The fifteen articles republished here exemplify the many directions Robert Black's research in Renaissance studies has taken. The first five studies look at Renaissance humanism, in particular at its origins, and the concept of the Renaissance as well as the theory and practice of historical writing. Black also updates his monograph on the Florentine chancellor, Benedetto Accolti. Machiavelli is the subject of three articles, focusing on his education and career in the Florentine chancery. Next come Black's seminal studies of Arezzo under Florentine rule, revealing the triangular relationship between centre, periphery and the Medici family. Finally, two articles on political thought examine the relative merits of monarchical and republican government for political thinkers on both sides of the Alps.

Ten essays by eminent scholars in Renaissance studies to celebrate the work of Robert Black. These essays analyze education, humanism, political thought, printing, and the visual arts during this key period in their development.

The poet-king without a throne appears here in an entirely new light. In The Politics of Culture in Quattrocento Europe: René of Anjou in Italy, Oren Margolis explores how this French prince and exiled king of Naples (1409-1480) engaged his Italian network in a programme of cultural politics conducted with an eye towards a return to power in the peninsula. Built on a series of original interpretations of humanistic and artistic material (chiefly Latin orations and illuminated manuscripts of classical texts), this is also a case study for a 'diplomatic approach' to culture. It recasts its source base as a form of high-level communication for a hyper-literate elite of those who could read the works created by humanist and artistic agents for their constituent parts: the potent words or phrases and relevant classical allusions; the channels through which a given work was commissioned or transmitted; and then the nature of the network gathered around a political agenda. This is a volume for all those interested in the politics and culture of later medieval Europe and Renaissance Italy: the kings of France and dukes of Burgundy, the Medici, the Sforza, the Venetians, and their armies, ambassadors, and adversaries all appear here; so do Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Guarino of Verona, and their respective intellectual and artistic circles. Emerging from it is a challenge to conventional interpretations of the politics of humanism, and a new vision of the Quattrocento: a century in which the Italian Renaissance began its takeover of Europe, but in which Renaissance culture was itself shaped by its European political, social, and diplomatic context.

Hans Baron was one of the many great German émigré scholars whose work Princeton brought into the Anglo-American world. His Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance has provoked more discussion and inspired more research than any other twentieth-century study of the Italian Renaissance. Baron's book was the first historical synthesis of politics and humanism at that momentous critical juncture when Italy passed from medievalism to the thought of the Renaissance. Baron, unlike his peers, married culture and politics; he contended that to truly understand the Renaissance one must understand the rise of humanism within the political context of the day. This marked a significant departure for the field and one that changed the direction of Renaissance studies. Moreover, Baron's book was one of the first major attempts of any sort to ground intellectual history in a fully realized historical context and thus stands at the very origins of the interdisciplinary approach that is now the core of Renaissance studies. Baron's analysis of the forces that changed life and thought in fifteenth-century Italy was widely reviewed domestically and internationally, and scholars quickly noted that the book "will henceforth be the starting point for any general discussion of the early Renaissance." The Times Literary Supplement called it "a model of the kind of intensive study on which all understanding of cultural process must rest." First published in 1955 in two volumes, the work was reissued in a one-volume Princeton edition in 1966.

This volume celebrates John M. Najemy and his contributions to the study of Florentine and Italian Renaissance history. Over the last three decades, his books and articles on Florentine politics and political thought have substantially revised the narratives and contours of these fields. They have also provided a framework into which he has woven innovative new threads that have emerged in Renaissance social and cultural history. Presented by his many students and friends, the essays aim to highlight his varied interests and to suggest where they may point for future studies of Florence and, indeed, beyond. -- Amazon.com.

An intellectual biography of the 15th-century political scientist, showing the development in his thought from early subversive radicalism while an outcast from Florentine society to his later reconciliation with the establishment and more conventional norms in his writing.

"This volume celebrates the scholarship of Alison Brown, emeritus professor in the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London. A pre-eminent historian of the Renaissance, Professor Brown has, over a long and ongoing career, produced a stream of books and essays on the intellectual, cultural, and political history of Renaissance Florence and Italy. Her innovative and wide-ranging studies have made her the most authoritative interpreter of Florence's evolution from fifteenth-century republic to sixteenth-century principate. At the centre of her re-evaluation of this complex and dramatic story are her many studies of the Medici and their own evolution over several generations from citizen bankers to skillful patrons, manipulators of factional networks, "masters of the shop," and quasi-princes. Her research has brought new perspectives not only to politics and the nature of the Florentine state, but also to the period's intellectual and religious history--in particular the impact of the rediscovery of Lucretius--and the great ferment of political thought from the humanists to Savonarola, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini. Professor Brown's vibrant and original inquiries, grounded both in Florence's archival treasures and in the rich intellectual and artistic traditions of Renaissance Italy, deftly interweave politics, culture, and ideas to yield novel and eye-opening interpretations. The essays in this book by Professor Brown's friends and colleagues find inspiration in the themes she has explored and in her dedication to the highest aims and most exacting standards of historical research. The contributions focus on a wide variety of topics, including politics and political thought, family life, art, philosophy, law, and humanism. In providing a portrait of Renaissance studies today as a dynamic field influenced in myriad ways by Professor Brown's insights and methods, the volume is a tribute to the far-reaching influence of her scholarship."--