Elizabeth McCahill | University of Massachusetts, Boston (original) (raw)

Papers by Elizabeth McCahill

Revisiting Raphael's Vatican Stanze, eds. Wingfield and Cosgriff, 2022

Renaissance Quarterly

This article explores Poggio Bracciolini's letters to Niccolò Niccoli from a variety of persp... more This article explores Poggio Bracciolini's letters to Niccolò Niccoli from a variety of perspectives: it looks at what imitation meant for Poggio, examines the letters’ commentary on the manuscript culture of the early Quattrocento, discusses Poggio's efforts to craft a personal voice, and traces the interplay of optimism and pessimism in the letters, an interplay common to humanist texts of this period. By bringing together these different perspectives, the article articulates the range of ways in which one scholar used his epistolary collection to shape his own persona, connect himself to Ciceronian precedents, and create norms and expectations for a developing intellectual community.

Renaissance Quarterly, 2004

The letter collection of Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger offers important evidence about the d... more The letter collection of Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger offers important evidence about the dynamics of early-Quattrocento literary patronage. Like his more successful humanistpeers, Lapo used Ciceronian expressions of amicitia (friendship) when writing to the brokers whose help he needed in order to win a comfortable post. For most humanists, such formulaic assurances of devotion constituted only one aspect of letters that included discussions of philosophy, current events, and classical scholarship. Lapo, by contrast, focused his collected letters almost solely on these formulae, thus mocking their prevalence and emphasizing the difficulties offinding a job as a humanist.

New Horizons for Early Modern European Scholarship, 2021

Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy presents a glittering fresco of grandiloque... more Burckhardt’s Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy presents a glittering fresco of grandiloquent personalities and cultural dynamism, the colors of which gleam brighter because of their contrast to his briefly sketched medieval dystopia. Burckhardt, of course, did not introduce this dichotomy; it was Petrarch who “created” the Middle Ages. Modern scholars have recognized the artificiality of Petrarchan-Burckhardtian periodization, and medievalists, in particular, have railed against it. Yet in spite of copious evidence for continuities between medieval and Renaissance intellectual life, students, and many scholars, still contrast an ahistorical, otherworldly, clerical intellectual culture of the period before 1300 with a secular, classicizing, and anthropocentric Renaissance agenda. Although specialists would eschew this stark dichotomy, those trained as medievalists continue to focus on scholasticism when they discuss 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th century intellectual life, while those trained as early modernists highlight everything that was (or was claimed to be) novel about the humanists’ program. This chapter argues that a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the emergence of humanism requires, first, that scholars examine the records of schools, courts, and chanceries with the care of researchers like Robert Black and Ronald Witt. Second, it demands that medievalists and early modernists adopt, or at least borrow, each other’s research tools and questions. What are the post-Augustinian, as well as the classical, sources for a humanistic text? How do figures like Marsilio of Padua, Nicholas of Cusa, and Pietro Pompanazzi evince or disdain a new historical approach? Substantive intellectual changes can only be identified by modern scholars who are equipped to distinguish between the inflammatory rhetoric of eager self-promoters and novel ways of thinking. Recognizing the true importance of humanism within early modern European culture requires better understanding of its continuing interaction with earlier scholarly practices.

In 1420, after more than one hundred years of the Avignon Exile and the Western Schism, the papal... more In 1420, after more than one hundred years of the Avignon Exile and the Western Schism, the papal court returned to Rome, which had become depopulated, dangerous, and impoverished in the papacy's absence. "Reviving the Eternal City" examines the culture of Rome and the papal court during the first half of the fifteenth century, a crucial transitional period before the city's rebirth. As Elizabeth McCahill explains, during these decades Rome and the Curia were caught between conflicting realities--between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, between conciliarism and papalism, between an image of Rome as a restored republic and a dream of the city as a papal capital.Through the testimony of humanists' rhetorical texts and surviving archival materials, McCahill reconstructs the niche that scholars carved for themselves as they penned vivid descriptions of Rome and offered remedies for contemporary social, economic, religious, and political problems. In addition to analyzing the humanists' intellectual and professional program, McCahill investigates the different agendas that popes Martin V (1417-1431) and Eugenius IV (1431-1447) and their cardinals had for the post-Schism pontificate. "Reviving the Eternal City" illuminates an urban environment in transition and explores the ways in which curialists collaborated and competed to develop Rome's ancient legacy into a potent cultural myth.

