanism, but did so for purposes far removed from adding to the narrative of the history of democratic ideas like republicanism or the rise of a voluntary citizen militia.

After Civic Humanism: Learning and Politics in Renaissance Italy, 2015

The humanist Biondo wrote three different narratives of the Fourth Crusade aimed at establishing ... more The humanist Biondo wrote three different narratives of the Fourth Crusade aimed at establishing the legitimacy of western claims to lands in the east. Biondo had played an integral part in the ephemeral reunification of the Greek and Latin Churches at the Council of Florence in July 1439. Biondo blamed the Greeks for the failure and thus did not mourn the loss of their empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. However, Biondo did urge several states in the Italian Peninsula to set out en mass to fight the Turks. He viewed the fall of Constantinople as an opportunity for the Latin West to reestablish its rightful empire in the east. He explicated this opinion in at least two different treatises dedicated to rulers shortly after the fall of the ancient city. To Alfonso of Aragon, Biondo argued that the King could establish a peaceful and prosperous extension of his maritime holdings to include a fallen empire with no legal ruler. To the Venetians, he presented the Fourth Crusade as a glorious victory that established their legal claim to rule the now-lost remnants of the Byzantine Empire. Biondo shaped his source material of the Fourth Crusade into an historical narrative that made this primary argument and urged powerful rulers in the Italian peninsula to take back what was rightfully theirs.

This article publishes a new text by Giannozzo Manetti and places it into the political, diplomat... more This article publishes a new text by Giannozzo Manetti and places it into the political, diplomatic, and biographical context from which it emerged. Manetti’s “Panegyric to King Alfonso” was written for the occasion of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III’s visit to Naples in the spring of 1452. This article and the accompanying first edition of Manetti’s treatise add new insights into the events of mid-Quattrocento Italy that led to Manetti’s voluntary exile from Florence, in addition to a new chapter in the narrative of patrician resistance to the consolidation of political power in Florence under Cosimo de’ Medici and his allies.

The humanist movement in recent decades has witnessed a veritable renaissance of scholarly intere... more The humanist movement in recent decades has witnessed a veritable renaissance of scholarly interest. At the forefront of scholarly activity stands the impressive and growing I Tatti Renaissance Library, a series that makes humanist texts available to a wider audience than ever before. While the I Tatti series has focused on original Latin writings, the changing place of vernacular texts within the humanist movement has also not escaped scholarly notice. Scholars have established the importance of vernacular culture to Lorenzo the Magnificent and his circle in latter fifteenth-century Florence in particular, as well as the complex and shifting ways that Neo-Latinists viewed the vernacular as a vehicle for expression throughout the Quattrocento. What has received less attention, however, are the men and women who participated on the fringes of the humanist movement - their social backgrounds, the depth of their learning, and their connections to more learned humanist writers. This article focuses on a sliver of these individuals, the evidence for their humanist interests coming primarily from vernacular texts copied during the second half of the fifteenth century. In terms of chronology, the article largely upholds the traditional view that the vernacular enjoyed a resurgence of interest in Florence after the mid fifteenth century. However, the article challenges two other prevalent assumptions about the humanist movement in Florence, particularly the use of composition in Latin as the sine qua non for Florentine humanists and the lack of socio-economic diversity among their backgrounds.

Humanism and ritual combined to establish a new foundation for the Florentine Republic in the fif... more Humanism and ritual combined to establish a new foundation for the Florentine Republic in the fifteenth century. Leonardo Bruni’s History of the Florentine People was at the center of this new foundation. In 1428 and again in 1439, Bruni formally presented portions of his History to the Florentine government in the midst of crucial events in Florentine foreign affairs. For example, Bruni’s book presentation in 1428 occurred in the midst of rituals celebrating peace between Florence and Milan. During the celebration, a procession behind the sacred icon of Our Lady of Santa Maria Impruneta paused at the government palace. At that moment, Leonardo Bruni formally announced the peace, gave an oration, and presented a volume of his History to the Florentine governors. Following the presentation, trumpets sounded and the procession began anew. In this ritual, Bruni’s History became a key ritual object. On the most basic level, Bruni’s book served as a tangible, physical reminder of the peace for future rulers of the Florentine Republic. Yet, Bruni’s History provided much more than a material memento of a monumental moment. The content of the work created a Florence that was founded free and, after several battles against tyrannical oppressors, had once again become free. By creating a new foundation and history of Florence, the Florentines could add new authority and legitimacy to its dealings with the world outside its walls. This article will examine the rituals surrounding the presentation of Bruni’s work combined with a close literary analysis of the History itself. Through this investigation, the article will examine how and why the Florentines sought to refound their city in an official Latin history by establishing its independence from outside powers, particularly the Roman and Holy Roman Emperors.

