A Companion to the Worlds of the Renaissance

This volume brings together some of the most exciting renaissance scholars to suggest new ways of thinking about the period and to set a new series of agendas for Renaissance scholarship.

• Overturns the idea that it was a period of European cultural triumph and highlights the negative as well as the positive.

• Looks at the Renaissance from a world, as opposed to just European, perspective.

• Views the Renaissance from perspectives other than just the cultural elite.

• Gender, sex, violence, and cultural history are integrated into the analysis.

Auteur
Guido Ruggiero is Professor and Chair of the History Department at the University of Miami. His previous publications include Binding Passions: Tales of Magic Marriage and Power at the End of the Renaissance (1993), The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (1985), and Violence in Early Renaissance Venice (1980). He has also edited two series of books: Studies in the History of Sexuality and Selections from Quaderni Storici.

Texte du rabat
The idea of the Renaissance as a period of European cultural triumph in which great men flourished has been largely demolished in the last fifty years. This provocative volume brings together some of the most exciting scholars who led this attack, to suggest different ways of thinking about the Renaissance and set new agendas for research.

The contributions focus on three major themes: transformative encounters between cultures, ancient and new, high and low, within Europe and beyond; fascination with all things Italian; and social realignment. In examining these themes, the contributors look at the Renaissance from a world perspective, illuminating the negative as well as the positive, and integrating considerations of gender, sex, violence, and non-elite culture. The vision of the Renaissance that emerges is one defined by a wide range of social, political, economic, and cultural developments rather than by the actions of a small cultural elite.

Contenu

Notes on Contributors viii

Introduction: Renaissance Dreaming: In Search of a Paradigm 1
Guido Rumiero

PART I THE COURSE of RENAISSANCEE EVENTS 21

1 The Italian Renaissance 23
Gene Brucker

2 The European Renaissance 39
Randolph Starn

3 The Renaissance and the Middle East 55
Linda T. Darling

4 The Renaissance World from the West 70
Matthew Restall

5 The Historical Geography of the Renaissance 88
Peter Burke

PART 11 THE WORLDS AND WAYS OF POWER 105

6 Governments and Bureaucracies 107
Edward Muir

7 Honor, Law, and Custom in Renaissance Europe 124
James R. Farr

8 Violence and its Control in the Late Renaissance: An Italian Model 139
Gregory Hanlon

9 Manners, Courts, and Civility 156
Robert Muchembled

10 Family and Clan in the Renaissance World 173
Joanne M. Feeraro

11 Gender 188
Elissa B. Weaver

12 The Myth of Renaissance Individualism 208
John Jeffiies Martin

PART I11 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC WORLDS 225

13 Social Hierarchies: The Upper Classes 227
Matthew Ester

14 Social Hierarchies: The Lower Classes 243
James S. Amelang

15 Tools for the Development of the European Economy 259
Karl Appuhn

16 Economic Encounters and the First Stages of a World Economy 279
John A. Marino

PART IV CULTURAL WORLDS 297

17 The Subcultures of the Renaissance World 299
David C. Gentilcore

18 High Culture 316
Ingrid D. Rowland

19 Religious Cultures 333
R. Po-chia Hsia

20 Art 349
Loren Partridge

21 Literature 366
James Grantham Turner

22 Political Ideas 384
John M. Najemy

23 The Scientific Renaissance 403
William Eamon

PART V ANTI-WORLDS 425

24 Plague, Disease, and Hunger 427
Mary Lindemann

25 Renaissance Bogeymen: The Necessary Monsters of the Age 444
Linda Woodbridge

26 Violence and Warfare in the Renaissance World 460
Thomas F. Arnold

27 Witchcraft and Magic 475
Guido Ruggiero

28 The Illicit Worlds of the Renaissance 491
Ian Frederick Moulton

Consolidated Bibliography 506

Index 543