Renaissance Studies Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The paper aims to present the first results of an in-depth and source-based research about socio-economic inequalities and agricultural growth in the Late Medieval Florentine society.
This area has been intensively studied because of its economic relevance and the rise of a peculiar share-cropping system (mezzadria). Mezzadria lease contracts spread broadly in Tuscany at the end of the Middle Ages (13th c.), linked to the building of the regional city-state by the city-commune of Florence and its raising economy. The system developed before the demographic shocks of Late Middle Ages and continued to develop further during the decline of the Florentine economy in 15th-16th centuries. The role of mezzadria in shaping declining economic trends and socio-economic inequalities, as well as the causes of its rise, are still debated among scholars.
This research would offer an original contribute on these issues through a new in-depth consultation of the Florentine fiscal surveys of the 15th and 16th centuries (the Catasto of 1427 and the Decima repubblicana of the early 16th century) and the use of a social agro-systemic approach. The information entered from sources will be used to draw a picture of the social and property structure of four different sub-regional study-areas within the Florentine territory (characterized by differences in the importance of institutions, in property distribution, in environmental features), comparing the trends and their causal relations for regional differences. The goal is drawing: 1) a more complete figure of agricultural output of mezzadria – comparing different systems of exploitation and subregions –; 2) an in-depth figure of socio-economic inequalities – property and income distribution, ownership of oxen, access to credit and fiscal incomes. In this way it will be possible to offer a more detailed pattern of explanation of the main dynamics of Late Medieval rural Tuscany.

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- Economic History, Medieval History, Renaissance Studies, Rural History

This is the original version of an article now edited and translated into English (updated with additional illustrations) and republished in "Food, Social Politics and the Order of Nature in Renaissance Europe" (2019), a volume of my... more

- by Allen J Grieco
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- Renaissance History, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies

Objective: Throughout history, gout has been referred to as the " disease of the kings " , and has been clearly associated with the lifestyle of the aristocratic social classes. According to the written sources, several members of the famous Medici family of Florence suffered from an arthritic disease that contemporary physicians called " gout ". A paleopathological study carried out on the skeletal remains of some members of the family, exhumed from their tombs in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, offered a unique opportunity to directly investigate the evidence of the arthritic diseases affecting this elite group. Methods: The skeletal remains of several members of the family were examined macroscopically and submitted to x-ray investigation. Results: The results of the study allowed us to ascertain that the so-called " gout of the Medici " should be considered the clinical manifestation of three different joint conditions: diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis, rheumatoid arthritis and uratic gout. In particular, uric acid gout was diagnosed in the Grand Duke Ferdinand I (1549-1609). Recently, a new case of this disease was diagnosed in Anton Francesco Maria (1618–1659), a probable illegitimate member of the family. Conclusion: With this new case, uratic gout was observed in 2 out of 9 adult males, leading to suppose that the disease should have been a common health problem within the family. The aetiology of the disease has to be searched in environmental factors, since both historical and paleonutritional studies demonstrated that the diet of this aristocratic court was rich in meat and wine.

- by Antonio Fornaciari
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- Bioarchaeology, History of Medicine, Paleopathology, Renaissance Studies
- by Larry Silver
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- Renaissance Studies
- by Leonard Barkan
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- Renaissance Studies, History of Art

This essay is a survey of the figure Fortune in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English poetry. It argues that poetry reveals the work of figuration within the construction of gendered and racial difference. First, it looks at some early verses by Thomas More where poetic ambiguity is used to imitate the contingency associated with the pagan goddess. It then identifies, in an overlooked variant spelling of Thomas Wyatt’s lyric ‘They fle from me that sometim did me seke’, an association between Fortune and the poet’s mistress, which is reworked by numerous later poets. It reads the ‘dark mistress’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnets as a refiguration of Fortune: not an anti-Petrarchan conception, as is often assumed, but one inspired by the psychological technique of ‘blackening’ proposed in Petrarch’s De remediis fortunae (Remedies for Fortune). Following recent work in critical race theory, it argues that this refiguration reflects anxieties about and aesthetic fascination with the Atlantic slave trade. It discusses the career of the Elizabethan super-tune “Fortune my foe,” from an exchange of verses between Walter Ralegh and Elizabeth I to its dismissal as misogynistic in a 1668 play by Margaret Cavendish. Finally, it discusses an argument in the poetry of Katherine Philips that a virtuous woman can capture Fortune, observing that this triumph over Fortune mirrors the exploitation of slave labour in England’s Caribbean colonies.

