Outline of Core Module Seminars
Term 1, 2012
Section 1: Mapping the Renaissance
Week 1. Renaissance Humanism in Italy: from Petrarch to Machiavelli (Maude Vanhaelen).
Monday 1 October, 2:30-4:00, H450. (CM)
Week 2. Renaissance Humanism in Northern Europe: Erasmus (Paul Botley).
Monday 8 October, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 3. The Political, Social and Economic Landscape of the Renaissance (David Lines).
Monday 15 October, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 4. Renaissance Art (Joanne Anderson).
Monday 22 October, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 5. Renaissance Philosophy: More’s Utopia (Mark Knights).
Tuesday 30 October, 1:00-3:00, H450. (CM)
Week 6. Reading Week (no classes).
Section 2: Renaissance Literary Culture
Week 7. English Literature (Paul Botley).
Monday 12 November, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 8. Italian Literature (Simon Gilson).
Monday 19 November, 12:00-2.00, H450 (CM)
Week 9. French Literature (Michael Harrigan).
Monday 26 November, 10:00-12.00, H450. (CM)
Week 10. Greek Literature (Paul Botley).
Monday 3 December 2012, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Outline of Core Module Seminars
Term 2, 2013
Section 3: Renaissance Thought, Science and Art
Week 1. Collecting in the Renaissance: Libraries and Museums (David Lines).
Monday 7 January 2013, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 2. Renaissance Scholarship (Paul Botley).
Monday 14 January, 3.30-5:30, H450. (CM)
Week 3. Renaissance Medicine (to be confirmed)
Monday 21 January, 2:00-4:00, H450. (CM)
Week 4. Aristotle in the Renaissance (Eva Del Soldato)
Monday 28 January, 2:00-4:00, H450. (CM)
Week 5. Renaissance Art: Neoplatonism (Lorenzo Pericolo).
Monday 4 February, 2:00-4:00, H450. (CM)
Week 6. Reading Week (no classes)
Section 4: Renaissance Society, Power, and Religion
Week 7. Printing and Popular Culture (Rosa Salzberg).
Monday 18 February, 2:00-4:00, H450. (CM)
Week 8. The Universities and Political Power (Jonathan Davies).
Monday 25 February, 2:00-4.00, H450. (CM)
Week 9. Religion and Renaissance Women: Spirituality and Poetry in England (Femke
Molekamp).
Monday 4 March, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 10. Identifying the Renaissance: Current Debates and Methodological Problems
(Jonathan Davies).
Monday 11 March, 10:00-12:00, H450. (CM)
Week 1. Humanism in the Italian Renaissance: From Petrarch to
Machiavelli
Maude Vanhaelen
Questions
The following questions intend to provide you with an overview of key figures, important
concepts and themes, and main scholarly debates on Renaissance thought. Please prepare
notes on some of the following questions, with reference to relevant secondary sources:

Why is the period 1300-1600 called ‘The Renaissance’, and who were the first to use
this terminology of ‘rebirth’?

What is ‘humanism’?

How were ancient Greek authors (e.g. Homer, Plato) transmitted in Renaissance
Italy?

What was the contribution and role of Petrarch, and how far can we call him ‘the
father of humanism’?

In what ways do Leonardo Bruni and Lorenzo Valla symbolise what we call
‘Renaissance humanism’?

Identify Angelo Poliziano, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino and
situate them in the context of the Medici’s patronage and politics.

What is the ‘Baron thesis’?

Discuss Machiavelli’s contribution to political thought. How ‘machiavellian’ was
Machiavelli?

Discuss the ways in which ‘humanism’ has been defined by the two founding fathers
of Renaissance studies (Eugenio Garin and Paul Oskar Kristeller) and reflect on the
various ways in which one can combine both approaches (see Celenza).
Readings
R. Black, Renaissance Thought. A Reader (London: Routledge, 2001) [Key articles on ‘The
Renaissance’ by anglo-saxon scholars. Several important articles by Kristeller, one of
the founding fathers of Renaissance studies]
C. Celenza, The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians and Latin’s Legacy
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004) [includes an interesting chapter on
Garin vs. Kristeller]
R. Fubbini, Humanism and secularization: from Petrarch to Valla, translated by Martha King
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003)
E. Garin, Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance, translated by
Peter Munz (Wesport, Conn: Greenwood, 1975) [The other founding father of Renaissance
studies]
P. Godman, From Poliziano to Machiavelli: Florentine Humanism in the High Renaissance
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1998) [a good synthesis of the topic]
J. Hankins (ed), Renaissance Civic Humanism: Reappraisals and Reflections (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000) [A good reappraisal of the Baron thesis]
J. Kraye, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996)
A. Mazzocco (ed), Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism (Leiden: Brill, 2006)
Q. Skinner, ‘Political philosophy’, in C. B. Schmitt and Q. Skinner (eds), The Cambridge
History of Renaissance Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), esp. pp.
408-442 [useful introduction on Machiavelli]
N. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy. Greek studies in the Italian Renaissance (London:
Duckworth, 1992) [excellent account of the revival of Greek culture in 15th-century Italy]
R. B. Witt, In the Footsteps of the Ancients: the Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni
(Leiden: Brill, 2000)
Week 2. Renaissance Humanism in Northern Europe: Erasmus
Paul Botley
Questions

Is the Northern European Renaissance different from the Italian Renaissance?

Does the term ‘humanism’ remain as useful for describing the activities of the
sixteenth century as it is for the fifteenth?

Why is Erasmus important?

What information do you need to answer the question ‘What was the Reformation?’

