6.3 Readings, Core-Module Seminars
Term 1
SECTION 1: MAPPING THE RENAISSANCE
WEEK 1. THE POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE OF THE
RENAISSANCE
No preparation needed
WEEK 2. HUMANISM IN THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE: FROM PETRARCH TO
MACHIAVELLI
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 3. RENAISSANCE ART
Seminar Questions
1. What kind of art history does Vasari construct? Who does it privilege and why?
2. What challenges to this model are laid down by Welch, Burke and Harrison?
3. How else might we study the art of the Renaissance?
4. 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)
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 4. RELIGIOUS UPHEAVALS IN THE 16TH CENTURY
Seminar Questions
To what extent were sixteenth-century calls for reform of the Catholic Church new?
What links/similarities were there between the different reform movements: Christian
humanism; Lutheranism; Calvinism/Reformed; Catholic Reformation?
What role did the state play in the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century?
Which reform movement do you consider to have been the most successful and why?
Reading
Primary Texts (most available on the web)
Jan Hus, 'Final Declaration' (1415)
Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (c.1418-27)
Desiderius Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (1509), esp. chaps. on 'Great Illuminated Divines'
and 'Monks'
Martin Luther, Ninety-Five Theses (1517)
Martin Luther, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (1520)
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536-59)
Theodore Beza, Supralapsarianism: The Fall of Man Was Both Necessary and Wonderful
(1558)
Theodore Beza, On the Rights of Magistrates (1574)
D.M. Luebke (ed.), The Counter-Reformation: Essential Readings (1999)
Secondary sources
There are many general texts on the Reformations as you can see below. Please look at two
or three of these.
R. Birely, The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700 (1999)
J. Bossy, Christianity in the West (1985)
E. Cameron, The European Reformation (1991)
P. Collinson, The Reformation (2003)
N. Davidson, The Counter Reformation (1987)
E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (1992)
H. J. Goertz, The Anabaptists (1996)
B. S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (1999)
K. von Greyerz, Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe (2008)
R. Hsia (ed), Cambridge History of Christianity Volume 6: Reform and Expansion 1500-1660
(2007)
B. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early
Modern Europe (2007)
B. Kümin (ed.), The European World (2009), part 3: 'Religion'
D. MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 (2003)
P. Marshall, The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (2009)
A. McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (1988; second edn 1992)
J.W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (2000)
A. Pettegree (ed.), The Reformation World (2000)
A. Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (2005)
U. Rublack, Reformation Europe (2005)
A. Ryrie (ed), Palgrave Advances in the European Reformations (2006)
R. Scribner et al. (eds), The Reformation in National Context (1994)
J. D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations 1450-1650 (1999)
P. G. Wallace, The Long European Reformation (2004)
Specialised Reading
On some of the key figures:
M.A. Mullett, Martin Luther (2004)
H.A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and Devil (1990)
B. Cottret, Calvin: a Biography (2000)
B. Gordon, Calvin (2009)
WEEK 5.
THE ‘SCIENTIFIC RENAISSANCE’ AND THE ‘SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION’
This session offers an introduction into a period, referred to by historians of science and
medicine as the ‘Scientific Renaissance and/or the 'Scientific Revolution'. The terms refer to a
period stretching roughly from 1500 to 1700 and its beginning is generally associated with the
works of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1474-1543) and the anatomist Andreas
Vesalius (1514-1564). It ends with the English experimental philosopher Isaac Newton
(1643-1727). While the precise nature of developments is a matter of debate, all scholars
agree that the ‘Scientific Renaissance’ and the ‘Scientific Revolution’ is a key moments when
a specific way of looking at the natural world - what we call 'modern science' - began to take
shape. This session introduces us to the some of the central elements that began to look
different in the investigation of nature.