Oxford Bibliographies Online, 2020

World Religions. Belief, Culture, and Controversy, 2019

Entry focused on religion in the work of humanists, especially Italian humanists before 1500.

Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle, 2019

Entry on the historical writings of Manetti.

Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, 2018

Entry on the life and works of Bruni

Encyclopedia of Diplomacy, 2018

Entry on the diplomatic career and writings of Barbaro

Encyclopedia of Diplomacy, 2018

Entry on the diplomatic aspects of the Great Schism

Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, 2018

Entry on Kristeller's major works and arguments.

Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, 2018

Entry on the major arguments by Baron.

Western Civilization, 2016

Revisions commissioned to a Western Civilization textbook.

Western Civilization, 2016

Revisions commissioned to a Western Civilization textbook.

Encyclopedia of the History of Europe, 2016

Published in both English and French, French translation by Clemence Revest.

The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, 2022

Survey of scholarship published in 2020 on the history and literature of Italy during the 1400s.

Choice, 2022

An exploration of some recent and older studies focused on the Italian Renaissance.

Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, 2021

Review of scholarship published in 2020

Bollettino Artes Renascentes

Review and short synopses of articles published in these two journals in 2019

Years Work in Modern Language Studies, 2021

Bibliographic entry covering scholarship published on fifteenth-century Italy in 2019.

Years Work in Modern Language Studies, 2020

Bibliographic entry covering scholarship published on fifteenth-century Italy in 2018.

Years Work in Modern Language Studies, 2019

Bibliographic entry covering scholarship published on fifteenth-century Italy in 2017.

Years Work in Modern Language Studies, 2018

Bibliographic entry covering scholarship published on fifteenth-century Italy in 2016.

The Years Work in Modern Language Studies (2015) 77, no. 1 (2017): 186-94. An essay reviewing th... more The Years Work in Modern Language Studies (2015) 77, no. 1 (2017): 186-94.

An essay reviewing the historical and literary scholarship on fifteenth-century Italy published in 2015.

History: Reviews of New Books 42, no. 1 (2014): 12-15

A review essay that offers a general historiographic overview of recent scholarship on Florence. ... more A review essay that offers a general historiographic overview of recent scholarship on Florence. It focuses on the following works: Florence and Beyond (eds. Peterson and Bornstein); Guardians of Republicanism (Jurdjevic); Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence (Kuehn); The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Goldthwaite); Friendship, Love, and Trust in Renaissance Florence (Kent); From Florence to the Mediterranean and Beyond (eds. Curto, Dursteler, Kirshner, and Trivellato); Nuns and Nunneries in Renaissance Florence (Strocchia)

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

European History Quarterly

Sixteenth Century Studies Journal

Sixteenth Century Journal 51, no. 1, 2020

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2020

The Medieval Review, 2020

Renaissance Quarterly 72, no. 4, 2019

English Historical Review 134, no. 570, 2019

Journal of Modern History 91, no. 1, 2019

History: The Journal of the Historical Association

Journal of Early Modern History

presented at the 2021 meeting of the Medieval and Renaissance Conference at UVA-Wise, September 2... more presented at the 2021 meeting of the Medieval and Renaissance Conference at UVA-Wise, September 2021.

presented at the 2021 virtual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America

Panel at the 2021 virtual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America

presented to the Appalachian Premodernists, September 25, 2020.

paper presented at the 2019 meeting of the Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Wise, VA

paper presented at the 2019 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America

paper presented at the 2018 meeting of the Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Wise, VA

paper presented at the 2018 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, LA

paper presented at the 2017 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, IL

paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Renaissance and Reformation Conference,... more paper presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Renaissance and Reformation Conference, Blacksburg, VA, December 9-10, 2016.

Paper delivered at the conference RES PUBLICA: Community and the Individual in the Renaissance, c... more Paper delivered at the conference RES PUBLICA: Community and the Individual in the Renaissance, conference in Valencia, Spain, sponsored by the Generalitat Valenciana, November 24-26, 2016.

Invited lecture to the Ferrari Humanities Symposium, University of Rochester, March 2017.

Invited lecture at the University of Chicago, April 3, 2017

Invited presentation at the conference "L’humanisme au pouvoir? Figures de chanceliers dans l’Ero... more Invited presentation at the conference "L’humanisme au pouvoir? Figures de chanceliers dans l’Erope de la Renaissance (XVe-XVIe siècles),” Florence, Italy, March 1-2, 2019.