What was the Reformation?
Reading
Please read Erasmus’ satirical dialogue The Praise of Folly, and his public letter to Maarten
Van Dorp. Both are available in a modern English translation in Erasmus, Praise of Folly and
Letter to Maarten Van Dorp. tr. Betty Radice, intro. and notes A. H. T. Levi, London,
Penguin, 1971 (repr. 1993). The University Library has several copies of this edition. If you’re
feeling more adventurous, you can read it in a sixteenth-century English translation: Erasmus,
The Praise of Folie by Sir Thomas Chaloner, ed. Clarence H. Miller, Oxford, 1965. The
Praise of Folly is a slipperly text, so be prepared to read slowly.
Secondary sources
The bibliography below is suggested (not required) reading. The University Library holds a
very large number of works on Erasmus, most of which are good.
Bainton, Roland H. Erasmus of Christendom. London, 1969.
A very readable and relatively short biography, available to read online vis the Library
catalogue.
Bietenholz, Peter G. ed. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the
Renaissance and Reformation. Asst. ed. Thomas B. Deutscher. 3 vols. Toronto, 1985-1987.
An invaluable guide to all the names which appear in Erasmus’ works.
Dolan, John P. The Essential Erasmus. New American Library, 1964.
This contains translations of a number of important works: the Encheiridion, Praise of Folly,
Complaint of Peace, Inquisitio de fide, De immensa misericordia Dei, De sarcienda Ecclesiae
concordia.
Erasmus, Paraclesis. An English translation of this important work is available in: Christian
Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings, ed. J. C. Olin (New York, 1965), pp. 92106.
Erasmus, Enchiridion Militis Christiani: An English Version, ed. Anne M. O’Donnel. Oxford,
1981.
An edition of a sixteenth-century English translation.
Erasmus, The Collected Works of Erasmus, 86 vols to date, Toronto, 1974-2011.
The complete works of Erasmus are available in a reliable English translation in this series.
Jardine, Lisa. Erasmus Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print. Princeton,
1995.
Kraye, Jill. ‘Erasmus and the Canonisation of Aristotle: The Letter to John More’, in England
and the Continental Renaissance, ed. E. Cheney and P. Mack (Bury St Edmunds, 1990) 37-49.
Maguire, J. B. ‘Erasmus’ Biographical Masterpiece: Hieronymi Stridonensis Vita.’
Renaissance Quarterly 26 (1973) pp. 265-73.
This is on JSTOR.
Phillips, Margaret Mann. Erasmus and the Northern Renaissance. London, 1949. Reprint
1961.
Phillips, Margaret Mann. The Adages of Erasmus: A Study with Translations. Cambridge,
1964.
Rabil, Albert. Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist, San
Antonio, 1972.
Rummel, Erika, The Erasmus Reader, Toronto, 1990.
A collection of extracts from some of Erasmus’ most influential works.
Rummel, Erika. Erasmus on Women, Toronto, 1996.
Rummel, Erika. Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus, Leiden and
Boston, 2008.
Sowards, J. K. ‘Erasmus and the Apologetic Textbook: a Study of the De Duplici Copia
Verborum ac Rerum.’ Studies in Philology 55 (1958) pp. 122-35.
Week 3. Renaissance Europe: the economic, political and social
landscape
David Lines
Questions
Think about the following issues as you read around in the items listed below:

To what extent did the flourishing of the art and literature of the Renaissance
correspond to a economic high-point as well?

To what extent was the Renaissance a period of socio-political tensions and rivalries?
Why? What effects are visible on institutions and cultural developments?

Where did the demographic expansion especially take place, and how did it effect
relationships between city and countryside?

Did the Renaissance mainly involve the higher classes? Were social structures
affected at all? Did women have a Renaissance?

Did any new economic models develop? And how did Europe’s economy expand or
contract in the wake of the new geographical discoveries?
Reading
Eugene F. Rice, Jr. and Anthony Grafton, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460–
1559, 2nd ed. (Norton, 1994), chs. 2, 4–6.
Read selected articles in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600, 2 vols., ed. Thmas A.
Brady, Jr. and others (Leiden: Brill, 1994–95), esp. vol. 1, ch. 16 (The Art of War) by
Michael Mallett.
John M. Najemy, Italy in the Age of the Renaissance (Oxford, 2004), chs. 4–5, 8–9.
Week 4. Renaissance Art
Joanne Anderson
Questions

What kind of art history does Vasari construct? Who does it privilege and why?

What challenges to this model are laid down by Welch, Burke and Harrison?

How else might we study the art of the Renaissance?

Is 'Renaissance' a valid term?
Reading
Compulsory Reading
Evelyn Welch, 'Engendering Italian Renaissance Art - A Bibliographic Review', Papers of the
British School at Rome 68 (2000), pp. 201-216 (Arts Periodicals).
Giorgio Vasari, Prefaces to The Lives of the Artists (2nd edition, 1568).
See http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25326
Available online, but there are also numberous copies in the Library and the Learning Grid.
Jill Burke, 'Florentine art and the public good', in Viewing Renaissance Art, K. Woods, C. M.
Richardson and Angeliki Lymberopoulou (The Open University Press, 2007) (N6370.W655)
Charles Harrison, 'Giotto and the Rise of Painting', in Siena, Florence and Padua: art, society
and religion, 1280-1400, vol. 1, ed. Diana Norman (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1995), pp. 73-95 (N6931.S44)
Further Reading
On Renaissance Art:
Evelyn Welch, Art in Renaissance Italy (Oxford University Press, 2000) (N6915.W3)
William Hood, 'The State of Research in Italian Renaissance Art', The Art Bulletin 69 (1987),
pp. 174-186 (Art Periodicals)
Luba Freedman, The Revival of the Olympian Gods in Renaissance Art (Cambridge
University Press, 2003) (N6915.F7)
Larry Silveer, 'The State of Research in Northern European Renaissance Art', The Art Bulletin
68 (1986), pp. 518-35 (Arts Periodicals)
Susie Nash, Northern Renaissance Art (Oxford University Press, 2008) (N6370.N2)
Jeffrey Chipps Smith, The Northern Renaissance (Phaidon, 2004) (N6370.55)
On Art History Methodology:
Michael Hatt and Charlotte Klonk, Art History. A Critical Introduction to its Methods
(Manchester University Press, 2006) (N7480.H2)
Donald Preziosi, The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (Oxford University Press,
1998) (online through library) (2009 edition, N7475.A7)
Eric Fernie, Art History and its Methods: A Critical Anthology (Phaidon, 2003) (N85.F3)
Week 5. Renaissance Philosophy: More’s Utopia
Mark Knights
Reading
Primary source
More’s Utopia (any edition will do, though there is an especially good and cheap one by
David Wootton and I have ordered some of these for the bookshop). Please ensure that you
have read the text before the seminar.
Secondary sources
Historical/cultural background
Amy Boesky, Founding Fictions: Utopias in Early Modern England (Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1996)
Burns and Goldie (eds), The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700 (1991)
P. A. Fideler and T.F. Mayer, Political Thought and the Tudor Commonwealth: Deep
Structure, Discourse and Disguise (1992)
A. Fox, Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (1989)
S. Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980)
J. Guy, Tudor England (OUP 1988)
A. Hadfield, Literature, Politics and National Identity : Reformation to Renaissance (1994)
P. C. Herman, Rethinking the Henrician Era: Essays on Early Tudor Texts and Contexts
(1994)
D. MacCulloch, The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety.
J. McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics under Henry VIII and Edward VI
(1965)
J. Pocock (ed), The Varities of English Political Thought 1500-1800 (1993)
Q. Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought vols 1 (Renaissance) and 2 (Age of
Reformation) (1978)
G. Walker, Persuasive Fictions: Faction, Faith and Popular Culture in the Reign of Henry VIII
(1995)
On More/Utopia specifically:
Brendan Bradshaw, 'More on Utopia', Historical Journal, 24 (1981), 1-27
R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (1935)
J. C. Davis, Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing, 1516-1700
(1981), chapter 2.
G. R. Elton, ‘The Real Thomas More’ in Reformation Principles and Practice ed. by P.
Brooks (1980)
D. Fenlon, ‘England and Europe: Utopia and Its Aftermath’ Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society (1975)
A. Fox, Thomas More: History and Providence (1982)
Carlo Ginzburg, No Island is an Island: Four Glances at English Literature in a World
Perspective, trans. by John Tedeschi, Italian Academy Lectures (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000), ch. 1
J. Guy, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More (1980)
J. Hexter, Introduction to Yale edition of Utopia (vol 4 of the Complete Works)
More’s ‘Utopia’ (1952)
The Vision of Politics on the Eve of the Reformation (1973)
A. Kenny, Thomas More
J. Levine, ‘Thomas More and the English Renaissance: History and Fiction in Utopia’ in The
Historical Imagination in Early Modern Britain, ed D. Kelley and D. Harris Sacks (1997)
G. Logan, The Meaning of More's 'Utopia' (1983)
A. L. Morton, The English Utopia (1969)
F. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World
F. Manuel (ed) Utopias and Utopian Thought
R. Marius, Thomas More (1984)
E. Reynolds, The Field is Won: The Life and Death of Saint Thomas More (1968)
Q. Skinner, Section in Foundations of Modern Political Thought (1978)
Q. Skinner, ‘Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism’ in A.
Pagden (ed) The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe (1987)
R. Sylvester (ed), Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More (1977)
Thomas White, 'Pride and the Public Good: Thomas More's Use of Plato in Utopia', Journal
of the History of Philosophy, 20 (1982), 329-54
David Wootton, 'Friendship Portrayed: A New Account of Utopia', History Workshop
Journal, 45 (1998), 29-47
If you are interested in Utopianism more generally see
http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/rws1001/utopia/default.htm, where you will also find a very
extensive bibliography on More.
Week 6. Reading Week (no classes).
Section 2: Renaissance Literary Culture
Week 7. English Literature: Shakespeare’s Rome
Paul Botley
Questions
During your reading you may want to bear in mind the following questions:

What contitutes tyranny in Shakespeare’s Rome?

What do the Roman gods think of the events of these play? Where is the Christian
God?

Does Shakespeare approve of suicide?

Who is the hero in Julius Caesar? Who is the hero in Antony and Cleopatra?

What is the role of restraint in both plays?

What is the role of fate in both plays?
Please bring your own questions to the classroom: we’ll try to answer them.
Reading
Please read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and his Antony and Cleopatra. If you are not very
familiar with Shakespeare, you will find this slow work, but persevere, it gets easier. You can
find the two plays in any text of the complete works of Shakespeare, but you’ll be better off
with a single play edition with lots of explanatory footnotes. Get the most recent edition you
can find: the best start to reading secondary literature will be the introduction to your edition.
I like the New Cambridge editions, but the Arden Shakespeare and the Oxford Shakespeare
are also good. If you have time, you might want to look at Shakespeare’s other Roman plays:
Titus Andronicus (a little crude, astoundingly gory) and Coriolanus (a dense, confusing,
magnificent play).
Bibliography
The secondary literature on Shakespeare is vast and unwieldy, and that on Shakespeare and
Rome only a little smaller. The following list of recommended (not required) reading includes
some of the more notable and more easily available works. Many of the essays are in JSTOR.
Brower, R. A. Hero and Saint: Shakespeare and the Graeco-Roman Heroic Tradition,
Oxford, 1971.
Cantor, P. A. Shakespeare's Rome: Republic and Empire, Ithaca, NY, 1976.
Charney, M. Shakespeare's Roman Plays, Cambridge, MA, 1968.
D’Amico, Jack, ‘Shakespeare’s Rome: Politics and Theater’,
Modern Language Studies 22 (1992) pp. 65-78.
Dean, Paul, ‘Tudor Humanism and the Roman Past: A Background to Shakespeare’,
Renaissance Quarterly 41 (1988) pp. 84-111.
Kalmey, Robert P. ‘Shakespeare’s Octavius and Elizabethan Roman History’,
Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 18 (1978) pp. 275-87.
Martindale, Charles and Michelle, Shakespeare and the Uses of Antiquity: An Introductory
Essay, London and New York, 1990.
This is available to read online via the University Library catalogue: see especially pp. 12164.
Miles, Gary B. ‘How Roman are Shakespeare’s “Romans”?’
Shakespeare Quarterly 40 (1989), pp. 257-83.
Miles, Geoffrey, Shakespeare and the Constant Romans, Oxford, 1996.
There are two copies of this in the University Library.
Miola, Robert S. Shakespeare's Rome, Cambridge, 1983.
Miola, Robert S. ‘Julius Caesar and the Tyrannicide Debate’,
Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1985) pp. 271-89.
Platt, M. Rome and the Romans according to Shakespeare, Salzburg, 1976.
There is a copy of this in the University Library.
Rebhorn, Wayne A. ‘The Crisis of the Aristocracy in Julius Caesar’,
Renaissance Quarterly 43 (1990), pp. 75-111.
Ronan, Clifford, Antike Roman: Power Symbology and the Roman Play in Early Modern
England, 1585-1635, Athens, GA, and London, 1996.
Sacharoff, Mark. ‘Suicide and Brutus’ Philosophy in Julius Caesar’.
Journal of the History of Ideas 33 (1972) pp. 115-22.
Wells, C. The Wide Arch: Roman Values in Shakespeare, London, 1993.
Williamson, Marilyn, ‘The Political Context in Antony and Cleopatra’, Shakespeare
Quarterly 21 (1970) pp. 241-51.
Week 8. Italian Literature: Reading and Writing in the Renaissance
Simon Gilson
Questions
You should prepare notes on the following questions:

How and for what purposes was the language of rebirth used in relation to literature
(especially Dante and Petrarch)? [see McLaughlin]

What styles of reading were practiced in the Renaissance? [See Grafton and
Kallendorf]

How did print culture affect the author-reader-writer relationship? [See Chartier,
Richardson]