Reading:
Compulsory Reading:
Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 15001700 (Basingstoke, 2001), introduction; chapter 1 and 2 (more if you like of course)
Shapin, Steven, The Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1998)
Further readings:
Grant, Edward, 'Aristotle and Aristotelianism', in Science and Religion: A Historical
Introduction, ed. by Gary B. Ferngren (Baltimore, 2002), pp. 33-46
Lindberg, David C., The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition
in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, 600 B.C. to A. D. 1450 (Chicago,
1992), chapter 3
Siraisi, Nancy, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and
Practice (Chicago, 1990), chapter: Physiology and anatomy
Wear, Andrew/French, Roger K/Lonie, I.M., (eds.), The Medical Renaissance of the
Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985)
WEEK 6. READING WEEK [NO CLASSES]
SECTION 2: RENAISSANCE LITERARY CULTURE
WEEK 7. READING AND WRITING IN THE RENAISSANCE
Questions
1. How and for what purposes was the language of rebirth used in relation to literature
(especially Dante and Petrarch)? [see McLaughlin]
2. What styles of reading were practiced in the Renaissance? [See Grafton and Kallendorf]
3. How did print culture affect the author-reader relationship? [See Chartier, Richardson]
4. In what ways was the vernacular literature of Dante reinterpreted in Renaissance Florence?
(See set text, part 3; Garin, 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)
Reading
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)
Nicola Gardini, Rinascimento (Turin: Einaudi, 2010)
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: University of Michigan Press, 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
Walter Ong, Orality and literacy : the technologizing of the word (London: Methuen, 1982)
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 8. GRAMMAR BETWEEN BABEL AND UTOPIA: THE UNDERSTANDING
OF LANGUAGE IN THE RENAISSANCE
Purposes:
to identify and examine the nature of humanist ideas of language and the role of grammar;
to consider their central place in Renaissance thought;
to assess the practical advantages of these ideas;
to debate their questionable consequences for culture in Europe and in the new world.
Seminar questions
You will each be expected to have formulated responses to all of the following questions
which are designed to elicit your own opinions rather than correct or specific 'answers'. By
all means give more attention and time to the questions that interest you most [with the
obvious exception of c) which is very straightforward]
a) What is your impression of the general role of grammar in Renaissance thought? Why was
it important? [see e.g. Dante, Johnson, Jensen, Percival]
b) To what extent was Latin identified with grammatica or grammar itself, and why? [see
e.g. Dante]
c) How was Grammar depicted visually? What are the reasons for the images that were
customary in artistic representations? [see Wittkower]
d) In what ways do you think Renaissance attitudes to grammar and language may be
distinguished from those in the middle ages? [see e.g. Jensen, Percival]
e) Can a universal language and universal grammar be distinguished from each other? How?
What in your opinion was the significance of the biblical story of Babel? [see e.g. Genesis,
Dante, Eco]
f) What might be the specific problems with the application Renaissance ideas of
language/grammar to non-European languages in the New World? Did the process have any
advantages? [see e.g. Mignolo]
Reading
Primary texts:
Genesis 11: Babel.
Dante De vulgari eloquentia Book 1 chapters 1-9 This is online e.g.
http://alighieri.scarian.net/translate_english/alighieri_dante_de_vulgari_eloquentia.html]
Perotti, Rudimenta grammatices. Please look at this as an example of a late 15th c.
Renaissance grammar in Latin, to get a general idea of the layout:
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/6453
Does it make any sense at all to a student who knows no Latin?
Secondary literature (*asterisked items are attached as pdfs)
The reading will be more accessible if approached in this order:
(1) Johnson and (2) Jensen provides general introduction of role of Latin/grammar in
Renaissance humanism; compare art historical treatment in (3) Wittkower [attached]. (4)
Percival's articles are more detailed but authoritative and important. (5) Eco explains ideas of
universal/ pre-Adamic language. (6) Mignolo attempts to highlight deficiencies of
Renaissance thinking about language in the Americas.