As discussed in the introduction to this volume, many components of Baron's vision of civic human... more As discussed in the introduction to this volume, many components of Baron's vision of civic humanism have been questioned or debunked in the years since the publication of The Crisis. However, one important generalization remains intact: classical scholars of the early Quattrocento were more civic-minded than many of their Trecento predecessors. As recent studies show, humanists who worked for the rulers of Naples, Milan, and other, smaller principalities did not, for obvious reasons, make republicanism a central component of their scholarly programs. Nevertheless, they still could and did urge their fellow citizens to be active in public life, and they practiced what they preached, identifying problems with and proposing solutions to the moral and social situations in which they found themselves. 1 In the case of Rome, fifteenth-century humanists associated with the papal court are better known for their invectives and panegyrics than for their calls to civic engagement. 2 Yet, in their letters and dialogues, the same scholars who indulged in the excesses of demonstrative rhetoric offered a more balanced program of collegial scholarship and clerical responsibility. They sketched norms of civil academic discourse and established new ideals of clerical morality, which elevated charity and good works over pious contemplation. In short, these scholars were not so much interested in crafting and re-imagining government as they were in reshaping codes of conversation and behavior. 3 At first, their priorities seem more in keeping with the personal moral program of Petrarch than with the more public agenda of 1 Studies of humanism outside of Florence have mapped scholars' engagement with the political and social life of Italy's other major cities. Bentley, Politics; Ianziti, Humanistic Historiography; Robin, Filelfo; Simonetta, Rinascimento. Although there were strong republican overtones to Venetian humanism, it was still markedly different from Florentine civic humanism as described by Baron. King, Venetian Humanism; Brown, Venice. 2

… of the American Academy in Rome …, Jan 1, 2010

Book Reviews by Elizabeth McCahill

The American Historical Review, 2013

Antichrist and initiating the end of the world. When they withdrew from Italy, the voices of thos... more Antichrist and initiating the end of the world. When they withdrew from Italy, the voices of those who had doubted Savonarola's prophecies began to be heard more loudly. Savonarola's gradual slide into political action alienated many citizens; his defiance of warnings, commands, and eventual excommunication by the pope cost him even more support; but the ultimate failure leading to his execution was in a sense just a turn in his luck. When he began preaching, his prophecies that Italy was about to be ravaged and the corrupt curia at Rome forcibly reformed seemed uncannily prescient. After the French withdrew, doubts about his prophecies grew. Savonarola's fall from popularity was gradual, and it was aided by his own mistakes, such as not daring to reject a Franciscan challenge for a trial by fire, with the truthfulness of his prophecies determined by a miraculous intervention to preserve the life of the Dominican champion if the prophecies were true. The trial was a fiasco. The fire was never even lighted, because the two sides spent the whole afternoon bickering over the conditions of the test. It was widely regarded as a defeat for Savonarola. The leaders of the anti-Savonarola political faction, which had gradually gained power within the government, skillfully manipulated events to discredit the prophet and eventually to provoke the violent incidents that ended in his arrest, interrogation by torture, and execution in May of 1498. The special merit of this book is not the narrative of events, though Weinstein presents the story with skill. Rather, it is the author's sensitive insights into the spiritual and psychological realities behind the friar's story. Savonarola was a skilled writer on spiritual matters, and even after his execution his supporters continued to diffuse his tracts and pamphlets. His posthumously published manual for confessors demonstrates genuine sensitivity to the religious and psychological realities of the sacrament of penance and remained in use for centuries. Even more striking is Weinstein's analysis of the visions that confirmed Savonarola's claims. What did the friar mean when reporting a vision to his hearers? Was he deliberately deceiving them, or merely being carried away by his imaginative transformation of an idea into a detailed description of a supernatural event? It is clear that he gradually came to view the Florentines as a people chosen by God, and himself as not just a prophet, but their prophet, and that the majority of the people had come to the same conclusion. In the end, Weinstein suggests, "the great preacher may have deceived no one more than himself" (297).