In 1440 the city of Florence held a publicly funded vernacular poetry contest – the Certame Coron... more In 1440 the city of Florence held a publicly funded vernacular poetry contest – the Certame Coronario - in which the city’s best and brightest inhabitants recited poems on the predetermined topic of friendship. At the end of the competition, a group of government officials met together to determine whose poem was the best. Rather than awarding a first prize, the officials declared the competition a draw and placed a laurel wreath, a symbol of poetic excellence, on the altar of the city's cathedral. Historians have long studied the surviving poems from this event in a literary context; yet,what has escaped scholarly notice is that the timing of the poetry competition coincided with ritualized celebrations of a recent peace concluded with enemies of Florence. This project will add a deeper domestic, diplomatic, and ritualized context to previous linguistic and literary ones to create a fuller interpretation of this event.

The thirteen essays in this volume demonstrate the multiplicity of connections between learning a... more The thirteen essays in this volume demonstrate the multiplicity of connections between learning and politics in Renaissance Italy. Some engage explicitly with Hans Baron’s “civic humanism” thesis illustrating its continuing viability, but also stretching its application to prove the limitations of its original expression. Others move beyond Baron’s thesis to examine the actual practice of various individuals and groups engaged in both political and learned activities in a variety of diverse settings. The collective impression of all the contributions is that of a complex, ever-shifting mosaic of learned enterprises in which the well-examined civic paradigm emerges as just one of several modes that explain the interaction between learning and politics in Italy between 1300 and 1650. The model that emerges rejects any single category of explanation in favour of one that emphasizes variety and multiplicity. It suggests that learning was indispensible to all politics in Renaissance Italy and that, in fact, at its heart the Renaissance was a political event as much as a cultural movement.

Essays & Studies, 2015

__________________
** Advance Praise

“In moving past the constraints imposed by the so-called Baron thesis, the essays in this volume allow for an innovative focus on Renaissance humanism as a set of ‘practices’ determined more by social structures and networks than by specific historical events. In so doing, a number of these studies open up new areas of scholarly exploration.”
— Scott Blanchard, Misericordia University

“The essays collected in this volume are remarkable for both the variety of their approaches and the depth of their analysis. Spanning no less than five centuries of Italian history and evaluating their interpretation by some of the most influential modern scholars, they once again prove the Renaissance to be a crucial time period when discussing such issues as the role of the humanities in shaping a state’s identity and providing paradigms of civic behaviour.”
— Stefano Baldassarri, International Studies Institute, Florence

Newsletter for the Appalachian Premodernists for fall 2024

Organised by Piers Baker-Bates and Irene Brooke Cardinal portraits have been analysed primarily i... more Organised by Piers Baker-Bates and Irene Brooke Cardinal portraits have been analysed primarily in terms of the artists who painted them or within the broader genre of portraiture. No more profound investigation of these as a specific phenomenon has ever been attempted. The questions surrounding the production, collection and status of the Cardinal portrait are particularly relevant in the light of the forthcoming Brill Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, as well as several recent exhibitions dedicated to powerful early modern cardinals like Amboise, Granvelle and Wolsey. Our session aims to cover a variety of portrait media and will address a range of issues surrounding the evolution and development of the typology of the Cardinal portrait.

The humanists of the Quattrocento relied on increasingly complex networks, patrons, and instituti... more The humanists of the Quattrocento relied on increasingly complex networks, patrons, and institutions to support their intellectual endeavours. Whether it was recommending a friend for employment through letters, dedicating a text or an edition of a classical work to a colleague, or using their own social capital to bolster the work of others, Renaissance cultural norms shaped the creation and rejection of intellectuals in their academic communities. This panel seeks to complicate our understanding of how humanists engaged with their world and colleagues. Some possible topics for this panel can include: How gender, class, and/or race informs and plays into understanding humanist debates and texts; the cultural spaces and roles of the printers and their shops for humanist authors and editors to socialize in and with; the role of letters and/or books in establishing or maintaining friendships (or rivalries) between different sites of employment; the continuities/conflicts of pan-European humanism, and how humanists kept in touch with each other across "national" boundaries; and how the practices of humanism inform concepts of friendship, or enmity, in early modern thought and practice.

Florence in the Early Modern World: New Perspectives, 2019

Newsletter for the ETSU-based group the Appalachian Premodernists

Newsletter for the ETSU-based group Appalachian Premodernists for the spring/summer 2023