- by Orlando Reade
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- Musicology, Philosophy, Renaissance Studies, Poetry

John Skelton is a central literary figure and the leading poet during the first thirty years of Tudor rule. Nevertheless, he remains challenging and even contradictory for modern audiences. This book aims to provide an authoritative... more

- by Sebastian Sobecki
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- Religion, Christianity, History, Law

Nella letteratura italiana dal XIV al XVIII secolo ha discreta fortuna e circolazione il tema della sconfitta del dio dell’amore, umiliato e privato delle proprie armi soprattutto dalle donne. A partire dalle fonti classiche dell’episodio, rintracciabili nell’epigrammatica alessandrina e nel "Cupido cruciatus" di Decimo Magno Ausonio, si ricostruiscono il significato e le molteplici declinazioni del soggetto nella produzione letteraria italiana, dal "Triumphus Pudicitie" di Francesco Petrarca alla poesia in ottava rima di Luigi Pulci e Angelo Poliziano, dalle raccolte di emblemi ed imprese ai poemetti encomiastici cinquecenteschi in lode di donne, dalle opere di Moderata Fonte e Lucrezia Marinelli alla letteratura morale settecentesca (con particolare attenzione per l’"Amore disarmato" attribuito a Jacopo Durandi). Ripercorrere le tappe della ricezione, tra riscrittura e risemantizzazione, del topos di Cupido punito e disarmato significa andare oltre un’indagine puramente tematica, per ricostruire la fortuna, letteraria ma anche iconografica, di un motivo di lunga durata.
Questo libro ha vinto il Premio Tesi di Dottorato istituito dalla Sapienza Università di Roma, nell’edizione 2013."

- by Francesco Lucioli
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- Iconography, Humanities, Women's Studies, Italian Studies

The relation God/world and the necessity of the infinite universe · The aim of this chapter is to present the most relevant points of De immenso’s first book, focussing on the differences from the Italian dialogue De l’infinito, and in particular on the a priori demonstration that the infinity of the universe proceeds necessarily from the divine cause as Bruno conceives it. The essay follows the tri- partite structure of Book i, paying attention to Bruno’s idea of planetary systems (synodi ex mundis) as the basic cosmological structure of the infinite universe as well as to his polemics with the scholastic distinction between the absolute and the ordained power of God.

- by Miguel A. Granada and +2
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- Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Philosophy, Giordano Bruno, Scientific Revolution

In an unpublished manuscript about exemplary women, Cristofano Bronzini described a visit to the Tuscan court by Giovanna Garzoni while she was still in her teens, and transcribed a poem written there in her honour. This new documentary... more

- by Sheila Barker
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- Women's History, Renaissance Studies, Paleography, History of Florence
- by Lorenzo Filippo Bacchini
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- Italian Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Renaissance Studies, Colonialism

Il De immenso viene composto, in otto libri, nel 1583, in Inghilterra, e poi pubblicato a Francoforte nel 1591. Insieme al De triplici minimo e al De monade esso fa parte di una trilogia dedicata al duca Enrico Giulio di Braunschweig e Lüneburg. Nonostante una ricca bibliografia critica, ampiamente descritta nell’introduzione del volume, mancava fino ad oggi uno studio dedicato interamente al De immenso, nel quale si offrisse una presentazione integrale del contenuto dei singoli libri tenendo sempre presente il contesto intellettuale europeo al quale Bruno risponde e con il quale si confronta. Con questo obiettivo si è tenuto a Barcellona, nell’aprile del 2018, il convegno internazionale «Giordano Bruno, De immenso et innumerabilibus. Letture critiche», dove l’esame degli otto libri dell’opera è stato accompagnato da interventi su aspetti generali del poema. Se ne presentano qui i risultati, nella speranza di offrire agli studiosi una sorta di ‘guida’ alla lettura del De immenso che possa contribuire alla più ampia attenzione, da parte di curiosi e di specialisti, verso questa opera così importante del pensiero bruniano.