In what ways was the vernacular literature of Dante read and reinterpreted in
Renaissance Florence? (See set text, part 3; Garin, Gilson, Grayson, Parker)
Set Text (for point 4)
Images of Quattrocento Florence: Selected Writings in Literature, History and Art, ed. and
trans. Stefano Ugo Baldassarri and Arielle Saiber (New Haven-London, 2000)
Bibliography
Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the
Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Cambridge, 1994)
Roger Chartier, The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, 1989)
Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols. (Cambridge-New
York, 1979)
Eugenio Garin, ‘Dante nel Rinascimento’, Rinascimento, 2ser./7 (1967), 3-28; English
translation in The Three Crowns of Florence: Humanist Assessments of Dante, Petrarca, and
Boccaccio (London, 1972)
Simon Gilson, Dante and Renaissance Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2005)
Anthony Grafton, Commerce with the Classics: Ancient Books and Renaissance Readers
(Ann Arbor, MI, 1997)
Anthony Grafton, ‘Renaissance Readers and Ancient Texts: Comments on Some
Commentaries’, Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1988), 615–49
Cecil Grayson, ‘Dante and the Renaissance', in Italian Studies presented to E.R. Vincent
(Cambridge: Heffer, 1962), pp. 57-75
Craig Kallendorf, Virgil and the Myth of the Renaissance: Books and Readers in the Italian
Renaissance (Oxford, 1999)
Martin L. McLaughlin, ‘Humanist Concepts of Renaissance and Middle Age in the Tre- and
Quattrocento’, Renaissance Studies 2:2 (1988), 131–42
Deborah Parker, Commentary and Ideology: Dante in the Renaissance (Durham-London: Duke
University Press, 1993) [with chapter on Landino's commentary]
Brian Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy. The Editor and the Vernacular Text,
1470-1600 (Cambridge, 1994)
Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1999)
Week 9. French Literature: Encountering the New World – Jean de Léry
Michael Harrigan
Questions

How is intertextuality manifested in Jean de Léry?

What does Léry’s text tell us about the religious climate of his time?

What can Léry’s text tell us about ideas of ‘human nature’ in the sixteenth century?

To what extent was the ‘New World’ new?
Required Primary Reading
Léry, Jean de, Histoire d’un Voyage faict en la Terre du Brésil (Geneva: Antoine Chuppin,
1578) ; 2nd edition repr. ed. by Frank Lestringant (Paris: Livre du Poche, 1994) ; trans. by
Janet Whatley as History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1990).
Useful [not essential] Primary Reading
Léry, Jean de, Histoire Mémorable du Siège de Sancerre (Geneva: n. pub., 1574) ; repr. as Au
Lendemain de la Saint-Barthélemy: guerre civile et famile [et] Histoire Mémorable du Siège
de Sancerre (1573) (Paris: Editions Anthropes, 1975). [Original text can be accessed on
www.bnf.fr].
Montaigne, Michel de, ‘Des Cannibales’ (Book 1, ch. 31) and ‘Des Coches’ (Book 3, ch. 6) in
Essais, ed. Marie-Madeleine Fragonard (Paris: Pocket, 1998); trans. as ‘Of Cannibals’ and
‘Of Coaches’, in The Complete Essays, by M. A. Screech (London: Penguin, 1995).
Staden, Hans, Hans Staden: the True History of his Captivity (1557), trans. ed. Malcolm Letts
(London: Routledge, 1928); also repr. as The Return of Hans Staden: a Go-Between in the
Atlantic World, ed. by Eve M. Duffy and Alida C. Metcalf (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2012).
Secondary Reading
Certeau, Michel de, L'Écriture de l'histoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1975); transl. as The Writing of
History by Tom Conley (NY: Columbia University Press, 1988).
Chiappelli, Fredi, ed., First Images of America: the Impact of the New World on the Old
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).
Davis, Natalie Zemon, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1975) [see chapter 6, The Rites of Violence, pp. 152-187].
Greenblatt, Stephen, Marvelous Possessions: the Wonder of the New World (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1991).
Greenblatt, Stephen, ed., New World Encounters (Berkeley; Oxford: University of California
Press, 1993).
Hulme, Peter and Whitehead, Neil, Wild Majesty: Encounters with Caribs from Columbus to
the Present Day: an Anthology (Oxford: OUP, 1992).
Lestringant, Frank, Jean de Léry, ou, l'invention du sauvage: essai sur l'Histoire d'un voyage
faict en la terre du Brésil (Paris: H. Champion, 2005).
Lestringant, Frank, Le Cannibale: grandeur et décadence (Paris: Perrin, 1994); trans. by
Rosemary Morris as Cannibals: the Discovery and Representation of the Cannibal from
Columbus to Jules Verne (Cambridge: Polity, 1997).
Lestringant, Frank, Le Huguenot et le Sauvage, 3rd ed. (Geneva: Droz, 2004).
Levin, Harry, The Myth of the Golden Age in the Renaissance (London: Faber, 1970).
Pagden, Anthony, European Encounters with the New World: from Renaissance to
Romanticism (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1993).
Pagden, Anthony, The Fall of Natural Man: the American Indian and the Origins of
Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge University Press, 1982).
Todorov, Tzvetan, Nous et les autres: la réflexion française sur la diversité humaine (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 1989); trans. by Catherine Porter as On Human Diversity: Nationalism,
Racism and Exoticism in French Thought (London: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Further secondary readings
Duall, Scott D., ‘Beaucoup plus barbares que les Sauvages mesmes: Cannibalism, Savagery,
and Religious Alterity in Jean de Léry's Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil (15991600)’, L’Esprit Créateur, vol. 48, 1 (spring 2008), 58-71.
Frisch, Andrea, ‘In a Sacramental Mode: Jean de Léry’s Calvinist Ethnography’,
Representations, vol. 77, 1 (winter, 2002), 82-106.
Jeanneret, Michel, ‘Léry et Thevet: comment parler d’un monde nouveau ?’, Mélanges à la
mémoire de Franco Simone, vol. 4: Tradition et originalité dans la création littéraire
(Geneva: Slatkine, 1983), 227-245.
Rubies, Joan-Pau, ‘Texts, Images and the Perception of the ‘Savages’ in Early Modern
Europe: What we can Learn from White and Harriot’, in European Visions: American Voices,
ed. Kim Sloan (British Museum Research Publication, 2009), 120-130. [available through
website of British Museum].
Shullenberger, G., ‘Analogies of the Sacrament in Sixteenth-Century French and Spanish
Ethnography: Jean de Léry and José de Acosta’, Romance Studies, vol. 28, 2 (2010), 84-95.
Whatley, Janet, ‘Food and the Limits of Civility: The Testimony of Jean de Léry’, Sixteenth
Century Journal, vol. 15, 4 (winter 1984), 387-400.
Whatley, Janet, ‘Impression and Initiation: Jean de Lery's Brazil Voyage’, Modern Language
Studies, vol. 19, 3 (summer 1989), 15-25.
Whatley, Janet, ‘Une révérence réciproque: Huguenot Writing on the New World’, University
of Toronto Quarterly, 57, 2 (winter 1987-88): 270-89.
Week 10. Greek Literature
Paul Botley
Questions
In the course of your reading for this class, you should consider the following issues:

All of these renaissance writers make assumptions about what it is valuable to know.
What are these assumptions, and are they still valid?