Umberto Eco The Search for the Perfect Language [book] Oxford 1995, chapters 3 and 5 (on
Dante and on the 'Monogenetic hypothesis' respectively )
* Kristian Jensen The humanist reform of Latin and Latin teaching, [chapter] in: The
Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism ed. Jill Kraye, 63-81
Paul Johnson The Renaissance in Literature and Scholarship [chapter] in: The Renaissance- A
short history New York 2002, 23-60
*Walter Mignolo The Darker Side of the Renaissance [book]: chapter 1 Nebrija in the New
World: Renaissance Philosophy of Language and the Spread of Western Literacy; ch 2. –
and/or: *On the Colonization of Amerindian Languages and Memories [article],
in: Comparative Studies in Society and History 34.2: 301-330
W. Keith Percival, Studies in Renaissance Grammar, Ashgate, Aldershot 2004, reproduces
the following authoritative chapters (references given to the publications in which they first
appeared):
I. "The Grammatical Tradition and the Rise of the Vernaculars," Current Trends in
Linguistics, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok, vol. 13: Historiography of Linguistics (The Hague:
Mouton, 1975), pp. 231-275.
II. "Grammar and Rhetoric in the Renaissance," Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the
Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric, ed. James J. Murphy (Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press, 1983), pp. 303-330.
III. "Renaissance Grammar," Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed.
Albert Rabil, Jr., vol. 3: Humanism and the Disciplines, (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1988), pp. 67-83.
IV. "Renaissance Grammar, Rebellion or Evolution?" Interrogativi dell'Umanesimo, vol.
2: Etica, estetica, teatro, onoranze a Niccolò Copernico = Atti del X Convegno internazionale
del Centro di studi umanistici, Montepulciano, Palazzo Tarugi, 1973, ed. Giovannangiola
Tarugi (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1976), pp. 73-90.
*Rudolph Wittkower, 'Grammatica' from Martianus Capella to Hogarth [article], in: Journal
of the Warburg Institute 2.1 1938: 82-4
WEEK 9. SHAKESPEARE AND RENAISSANCE DRAMA
[It would be helpful if you could use the editions of the plays provided below, as others may
be based on different copy-texts and line(s) and/or line number(s) may vary.]
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, KING LEAR
Compulsory Readings
William Shakespeare, King Lear, ed. R. A. Foakes (London: Arden, 1997).
R. L. Colie, ‘Reason and Need: King Lear and the “Crisis” of the Aristocracy’, in Some
Facets of King Lear: Essays in Prismatic Criticism, ed. R. L. Colie and F. T. Flahiff
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), 185-220.
James Turner, ‘The Tragic Romances of Feudalism: 6. King Lear’, in Shakespeare: The Play
of History, ed. G. Holderness, N. Potter and J. Turner (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), 89118.
J. W. Draper, ‘The Occasion of King Lear’, Studies in Philology 34 (1937), 176-85.
Further/Optional Readings
Paul Delany, ‘King Lear and the Decline of Feudalism’, PMLA 92 (1977), 429-40.
Susan Snyder, ‘King Lear and the Prodigal Son’, Shakespeare Quarterly 17 (1966), 361-9.
Richard Halpern, ‘Historica Passio: King Lear’s Fall into Feudalism’, in The Poetics of
Primitive Accumulation: English Renaissance Culture and the Genealogy of Capital (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1991), 215-69.
E. H. Kantorowicz, ‘The King Never Dies’, in The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval
Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University press, [1957] 1997), 314-450 [314-82].
BEN JONSON, VOLPONE, OR THE FOX
Compulsory Readings
Ben Jonson, Volpone, ed. B. Parker and D. Bevington (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1999).
Brian Parker, ‘Jonson’s Venice’, in Theatre of the English and Italian Renaissance, ed. J. R.
Mulryne and M. Shewring (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1991), 95-113.
R. H. Perkinson, ‘Volpone and the Reputation of Venetian Justice’, The Modern Language
Review 35 (1940), 11-18.
C. J. Gianakaris, ‘Identifying Ethical Values in Volpone’, Huntington Library Quarterly 32
(1968), 45-57.
Alexander W. Lyle, ‘Volpone’s Two Worlds’, The Yearbook of English Studies 4 (1974), 706.