- by Dario Tessicini and +5
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- Renaissance Studies, History of Science, Renaissance Philosophy, History of Renaissance Science

The thesis is divided into two parts and it aims to explain the historical events related to the bibliographical collection of the ancient Jesuit College of Perugia. The first part focuses on the Jesuit librarian history and on the reconstruction of the historical events related to the library of the Perugian college. The institute, founded in 1552, was endowed with a library a few years after its foundation, enriching its collection through different books acquisition channels. The analysis, conducted on unpublished archival documents and published material, reconstructs the events of the library by entering the special case of Perugia in the broader spectrum of the Jesuit librarian history . In this way I tried to provide a model of historical research adaptable to the different librarian realities of the ancient Society of Jesus. The second part of the dissertation consists of the partial reconstruction of the library catalog.

- by Natale Vacalebre
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- Cultural History, Library Science, Early Modern History, Cultural Heritage
- by Giacomo Comiati
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- Italian Studies, Renaissance Studies, Petrarch, Italian Literature

The International Congress “Truth and lies in
fakes and forgeries” is aimed at investigating the
problem of “faking” in cultural heritage through an
interdisciplinary method. Namely: economical, legal,
artistic, philological and scientific aspects will be
considered.
Il Convegno Internazionale “Verità e menzogna
nel falso” ha principalmente l’obiettivo di indagare
la problematica del “falso” nei beni culturali
secondo un approccio di carattere interdisciplinare
e multidimensionale. Nello specifico, durante i due
giorni dei lavori, ne verranno trattati gli aspetti di
carattere economico – giuridico, storico – artistico e
filologico, nonché scientifico.

- by Elisabetta Gnignera and +2
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- Renaissance Studies, Italian Renaissance Art, Forgery, Fakery, Fraud, Authentication
- by Angelo Giuseppe Landi
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- Renaissance Studies, Italian Renaissance Art, Portugal, Filippo Terzi

The elite of Renaissance Italy learnt much about the newly discovered Americas
from the journals of explorer Christopher Columbus and from the accounts from the
Venetian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta. It was during the exploration of
Patagonia, that Pigafetta encountered the Taíno people. He would subsequently
write about what he witnessed, and thus his journal is the first European account of
the Taíno culture and the Cohoba ritual. The Florentine artist Giovanni Stradano,
would be one of the first artists to use this account and depict this ritual.
In his print of Magellan in the Americae Retectio folio, Stradano depicted a Taíno
man putting an arrow down his throat. This is a misrepresentation of the Cohoba
ritual, which involves purging. This depiction would have seemed fantastical,
devilish, and pagan to the Catholic beliefs of the Florentine elite. Although the Taíno
people still exist, and many still practice the Cohoba ritual, they and their culture
had been forgotten in Europe until anthropologists and archaeologists returned to
research South American native culture. This paper examines how the Cohoba
ritual of the Taíno was remembered in the accounts of Pigafetta and the imagery of
Renaissance Italy, in comparison with modern ethnographic evidence.