The Journal of Modern History

Writers active amid the sixteenth-century religious reformations focused much of their attention ... more Writers active amid the sixteenth-century religious reformations focused much of their attention on the papacy. Protestants of the emergent confessions penned highly charged and inflammatory books, including the Magdeburg Centuries (published between 1559 and 1574). The latter work was a historical enterprise that sought to examine thirteen centuries of Christianityending in 1298from a Lutheran perspective that, among other things, traced the development of the Papal Antichrist. Despite its polemical nature, the Centuries were a historiographical innovation with Renaissance practices of source criticism and the scouring of geographically distant libraries at its core. Cesare Baronio's Ecclesiastical Annals (published 1588 and 1607) has traditionally been interpreted as the Catholic Reformation's delayed response to the Centuries. Baronio's thesis of the offices of Roman Church as 'always the same' (semper eadem) was contrapositive to that of the Centurions. But like his Lutheran adversaries, Baronio relied on uncovered documents and a discerning eye to bolster his argument with access abetted by his role as the Papal Librarian (1597-1607). The historiography on church history during the sixteenth century tended to examine the duelling narratives penned by the proponents of different reformations with the Centurions and Baronio being the subjects of scholarly consideration. The Papacy was at the heart of the Centuries and the Annals. Stefan Bauer in The Invention of Papal History challenges this traditional overview through the analysis of the Augustinian friar, Onofrio Panvinio (1530-1568), whose histories existed in a liminal intellectual and temporal space between the Centurions and Baronio. With a short book that packs a lot of punch, Bauer situates the writing of papal history between the Renaissance and Catholic Reform. The latter is a loaded term conjuring up the nineteenth-century cultural wars in Germany that sought to understand sixteenth-century Catholicism as having either reactive or intramural reformers. Thankfully sidestepping the minutiae of this debate, Bauer instead proffered a useful investigation into the philological methods used to understand the history of Christendom as well as the balancing act between history and theology. Its usefulness is further amplified with Panvinio's career overlapping the momentous Council of Trent (1545-1547; 1551-1552; 1562-1563) that assessed Catholic theology and practice. Not only was Panvinio active in a transitional period between Renaissance and Catholic Reform as seen in his proximity to Trent, he was contemporary to the Centuries at least those volumes published during his lifetime. The author begins Invention with a short introduction that argues about the novelty and significance of Panvinio and his historical method, while he outlines the book's place within the scholarship to date. With his knowledge of German and Italian, Bauer is well-suited to engage with the historiographies in each language as well as that in English, making for an excellent overview of the field. Despite Baronio's significance in the history of Catholic Reform and Catholic historiography, Bauer reminds us that the Annals remains underexplored (2). Here, the reader is introduced to Panvinio's works at the heart of Bauer's book, namely, the Church History, On the Primacy of Peter, and his evolving histories of papal elections.

The Catholic Historical Review, 2016

None of this makes for particularly easy reading. Sobecki has a fondness for modish literary-crit... more None of this makes for particularly easy reading. Sobecki has a fondness for modish literary-critical jargon, and the structure of the book is at times unhelpfully labyrinthine. Nevertheless, he is to be lauded for encouraging both cultural and literary historians to think harder about the law as a barometer of change and for challenging the still entrenched periodization either side of the arbitrary date of 1500.

The Journal of Modern History, 2011

History: Reviews of New Books, 2016

ever, remained outliers, and, as Rittersporn argues, the regime’s reaction far exceeded the dange... more ever, remained outliers, and, as Rittersporn argues, the regime’s reaction far exceeded the danger. Most people adapted to disappointing developments by turning to folkways aimed at maximizing available opportunities to ensure survival and affect official policy. One thread pulling the chapters together concerns the manner in which Bolshevism structured existence for all subjects, even the defiant. Critics deployed the same political language, imagery, and conceptualization of the Soviet universe in their plans and programs as did official organs. Most accepted the regime’s fixation on the threat of omnipresent conspiracy and the necessity of both actual and symbolic violence. At the same time, children playfully fought as Reds and Whites, young men gathered in drinking circles named in mocking echo of officialese, andmany laughed at the expense of leading personalities. Even so, Rittersporn cautions against viewing his cast of characters as oppositionists. Carnivalesque poses did not amount to rebellious intent, nor did anger at policy mask counterrevolutionary sentiments (even if the partystate thought otherwise). Other behaviors more familiar to students of Russian history, such as the slaughtering of livestock by collective farmworkers or the doctoring of autobiographies to conceal origins are reframed as entrepreneurial attempts at “recombining the building blocks their milieu put at their disposal” in order to benefit in a quicksand environment (217). This study concludes by questioning attempts to classify the Soviet project as modern. Scientific, statistically driven population management did not propel the purges, nor did labor and political organizations achieve social integration. Instead, the culture industry worked to greater success to mold worldviews, success visible in the persistence of linguistic and symbolic syncretism among the masses. It is impossible to do justice in this review to the vivid accounts provided on nearly every page, assembled primarily from Communist Party, internal affairs, and police documents housed in Moscow and St. Petersburg archives. Reminding readers that Stalinist jurisprudence often reasoned by analogy (and, therefore, possessed rather low evidentiary standards), Rittersporn insists that the contents of these documents provide a window into social practices, as there would be little need for fabricating many of the included details. His cataloguing of the varieties of accommodations and coping strategies charts a complicated, evolving relationship between state and society. The attention given to documentable emotional responses uncovers an entangled web that fruitfully complicates the loyalty-rebellion binary. For this reason, scholars with an interest in Russian history or Stalinism should welcome this opportunity to re-examine their assumptions about attitudes and behaviors under Soviet socialism.