Further/Optional Readings
Douglas Bruster, ‘“City Comedy” and the Materialist Vision’, in Drama and the Market in
the Age of Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 29-46.
Roberta Mullini, ‘Streets, Squares and Courts: Venice as a Stage in Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson’, in Shakespeare’s Italy: Functions of Italian Locations in Renaissance Drama, ed. M.
Marrapodi, et al. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 158-70.
Richard Dutton, ‘Volpone and Beast Fable: Early Modern Analogic Reading’, Huntington
Library Quarterly 67 (2004), 347-70.
Winifred Smith, ‘The Commedia dell’Arte in Elizabethan and Jacobean England’, in The
Commedia dell’Arte: A Study in Italian Popular Comedy (Ithaca: Columbia University Press,
1912), 170-99.
SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1) What is the relationship of King Lear and Volpone to their potential inheritors? How
do potential inheritors behave in the two plays?
2) Both in King Lear and in Volpone a son is disinherited and accused of plotting
parricide. Could you discuss the causes, similarities and differences?
3) In the light of the secondary reading and of the discussion on the previous two
questions, how does the situation in King Lear relate to the passage in King James I’s
Basilikon Doron? And that in Volpone? (if it does)
4) Can you discuss the view King Lear and Volpone have of their own goods? How do
King Lear and Volpone feel when faced with the possibility that their goods could be
taken away from them?
PASSAGES FOR DISCUSSION (with first and last lines)
1.
King Lear
LEAR: Meanwhile we shall express our darkest purpose…
As thou my sometimes daughter. (I.i.35121)
Volpone
VOLPONE: Call forth my dwarf [Mosca], my eunuch, and my fool…
And draw it by their mouths, and back again— (I.i.68-90)
VOLPONE: […] Now, now my clients…
I am not for ’em yet. (I.ii.87-91)
MOSCA: [to Voltore] You still are what you were, sir…
Cannot but come most grateful. (I.iii.1-7)
VOLPONE: You are too munificent…
I pray you see me often. (I.iii.19-23)
VOLTORE: [to Mosca]
But am I his sole heir?...
[MOSCA:] I know no second cause. (I.iii.44-9)
2.
King Lear
GLOUCESTER: ‘This policy and reverence of age…
[GLOUCESTER]: …apprehend him. Abominable villain, where is he? (I.ii.46-78)
GLOUCESTER: These late eclipses in the sun and moon…
[EDMUND:] …bastardizing. (i.ii.103-33)
EDMUND: Fled this way, sir, when by no means he could—
[GLOUCESTER:] To make thee capable. (II.i.42-85)
Volpone
MOSCA: [to Corbaccio] Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed…
But out of conscience and mere gratitude— (I.iv.93-7, 104-8)
CORVINO: Has he [Volpone] children?...
[MOSCA:] In all save me; but he has giv’n ’em nothing. (I.v.43-9)
MOSCA: Your son [Bonario], I know not by what accident…
[CORBACCIO:] Here is the will. (III.ix.2-8)
VOLTORE: [to the Avocatori] But, as I said, my honored sires, his father…
It was to murder him! (IV.v.63-76)
3.
From James I’s Basilikon Doron, or His Majesties Instructions to His Dearest Sonne, Henry
the Prince (1599), in The Political Works of James I, ed. C. H. McIlwain (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1918), 3-52: 37.
“If God send you succession, be carefull for their vertuous education: loue them as ye ought,
but let them know as much of it, as the gentlenesse of their nature will deserue; contayning
them euer in a reuerent loue and feare of you. And in case it please God to prouide you to all
these three Kingdomes, make your eldest sonne Isaac, leauing him all your kingdomes; and
prouide the rest with private possessions: Otherwayes by deuiding your kingdomes, yee shall
leaue the seed of diuision and discord among your posteritie; as befell to this Ile, by the
diuision and assignement thereof, to the three sonnes of Brutus, Locrine, Albanact, and
Camber. But if God giue you not succession, defraud neuer the nearest by right, what-soeuer
conceit yee haue of the person: For Kingdomes are euer at Gods disposition, and in that case
we are but liue-rentars, lying no more in the Kings, nor peoples hands to dispossesse the
righteous heire.”