- by Maureen Maggio
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- Renaissance Studies, History and Memory, Cultural Memory, Italian Renaissance Art

Grazie all’opera di artisti e intellettuali, nel Rinascimento emerge una consapevolezza inedita del divenire storico che favorisce il culto del nuovo nelle arti, in letteratura, in filologia e nelle scienze. Il nuovo prendeva il posto del culto, una liturgia umana subentrava a quella divina. Questa rivoluzione tocca anche la cultura ebraica, motore e agente di un rinnovamento senza precedenti. Lo studio di Giuseppe Veltri ricostruisce la vita intellettuale ebraica nel Rinascimento italiano ed europeo, mettendo in luce momenti salienti del dibattito del tempo: la coscienza storica del divenire e la secolarizzazione, la funzione della poesia dantesca come ponte fra mondo ebraico e mondo cristiano, l’uso del volgare come simbolo del connubio delle diverse tradizioni, la nascita del criticismo, l’atteggiamento scettico come strategia e sintomo della crisi politica e intellettuale, il dibattito sull’immortalità dell’anima.

- by Giuseppe Veltri
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- Jewish Studies, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance Humanism, Italian Literature
- by Aletha White
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- Gender Studies, Renaissance Studies, Mary Wroth

Volume of translations of the poetry of Jan Kochanowski

This article explores the emergence and significance of printed game boards in Rome at the turn of the seventeenth century. These objects constitute an important and overlooked visual and material aspect of a pervasive culture of gaming that engrossed a huge range of the populace: both the rich and the poor, men and women, the educated and the illiterate. Printed game boards not only served to entertain, but also mirrored and reified deeper social and moral concerns about gambling and leisure, a tension between the prescribed morality of the legal sanctions, decrees, and censures associated with the Counter-Reformation, and the everyday games common both in courtly leisure and play on the street and in the tavern. Visually manifesting a dual understanding of games as both ludic and mimetic, printed game boards enacted the ontology of life’s journey for early modern players, from the courtly, to the religious, to the quotidian.

- by Kelli Wood
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- History, Cultural History, Print Culture, Game studies

In this paper we argue that the song book printed by Arnt von Aich probably during the second decade of the sixteenth century, an important source for early sixteenth-century German song, is a woodcut facsimile of at least two lost originals printed from movable type by Peter Schöffer the Younger. Many details in Arnt’s woodcut show a clear dependence on Schöffer’s typographical habits. However, the presence of features not evident in Schöffer’s surviving song books suggests that the originals copied by Arnt predated Schöffer’s extant Lied collections. Furthermore, Arnt’s book seems to provide important evidence of an element of experimentation in Schöffer’s typographical technique which was already resolved by the time he printed the collections that now survive.

- by Grantley McDonald and +1
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- Musicology, Early Modern History, German History, Book History

Introductory remarks to the special issue of Memorie Domenicane

- by Matthew A. Cohen
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- Medieval History, Renaissance Studies, Medieval Archaeology, Gothic Literature

The article reconstructs the history, evolution and organisation of the Bassano workshops across the broad span of their existence from 1578 to 1656. Careful historical reconstruction has outlined the profiles of four workshops on the basis of documents, many of which were hitherto unknown and/or unpublished.
The first bottega, directed in Bassano by Jacopo, was supplemented by parallel, yet interconnected, enterprises that were established in Venice by his sons Francesco (1578–1592) and Leandro (1587–1621). Upon Jacopo’s death, his other two sons, Giambattista and Girolamo, took over the family business (1592–1606), whose commercial position was progressively supported and improved as a result of Leandro’s leadership in the Venetian art market. Francesco died only a few months after his father and his shop was inherited by and divided among his three brothers.
The evolution of such a family business was not at all a natural or painless process, as traditionally suggested. It was, instead, the result of Jacopo’s careful and flexible planning, as well as of legal arbitration between father and sons, a complicated procedure that has been discussed in detail in the article.
At the very beginning of the third decade of the seventeenth century, Girolamo’s workshop, which he had meanwhile set up in Venice (1606–1621), was re-capitalised unexpectedly by one of his collaborators, Michele Pietra. Pietra extended his artistic services to include restoration and possibly the production of forgeries of works by famous painters of the sixteenth century (Bassano and Titian included). The analysis of unpublished documentation illuminates the role and importance of Pietra’s shop in terms of commercial strategies and the volume of production.
The article also takes into consideration the appreciation of the style and manner promoted by the four workshops. In particular, the study and attribution of new works, as well as the examination of key commissions, have presented the contributions of the various painters in a new historical perspective. But, more importantly, the paper also demonstrates how a style, which once belonged to Jacopo alone, came to be associated with a distinctive manner – the brand – of an entire clan of artists.

