Italy in the Age of the Renaissance: 1300-1550

Italy in the Age of Renaissance offers a new introduction to the most celebrated period of Italian history in twelve essays by leading and innovative scholars. Recent scholarship has enriched our understanding of Renaissance Italy by adding new themes and perspectives that have challenged the traditional picture of a largely secular and elite world of humanists, merchants, patrons, and princes. These new themes encompass both social and cultural history (the family, women, lay religion, the working classes, marginal social groups) as well as new dimensions of political history that highlight the growth of territorial states, the powers and limits of government, the representation of power in art and architecture, the role of the South, and the dialogue between elite and non-elite classes. This thematically organized volume introduces readers to the fruitful interaction between the more traditional topics in Renaissance studies and the new, broader approach to the period that has developed in the last generation. Contributors to this volume - David Abulafia, University of Cambridge Robert Black, University of Leeds Alison Brown, University of London Franco Franceschi, Universita di Siena/Arezzo Diane Owen Hughes, University of Michigan Dale Kent, University of California at Riverside Julius Kirshner, University of Chicago Edward Muir, Northwestern University, Illinois David S. Peterson, Washington and Lee University, Virginia Carol Everhart Quillen, Rice University, Texas Andrea Zorzi, Universita di Firenze