Renaissance Quarterly, 2018

vokes in his own literary works. Chapter 5 advances this argument by analyzing Bembo’s epistolary... more vokes in his own literary works. Chapter 5 advances this argument by analyzing Bembo’s epistolary correspondence with his mistress Maria Savorgnan and his sometime patroness Lucrezia Borgia. The former acts as guardian muse of his Rime and both figure prominently in his prose dialogue-cum-poetryGli Asolani. Feng ends her bookwith an afterword highlighting sixteenth-century social realities that had no precedent in Petrarch’s time but which came to be expressed through Petrarchan conceits: female intellectuality, sociality, and intellectual dialogue with the opposite sex. This story is a groundbreaking one that the author recounts with admirable clarity and conviction.

The American Historical Review

The American Historical Review, Apr 1, 2019

Renaissance Quarterly, 2010

Canadian Journal of History , 2020

Renaissance Quarterly , 2020

morphology, syntax, and deixis. Nothing is left to chance in this edition. At the end of the book... more morphology, syntax, and deixis. Nothing is left to chance in this edition. At the end of the book there is a glossary that aims to show the relationship between Latin and vernacular and the new terms that Varchi mints. This book should be on the shelves of every scholar interested in sixteenth-century Italian linguistic theories and the dissemination of vernacular philosophy in Renaissance Italy.

Renaissance Quarterly, 2019

A full English translation of Francesco Barbaro's De Re Uxoria (1416) is long overdue. Its popula... more A full English translation of Francesco Barbaro's De Re Uxoria (1416) is long overdue. Its popularity in the early modern period, as well as the fact that it is innately interesting, renders it essential reading for scholars of humanism, of Renaissance Venice, and of early modern elites, women, and families. King offers a fluid English version of Barbaro's elegant Latin, and her introduction masterfully situates the text in its intellectual, social, and economic contexts. At a time when humanism was still a new and controversial intellectual approach, De Re Uxoria demonstrated that ancient history could be deployed for contemporary ends. (King's footnotes trace the ways in which Barbaro drew on ancient sources and document his impressive knowledge of Greek works, which were only just becoming accessible to Italian scholars.) More particularly, De Re Uxoria promoted the values and priorities of the patriarchs of Renaissance Venice and Florence. But Barbaro's text is far more than a manifesto of oligarchy, as this edition shows. De Re Uxoria begins by discussing what marriage is. Although Barbaro refers to Christian definitions of marriage, he draws primarily from ancient anecdotes, especially those of Plutarch. In part 1, Barbaro gives advice about choosing a wife, emphasizing the importance of a woman's character as opposed to her more tangible assets. While not denying the desirability of wealth and beauty, Barbaro urges the prospective husband to prioritize virtue and a mutuality of interests. Nobility is advantageous because it inspires children to lofty goals, yet a man should look for a wife from his own class: "For what could be more pleasant, what more comfortable, what more easy, than to take as a wife a woman equal to oneself?" (89). Barbaro was certainly not advocating equitable marriage as it is understood today. Part 2 begins by insisting on the necessity of obedience in wives and goes on to discuss their obligations to be loving, modest, silent, and moderate in dress, food, drink, and sexual relations. Barbaro gives wives substantial authority in managing their households and in caring for babies and young children, but he makes clear that boys, at least, will soon pass to the care of tutors and fathers. Witt and Kohl's translation of part 2 of the text ("On Wifely Duties") has helped introduce generations of students to a broadly defined civic humanism. However, in this reviewer's experience, twenty-first-century students find "On Wifely Duties" offputting and complain about Barbaro's misogyny. Reading the text in its entirety will