- by Elvira Bojilova
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- Optics, Print Culture, Art History, Art Theory

Storie inedite di interesse politico, economico, religioso, artistico, sociale e culturale e Roma nel Rinascimento

- by Bryce Maxey
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- Latin American Studies, Renaissance Studies, Latin American literature, Epic poetry

The book takes an interdisciplinary approach and covers the origins of the Italian Renaissance through the Baroque period. It is comprised of fifteen chapters, organized chronologically, along with an introduction and conclusion. As the Renaissance is central to the teaching of Western Civilization courses, often functioning as a bridge between first and second semesters, this book will help provide background to the social, cultural, and political scene in Italy between the Medieval and Modern eras.

- by Lisa Kaborycha
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- Art History, Renaissance Studies, Renaissance, Early Modern Europe
- by Paolo Cont
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- Military History, Diplomatic History, Medieval History, Renaissance Studies
- by Balbinder Singh Bhogal
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- Religion, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion

This ambitious book is about a way of building that for centuries dominated the making of monumental architecture – yet now not only is it lost as practice, knowledge of its very existence is consigned to oblivion. In pre-modern Europe, the architect built not just with imagination, brick and mortar, but with time, using vast quantities of duration to erect monumental buildings that otherwise would have been impossible. Not mere medieval muddling-through, this entailed a sophisticated set of norms and practices. Virtually all the great cathedrals of Europe were built under this regime. In particular, the major works of pre-modern Italy, from the Pisa cathedral group to the new St Peter’s – the apotheosis of the practice – are thus cast in an entirely new light. Even as ‘Building-in-Time’ flourished, the fifteenth-century Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti proposed a new temporal regime whereby time would ideally be excluded from the making of architecture (‘Building-outside-Time’). Planning and building, which had formed one fluid, imbricated process, were to be sharply divided, and the change that always came with time excluded from architectural facture. Ironically, it was Brunelleschi, as creator of the cupola of Florence cathedral and one of the supreme practitioners of Building-in-Time, who was the lynchpin of Alberti’s turn to the arts in the mid-1430s. That he arrived in Florence just at the moment Brunelleschi’s dome was being completed was crucial to Alberti’s subsequent career in visual culture. In telling this story, Trachtenberg rewrites the history of medieval and Renaissance architecture in Italy and recasts the turn to modernity in new terms. Recovering this lost element allows us also to see the present in a new way: temporality is not a neutral or secondary factor in modern architecture culture, but an epistemic condition that silently affects all production and experience of the built environment.

- by Marvin Trachtenberg
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- Medieval Philosophy, Architecture, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies

"The Kabbalistic Library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola" is a joint project carried out by the Institut fuer Judaistik of the Freie Universitaet Berlin (Germany) and the Istituto Nazionale di Studi sul Rinascimento (Firenze, Italy). The Book of Bahir has served for centuries as a concise mystical encyclopedia of kabbalistic lore. Notwithstanding the presence of a few more ancient elements, it looks as if that one or more kabbalists edited the Bahir, as we know it, between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th century. The Book of Bahir was explicitly mentioned by Count della Mirandola in his Conclusiones published in 1486 and represents a crucial source for understanding Pico's thinking. This volume, edited by Saverio Campanini with a foreword by Giulio Busi, offers the critical edition of the Latin translation of the Bahir made by Flavius Mithridates for Giovanni Pico together with a modern English translation and a new critical edition of the Hebrew text of the Bahir.

- by Giulio Busi and +1
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- Renaissance Studies, Jewish Mysticism, Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Christian Kabbalah