4.
King Lear
LEAR: No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse…
Wherein I thee endowed. (II.ii.359-69)
GONERIL: Hear me, my lord:…
[LEAR:] Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need— (II.ii.449-59)
Volpone
MOSCA: And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune…
Your pleasure allows maint’nance. (I.i.28-65)
WEEK 10. WOMEN, SPIRITUALITY AND POETRY IN ENGLAND
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
SECTION 3: RENAISSANCE THOUGHT, SCIENCE AND ART
WEEK 1. GREEK LITERATURE IN THE RENAISSANCE
Questions
In the course of all your reading, you might like to 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.
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
John Donne’s translation of this work (1633) is 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 sources
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)
WEEK 2.
UTOPIA
RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE: THOMAS MORE’S
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:
Structure, Discourse and Disguise (1992)
Deep
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 3: THE RISE OF THE IMAGE IN WESTERN SCIENCE
In today’s world of the natural sciences images are of vital importance to support arguments
and disseminate one’s findings. It is therefore difficult to believe that in the Renaissance
images enjoyed a marginal epistemological function in the production of scientific
knowledge. Back then, medical learning and teaching, for example, still relied almost
exclusively on the interpretation of ancient texts. We are going to explore the ‘problem’ of
images for the production and dissemination of scientific knowledge in the Renaissance by
having a closer look at famous humanist and anatomist Andreas Vesalius and his lavishly
illustrated masterpiece, De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body)
published in 1543. De Fabrica showed for the first time in the history of medicine, the human
body in a realistic way. However, what function did Vesalius attributed to them?
Reading:
a) Primary source:
Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica (1543)
http://archive.nlm.nih.gov/proj/ttp/flash/vesalius/vesalius.html
b) Secondary reading:
Cunningham, Andrew, The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical
Projects of the Ancients (Aldershot, 1997).
French, Roger K., Dissection and Vivisection in the European Renaissance (Aldershot, 1999)
Kusukawa, Sachiko, 'The Uses of Pictures in the Formation of Learned Knowledge: the Cases
of Leonhard Fuchs and Andreas Vesalius', in Sachiko Kusukawa and Ian Maclean (eds),
Transmitting Knowledge: Words, Images, and Instruments in Early Modern Europe (2006),
pp. 76-77
Park, Katharine, Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human
Dissection (New York, 2007)
Swaday, Jonathan, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance
Culture (London: Routledge, 1995)
WEEK 4. COLLECTING IN THE RENAISSANCE: LIBRARIES AND MUSEUMS
Seminar questions
1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. 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 5. NEOPLATONISM AND RENAISSANCE ART
Seminar Questions
1) What are the textual sources that allow us to link Michelangelo's creative process and work
to late quattrocento Neoplatonism in Florence?
2) 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?
3) 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
SECTION 4: RENAISSANCE SOCIETY, POWER, AND RELIGION
WEEK 7. PRINTING AND POPULAR CULTURE
Core 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 & London:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969).
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century 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. UNIVERSITIES AND POLITICAL POWER
Seminar 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 IN RENAISSANCE SOCIETY
Core Reading
Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-c. 1580
(2nd ed., New Haven, 2005), esp. ch. ‘Corporate Christians’
Further Reading
Bossy, John. ‘Some Elementary Forms of Durkheim’, Past & Present 95 (1982), 3-18
Collinson, Patrick. ‘Religion, Society and the Historian’, Journal of Religious History 23
(1999), 149-67
Kaplan, Benjamin, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in
Early Modern Europe (New Haven, 2007)
Levack, Brian. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (2nd ed., Harlow, 1995)
Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. On Religion (New York, 1964)
Mayes, David. Communal Christianity: The Life & Loss of a Peasant Vision in Early Modern
Germany (Leiden, 2004)
McGrath, Alister. Reformation Thought (3rd ed., Oxford, 2000)
Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (ed. A. Giddens, London,
1992)
Wrightson, Keith & Levine, David. Poverty & Piety in an English Village: Terling, 15251700 (2nd ed., Oxford, 1995)
WEEK 10. IDENTIFYING THE RENAISSANCE: INTRODUCTION TO CURRENT
DEBATES ON THE CONCEPT OF THE RENAISSANCE
Questions
Consider the following questions:
1. When would you date the beginning and end of the renaissance?
2. 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?