What was the role of translation in the renaissance classroom?

How useful is the distinction between translations made ‘ad sensum’ and those made
‘ad verbum’?

The account of the Septuagint translation in the Letter of Aristeas is now regarded as
a myth. Do you think it was regarded as a myth in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries?
How would we know?

Try to identify some Greek author or authors which you are particularly interested in.
We may be able to talk about their fortunes during the period in the class.
Reading
The class will be divided into two parts. The first will look at educational practices in the
renaissance generally, and at the teaching of Greek specifically. The second will examine the
ideas about translation during the period, with particular emphasis on translations of Greek
authors. Please read the following four primary sources:
Pier Paolo Vergerio, De ingenuis moribus (pp. 93-118 in Woodward's translation; pp. 2-91 in
Kallendorf's Latin-English text).
Battista Guarino, De ordine docendi et studendi (Woodward, pp. 159-78; Kallendorf, pp. 260309).
Aristeas, The letter of Aristeas, tr. H. Thackeray, London, 1917. This is available to read and
download at: http://www.archive.org/details/theletterofarist00unknuoft. If you want a more
authentically Early Modern experience, try reading John Donne’s translation of this work
(1633), available to read via Early English Books Online.
James Hankins' translations of Leonardo Bruni, Selected writings on education and on
translation in Griffiths, Hankins, and Thompson, The Humanism of Leonardo Bruni, pp. 197254.
Secondary Literature
The bibliography below is suggested (not required) reading. Everything here is good, and it's
all available in the University Library. Don't worry too much about the Catalogus
Translationum et Commentariorum: I'll talk a little about it in class.
Botley, Paul. Renaissance Latin Translations: Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti and
Desiderius Erasmus. Cambridge, 2004 (paperback 2008).
Botley, Paul. Learning Greek in Western Europe, 1396-1529: Grammars, Lexica, and Student
Texts. Philadelphia, 2011.
Copeland, Rita. ‘The Fortunes of ‘Non Verbum pro Verbo’: Or, Why Jerome is Not a
Ciceronian’, in The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Translation in the
Middle Ages, ed. Roger Ellis (Cambridge, 1989) pp. 15-35.
Geanakoplos, Deno John. Greek Scholars in Venice: Studies in the Dissemination of Greek
Learning from Byzantium to Western Europe. Cambridge MA, 1962.
Grendler, Paul. Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning 1300-1600. Baltimore,
1989.
Griffiths, Gordon, James Hankins, and David Thompson, eds. The Humanism of Leonardo
Bruni: Selected Texts. Binghamton, New York, 1987.
For an overview of Bruni's work, the prefaces to each section are a good place to start.
Kallendorf, Craig. ed. and tr. Humanist Educational Treatises. I Tatti Renaissance Library.
Cambridge MA and London, 2002.
Includes parallel Latin-English texts of Vergerio's and Guarino's treatises (pp. 2-91; 260-309).
Kelly, Louis. The True Interpreter: A History of Translation Theory and Practice in the West.
Oxford, 1979.
Kristeller, Paul O., et al., eds. Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Medieval and
Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries. 8 vols to date. Washington D.C., 19602003.
Norton, Glyn P. The Ideology and Language of Translation in Renaissance France and their
Humanist Antecedents. Geneva, 1984.
Schwarz, Werner. Principles and Problems of Biblical Translation. Cambridge, 1955.
Short, clear and to the point.
Weiss, Roberto. ‘Learning and Education in Western Europe from 1470-1520’, in New
Cambridge Modern History, vol. I: The Renaissance, 1493-1520. Cambridge, 1957.
Wilson, Nigel. From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance. London,
1992 [Written from the perspective of a classicist, but very readable].
Woodward, William H. Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators, Cambridge, 1897.
Reprinted Cambridge, 1905, 1912, 1921; New York, 1970; Toronto, 1996.
(http://www.archive.org/details/vittorinodafelt00woodgoog)
Term 2
Section 3: Renaissance Thought, Science and Art
Week 1. Collecting in the Renaissance: Libraries and Museums
David Lines
Questions

Libraries: when did public libraries develop, and how did they compare to private
ones? How large were libraries? How were their size and layout affected by changes
in book production and the classification of knowledge? What was the proportion of
manuscripts to printed editions? How different was a library then to what it is now?
How easy is it to reconstruct holdings and classification systems? Were there any
forces limiting the acquisition of books?

Museums: what is the difference, if any, between a museum and a Wunderkammer in
the Renaissance? How are objects collected and displayed? What is the purpose?
Who is the audience?

Art collections: who assembles them, and for what purpose? How do issues of
patronage, status and wealth affect the way in which collections take shape? How
different are Renaissance art collections to others we see in galleries and art
museums today?

Is there a common driving force to the building of libraries, museums and art
collections in the Renaissance, perhaps related to historical, geographical, or
scientific changes? Do the three phenomena proceed at the same pace, or not? What
are the differences between Renaissance understandings of the purpose and public
for such collections?
Reading
Note: our seminar session will focus on the library and museum of natural history of Ulisse
Aldrovandi in Bologna, on the basis of unpublished documents (to be distributed and
discussed) and of the secondary literature. It will be particularly important to read the relevant
studies of Paula Findlen listed below, but also to read around the general subject of libraries
and collections in the Renaissance. Particularly important items are marked below with an
asterisk. The bibliography is arranged in chronological order.
Anthony Hobson, Great Libraries (London, 1970)
*B. L. Ullman, The Public Library of Renaissance Florence (Padua, 1972)
Marcella T. Grendler, ‘A Greek Collection in Padua: The Library of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli
(1535–1601),” Renaissance Quarterly, 33.3 (1980), 386–416
Elisabeth Pellegrin, Bibliothèques retrouvées: manuscrits, bibliothèques et bibliophiles du
Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Paris, 1988)
*Paula Findlen, ‘The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy’,
Journal of the History of Collections 1 (1989): 59-78. [republished in Bettina Messias
Carbonell, ed., Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp.
23-50; and Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago, eds., Grasping the World: The Idea of the
Museum (London: Ashgate Publishing, 2004)].
*Krzysztof Pomian, Collectors and Curiosities: Paris and Venice 1500–1800 (Cambridge:
Polity, 1990)
David Vaisey, The Foundations of Scholarship: Libraries and Collecting, 1650–1750: Papers
Presented at a Clark Library Seminar, 9 March 1985 (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark
Memorial Library, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992)
*Bibliothecae selectae da Cusano a Leopardi, ed. by Eugenio Canone (Florence: Leo S.
Olschki, 1993)
*Roger Chartier, The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe between the
Fourteenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1994).
The Cultures of Collecting, ed. by John Elsner and Roger Cardinal (London: Reaktion Books,
1994).
*Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early
Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
David Murray, Museums, Their History and Their Use, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 1996; rpt.
2003).
*Werner Arnold, Bibliotheken und Bücher im Zeitalter der Renaissance (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1997).
*Paula Findlen, ‘Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance’,
American Historical Review, 103 (1998), 83–114. (available on JSTOR)
Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Groller and Diego Hurtado de
Mendoza, Their Books and Bindings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)
*Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers, and Readers in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999)
*Paula Findlen, ‘The Formation of a Scientific Community: Natural History in SixteenthCentury Italy’, in Natural Particulars: Renaissance Natural Philosophy and the Disciplines,
ed. Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999).
*A History of Reading in the West, ed. by Guglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 1999). Especially chapters 7–10.
The Structure of Knowledge: Classifications of Science and Learning since the Renaissance,
ed. by Tore Frangsmyr (Berkeley, 2001). Includes Paula Findlen: ‘Building the House of
Knowledge: The Structures of Thought in Late Renaissance Europe’.
Marjorie Swann, Curiosities and Texts: The Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England
(Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
*Libri, biblioteche e cultura nell’Italia del Cinque e Seicento, eds. Edoardo Barbieri and
Danilo Zardin (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2002)
*Les humanistes et leur bibliothèque / Humanists and Their Libraries, ed. by Rudolf De Smet
(Leuven: Peeters, 2002). Especially the essays by Walker, Bianca, Nelles, De Smet, Dierkens.
*Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in in Early Modern Europe, ed. by
Pamela H. Smith and Paula Findlen (New York: Routledge, 2002). Especially the essays by
Silver and Smith, Sandman, Barrera, van Berkel.
Matthew Battles, Library: An Unquiet History (London: Heinemann, 2003).
Collecting Prints and Drawings in Europe, c. 1500–1750, ed. by Christopher Baker, Caroline
Elam, and Genevieve Warwick (Aldershot, 2003)
La storia delle Biblioteche: temi, esperienze di ricerca, problemi storiografici. Convegno
internazionale (L’Aquila, 16–17 settembre 2002), ed. by A. Petrucciani and P. Traniello
(Rome, 2003)
Alessandra Petrina, Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester (Leiden, 2004)
Biblioteche private in età moderna e contemporanea. Atti del convegno internazionale Udine,
18-20 ottobre 2004, ed. by Angela Nuovo (Milan: Bonnard, 2005)
*Ian Maclean, Learning and the Marketplace: Essays in the History of the Early Modern
Book (Brill, 2009)
Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
Esp. Ch. 15, ‘Building a Library’
Week 2. Renaissance Scholarship
Paul Botley
Questions

What does the word ‘scholar’ mean? Would you want to be one?

Who was Aulus Gellius and how would you summarise his work?

Who was Saint Jerome and what did he mean to the Renaissance?

What was Ciceronianism?

What do you understand by the term ‘textual scholarship’?

What is the Principle of the Harder Reading?

Who was Joseph Scaliger and why did Mark Patisson admire him?
Reading
First, look at a copy of the Attic Nights by the ancient author Aulus Gellius. It’s arranged in
very short chapters. Browse through, reading a few of these chapters, in order to get some
idea of the sort of work it is.
The class itself will be divided into two parts. In the first part we’ll talk about
Ciceronianism. Please read the Cinzio-Calcagnini-Lilio Exchange in J. DellaNeva, ed.
Ciceronian Controversies, tr. Brian Duvick. I Tatti Renaissance Library 26, Cambridge, MA,
2007, pp. 126-89. This collection of Renaissance letters and treatises on the subject is
available to buy. The Library has one copy and I have another, so you’ll need to share the
book or photocopy the relevant portions. Let me know if you have problems getting hold of
the text.
In the second part of the class, we’ll talk about textual scholarship. Please read the
following articles, all available on JSTOR, and come prepared to talk about one other article or
book of your own choice on the subject:
Tony Grafton, ‘On the Scholarship of Politian and its Context.’ Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 45 (1977) pp. 150-88.
Jerry H. Bentley, ‘Biblical Philology and Christian Humanism: Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus as
Scholars of the Gospels.’ Sixteenth Century Journal 8, no. 2 (1977) pp. 8-28.
Jerry H. Bentley, ‘Erasmus, Jean le Clerc, and the Principle of the Harder Reading.’
Renaissance Quarterly 31 (1978) pp. 309-21.
Aldo Scaglione, ‘The Humanist as Scholar and Politian’s Conception of the Grammaticus.’
Studies in the Renaissance 8 (1961) pp. 49-70.
Bibliography
The following is a list of recommended, not required, reading.
On Ciceronianism:
Copeland, Rita. ‘The Fortunes of ‘Non Verbum pro Verbo’: Or, Why Jerome is Not a
Ciceronian’, in The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Translation in the
Middle Ages ed. Roger Ellis (Cambridge, 1989) pp. 15-35.
Erasmus, Ciceronianus, tr. A. H. T. Levi, in Collected Works of Erasmus, vol. 28, Toronto
and London, 1986.
An English translation, with notes.
Gouwens, Kenneth. ‘Ciceronianism and collective identity: defining the boundaries of the
Roman Academy, 1525.’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 23 (1993) pp. 173-95.
Harvey, Gabriel, Gabriel Harvey's Ciceronianus, intro Harold S. Wilson, tr. Clarence A.
Forbes. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1945.
Mesnard, Pierre. ed. Ciceronianus, in Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami, I, pt 2
(Amsterdam, 1971) 581-710.
The Latin text of Erasmus work, with valuable notes and introduction.
Pigman, G. W. ‘Imitation and the Renaissance sense of the Past: the reception of Erasmus’
Ciceronianus.’ Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 9 (1979) pp. 155-77.
Sandys, John Edwin, ‘The History of Ciceronianism’, in Harvard Lectures on the Revival of
Learning, by J. Sandys (Cambridge, 1905) pp. 145-73.
Telle, Emile V. ‘Erasmus’s Ciceronianus: A Comical Colloquy’, in Essays on the Works of
Erasmus. ed. Richard de Molen (New Haven and London, 1978) pp. 211-20.
On Textual Scholarship:
Bentley, Jerry H. Humanists and Holy Writ: New Testament Scholarship in the Renaissance.
Princeton, 1983.
Grafton, Anthony. ‘The Origins of Scholarship.’ American Scholar (Spring, 1979) pp. 236-61.
Kenney, E. J. The Classical Text: Aspects of Editing in the Age of the Printed Book. Berkeley,
1974.
The University Library has two copies of this book.
Reynolds, L. G., and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of
Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd edn. Oxford, 1991.
Perhaps the best book-length introduction.
Reynolds, L. D. ed. Texts and Transmissions: A Survey of the Latin Classics. Oxford, 1983.
A collection of brief textual histories, to give you an idea of what a textual history light look
like.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, U. von. History of Classical Scholarship. tr. A. Harris, ed. H.
Lloyd-Jones. London, 1982.
On scholarship generally:
Grafton, Anthony. ‘The Availability of Ancient Works’, in The Cambridge History of
Renaissance Philosophy. ed. C. B. Schmidt, with Q. Skinner, E. Kessler and J. Kraye
(Cambridge, 1988) pp. 767-91.
Grafton, Anthony. Joseph Scaliger: A study in the history of classical scholarship. Vol.1:
Textual criticism and exegesis. Oxford, 1983.
The University Library has two copies of this book.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. ‘The Scholar and his Public in the late Middle Ages and the
Renaissance’, in Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning: Three Essays. ed. and tr. E. P.
Mahoney (Durham, North Carolina, 1974) pp. 3-25.
McManamon, John M. ‘Pier Paolo Vergerio (the Elder) and the Beginnings of the Humanist
Cult of Jerome.’ Catholic Historical Review 71 (1985) pp. 353-71.
Nuttall, A. D. Dead from the waist down: scholars and scholarship in literature and the
popular imagination. Newhaven and London, 2004.
If you’ve read Eliot’s Middlemarch, you’ll enjoy this.
Pattison, Mark. ‘Joseph Scaliger’, in H. Nettleship, ed. Essays by the Late Mark Pattison
sometime Rector of Lincoln College, 2 vols (Oxford, 1889) I, pp. 132-95. Previously
published in Quarterly Review, July 1860.
Pattison, Mark. ‘Life of Joseph Scaliger (fragments)’, in H. Nettleship, ed. Essays by the Late
Mark Pattison sometime Rector of Lincoln College, 2 vols (Oxford, 1889) I, pp. 196-243.
Robinson, G. W. tr. and intro. Autobiography of Joseph Scaliger with autobiographical
selections from his letters, his testament and the funeral orations by Daniel Heinsius and
Dominicus Baudius. Cambridge, MA, 1927.
Pfeiffer, Rudolph. History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850. Oxford, 1976.
Reeve, Michael D. ‘Classical Scholarship’, in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance
Humanism. Ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge, 1996) pp. 20-46.
Rice, Eugene F. Saint Jerome in the Renaissance. Baltimore and London, 1985.
Rice, Eugene F. ‘The Renaissance Idea of Christian Antiquity: Humanist Patristic
Scholarship’, in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy. ed. A. Rabil
(Philadelphia, 1988) I, pp. 17-28.
Sandys, John Edwin, A History of Classical Scholarship. Vol. 2: From the Revival of Learning
to the End of the 18th Century in Italy, France, England and the Netherlands. Cambridge,
1908.
Thomson, Ian. ‘The Scholar as Hero in Janus Pannonius’ Panegyric on Guarinus Veronensis.’
Renaissance Quarterly 44 (1991) pp. 197-212.
Weiss, Roberto. ‘The New Learning: Scholarship from Petrarch to Erasmus.’
The Age of the Renaissance, ed. Denys Hay (London, 1986) pp. 120-44.
Week 3. Renaissance Medicine
Jacomien Prins
[tbc]
Week 4. Aristotle in the Renaissance
Eva Del Soldato
Questions

In the course of your reading for this lesson, you should consider the following
issues:Was Renaissance Aristotelianism a monolithic movement or was it receptive to
external stimulus from other philosophical schools? Did Humanism affect its
developments in any way? Try to support your answer with examples taken from the
On the Immortality of Soul by Pietro Pomponazzi.

Though Renaissance Aristotelianism was mainly practised within University halls, it
also flourished in other environments, like courts and academies. Did these different
contexts affect the works which they produced? In your opinion, why?

How were Aristotle and Aristotelianism described by their opponents, like Petrarch
and Bessarion? What were the issues that put Aristotle in their firing line?

Between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance several works falsely attributed to
Aristotle met with great success. Can you explain the reasons for this?
Primary Sources
Francesco Petrarca, On his own ignorance and that of many others, in Invectives, ed. by D.
Marsh, Cambridge MA, 2003, pp. 113-185.
Bessarion, Against the Slanderer of Plato, in Cambridge Translation of Renaissance
Philosophical Texts: I, Moral Philosophy, ed. by J. Kraye, Cambridge 1997, pp. 134-145.
Pietro Pomponazzi, On the Immortality of Soul, in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed.
by E. Cassirer, P. O. Kristeller, J. H. Randall Jr., Chicago 1948 (only chapter 14, pp. 350377).
Secondary Sources
Required readings are highlighted with an asterisk:
L. Bianchi, ‘Continuity and change in the Aristotelian tradition’, in The Cambridge
Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. by J. Hankins, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 49-71.*
E. Del Soldato, ‘Simone Porzio, an Aristotelian at the Academy’, in Bilingual Europe: Latin
and vernacular cultures ca. 1300-1800, ed. by Jan Bloemendal, Brill, Leiden 2012
(photocopies to be provided).
P. Grendler, ‘Intellectual Freedom in Italian Universities: The Controversy over the
Immortality of the Soul’, in Le control des idées a la Renaissance, ed. J . M. De Bujanda,
Geneva, 1996), pp. 31-48.
J. Kraye, ‘Aristotle’s God and the Authenticity of De mundo: An Early Modern Controversy’,
Journal of the History of Philosophy 28 (1990), pp. 339-358.
P. O. Kristeller, ‘Petrarch's 'Averroists', "Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, XIV
(1952), pp. 59-65.
D. A. Lines, ‘The Importance of Being Good: Moral Philosophy in the Italian Universities,
1300–1600’, Rinascimento, 36 (1996), 139–193.
C. Martin, “Rethinking Renaissance Averroism,” Intellectual History Review 17 (2007), pp.
3-19.
C. B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance, Cambridge MA, 1983.*
Week 5. Renaissance Art: Neoplatonism
Lorenzo Pericolo
Questions

What are the textual sources that allow us to link Michelangelo's creative process and
work to late quattrocento Neoplatonism in Florence?

According to Erwin Panofsky, how does Michelangelo's notion of the body's prison
translate into some of the sculptural motifs in the project for Julius II's Tomb and the
Medici Tomb?

According to Irving Lavin, Michelangelo, in carving his famous David, compared
himself to David slaying Goliath. How does this parallel convey a Neoplatonic take
on art making?
Reading
Compulsory Reading
Erwin Panofsky, "The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo," in Idem, Studies in
Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Harper & Row,
1972): 171 ff.
Irving Lavin, "David's Sling and Michelangelo's Bow: A Sign of Freedom," in Idem, PastPresent: Essays on Historicism from Donatello to Picasso (Berkeley: University of Califormia
Press, 1993): 29-61.
Further Reading
Leatrice Mendelsohn, Paragoni: Benedetto Varchi's Due Lezzioni and Cinquecento Art
Theory (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1981).
Leonard Barkan, "Vat. Lat. 3211," in Idem, Michelangelo: A Life on Paper (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2011): 235-86.
Week 6. Reading Week (no classes)
Section 4: Renaissance Society, Power, and Religion
Week 7. Printing and Popular Culture
Rosa Salzberg
Reading
Peter Burke, ‘Oral Culture and Print Culture in Renaissance Italy’, ARV: Scandinavian
Yearbook of Folklore (1998), 7–18.
Brian Richardson, ‘The Debates on Printing in Renaissance Italy’, La Bibliofilia 100 (1998),
135 -55.
Carlo Ginzburg and Marco Ferrari, ‘The Dovecote Has Opened Its Eyes’, in Microhistory and
the Lost Peoples of Europe, edited by Edward Muir and Guido Ruggiero (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1991), pp. 11–19.
Further Reading
Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Aldershot: Scolar
Press, 1994).
Peter Burke, “Learned Culture and Popular Culture in Renaissance Italy”
in The Renaissance in Europe: A Reader, edited by Keith Whitlock (New
Haven & London: Yale University Press inassociation with The Open
University, 2000), pp. 73–81.
Filippo De Vivo, Information and Communication in Venice: Rethinking
Early Modern Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Paula Findlen, “Humanism, Politics and Pornography in Renaissance
Italy”, in The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of
Modernity, 1500 - 1800, edited by Lynn Hunt, (New York: Zone Books,
1993), pp. 49–108.
Francesco Doni, Nicolò Franco and Ortensio Lando (Madison,
Milwaukee and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969).
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a SixteenthCentury Miller (London & Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980; 1st
Italian ed., 1976).
Paul F. Grendler, Critics of the Italian World, 1530 - 1560: Anton
Francesco Doni, Nicolò Franco and Ortensio Lando (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1969).
Paul F. Grendler, “Form and Function in Italian Renaissance Popular
Books”, Renaissance Quarterly 46, no. 3 (1993), 451–85.
Craig Kallendorf, Virgil and the Myth of Venice: Books and Readers in
the Italian Renaissance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999).
Brian Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
Brian Richardson, “Print or Pen? Modes of Written Publication in
Sixteenth-Century Italy”, Italian Studies 59 (2004): 39–64.
Rosa Salzberg, “‘In the Mouths of Charlatans’: Street Performers and the
Dissemination of Pamphlets in Renaissance Italy,” Renaissance Studies
(2010)
Anne Jacobson Schutte, “Teaching Adults to Read in Sixteenth-Century
Venice: Giovanni Antonio Tagliente's Libro Maistrevole”, Sixteenth
Century Journal 17, no. 1 (1986), 3 - 16.
Week 8. The Universities and Political Power
Jonathan Davies
Questions

Why did political authorities support universities in the Renaissance?

How did political authorities control universities in the Renaissance?
Reading
Davies, Jonathan, Culture and Power: Tuscany and its Universities 1537-1609 (Leiden, 2009)
Davies, Jonathan, Florence and its University during the Early Renaissance (Leiden, 1998)
Frijhoff, Willem, 'Patterns', in Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, A History of the University in
Europe, vol. II Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800) (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 43112 [with bibliography]
Grendler, Paul F., The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Baltimore, 2002)
Grendler, Paul F., 'The Universities of the Renaissance and Reformation', Renaissance
Quarterly 57/1 (2004), 1-42 [with bibliography]
Hammerstein, Notker, 'Relations with Authority' in Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, A History of
the University in Europe, vol. II Universities in Early Modern Europe (1500-1800)
(Cambridge, 1996), pp. 114-54 [with bibliography]
Nardi, Paolo, 'Relations with Authority' in Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, A History of the
University in Europe, vol. I Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 77-107
[with bibliography]
Verger, Jacques, 'Patterns' in Hilde de Ridder-Symoens, A History of the University in
Europe, vol. I Universities in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 35-76 [with
bibliography]
Week 9. Religion and Renaissance Women: Spirituality and Poetry in England
Femke Molekamp
Reading
Primary Sources
Aemelia Lanyer, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611); see Women Writers Online
Elizabeth Melville, Ane Godlie Dreame (1603); see Women Writers Online
Secondary Sources
Erica Longfellow, Women and Religious Writing in Early Modern England (Cambridge,
2004), Introduction & Ch. 1.
Helen Wilcox, ‘“My Hart Is Full, My Soul Dos Ouer Flow”: Women’s Devotional Poetry in
Seventeenth-Century England’, The Huntington Library Quarterly, 63. 4 (2000), pp. 447-466.
Gary Kuchar, The Poetry of Religious Sorrow in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2008),
Ch. 4.
Week 10. Identifying the Renaissance: Current Debates
and Methodological Problems
Jonathan Davies
Questions
Consider the following questions:
 When would you date the beginning and end of the renaissance?
 What is the difference (in some field of study already known to
you, such as French literature, Italian painting, political theory)
between medieval and renaissance?

What is the difference between renaissance and baroque (or
whatever other period you would place after the renaissance)?
The reading list below should help you think about:
 What are the ideological implications of the term “renaissance”?
 To what extent has the improvement in our understanding of
medieval intellectual life rendered the term “renaissance” obsolete?
 What are the advantages and disadvantages of the competing term
“early modern”?
 What would we identify as the distinguishing marks of renaissance
civilisation?
 What differences might there be between the renaissance (or
whatever term we would wish to use in its place) in Italy and in
northern Europe?
Reading
Bouwsma, William J., ‘Eclipse of the Renaissance’, American Historical
Review 103 (1998), 115-17.
Bouwsma, William J., ‘The Renaissance and the Drama of Western
History’, American Historical Review 84 (1979), 1-15. [Reprinted in an
abridged form in John Jeffries Martin (ed.), The Renaissance: Italy and
Abroad (London, 2003), pp. 27-42].
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