3. 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:
1. What are the ideological implications of the term “renaissance”?
2. To what extent has the improvement in our understanding of medieval intellectual life
rendered the term “renaissance” obsolete?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the competing term “early modern”?
4. What would we identify as the distinguishing marks of renaissance civilisation?
5. 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].
Findlen, Paula, ‘Possessing the Past: The Material World of the Italian Renaissance’,
American Historical Review 103 (1998), 83-114.
Findlen, Paula, and Kenneth Gouwens, ‘Introduction: The Persistence of the Renaissance’,
American Historical Review, 103 (1998), 51-54.
Gouwens, Kenneth, ‘Perceiving the Past: Renaissance Humanism after the “Cognitive Turn”’,
American Historical Review 103 (1998), 55-82.
Grafton, Anthony, ‘The Revival of Antiquity: A Fan’s Notes on Recent Work’, American
Historical Review 103 (1998), 118-21.
Hay, Denys, ‘Introduction’ to The New Cambridge Modern History, I, The Renaissance 14931520 (London, 1957): 1-19.
Kristeller, P. O., ‘Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance’, in his
Renaissance Thought and its Sources (New York, 1979): 85-105, 272-87 and in other
collections of his papers.
Martin, John Jeffries, in John Jeffries Martin (ed.), ‘Introduction. The Renaissance: Between
Myth and History’, in The Renaissance: Italy and Abroad (London, 2003): 1-23.
Nauert, Charles G., Jr., Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995)
Starn, Randolph, ‘Renaissance Redux’, American Historical Review, 103 (1998), 122-4.
[THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW IS AVAILABLE ONLINE VIA CAMPUS
COMPUTERS]
6.4 Skills Sessions
Term 1, Week 3: Research Resources in Renaissance Studies: Databases and Electronic
Media
The purpose of this session is to explore some of the electronic research databases (both
structured and unstructured) suitable for Renaissance Studies. There will be discussion of
appropriate techniques to analyse the databases. In addition, part of the class will be devoted
to the creation of original databases from scratch to support Renaissance Studies research.
As a starting point for the class, please see the University Library pages for Renaissance
Studies:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/main/tealea/arts/renaissancestudies/electronicresources/
Useful introductory guides are:
Sonja Cameron and Sarah Richardson, Using Computers in History (Palgrave, 2005)
Charles Harvey and Jon Press, Databases in Historical Research (Macmillan, 1996)
Term 1, Week 5: Research Resources in Renaissance Studies:
Catalogues, Inventories
Books, Library
As preparation for this class please prepare a list of as many early editions as you can of a
renaissance printed work which interests you.
Please also look at the following books:
Pollard and Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England..., 2nd edition
(1976), shelfmark Z2002.P6
British Library Short-Title Catalogues for sixteenth-century books from France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, shelfmark Z2342.B7
H. M. Adams, Catalogue of Sixteenth-Century Books printed on the Continent of Europe in
Cambridge Libraries, 2 vols, shelfmark Z1014.AZ (external store)
E. Leedham Green, Books in Cambridge Inventories, 2 vols (1986), shelfmark Z997.A1
Private Libraries in Renaissance England Z997.A1
Green and Murphy, Renaissance Rhetoric Short-Title Catalogue (2006) ZPN184.2.G7
Term 1, Week 7: Essay-Writing Workshop
You will receive detailed feedback on the non-assessed essay in Week 5. Particular attention
will be paid to argumentation and presentation.
Useful books include:
R. M. Turley, Writing Essays. A Guide for students in English and the humanities, London:
Routledge, 2010
The Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) Style Guide
Available free http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide