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Author: James Hankins
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674293290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
The first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi—the most important political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance before Machiavelli—who sought to reconcile conflicting claims of liberty and equality in the service of good governance. At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was a longing to recapture the wisdom and virtue of Greece and Rome. But how could this be done? A new school of social reformers concluded that the best way to revitalize corrupt institutions was to promote an ambitious new form of political meritocracy aimed at nurturing virtuous citizens and political leaders. The greatest thinker in this tradition of virtue politics was Francesco Patrizi of Siena, a humanist philosopher whose writings were once as famous as Machiavelli’s. Patrizi wrote two major works: On Founding Republics, addressing the enduring question of how to reconcile republican liberty with the principle of merit; and On Kingship and the Education of Kings, which lays out a detailed program of education designed to instill the qualities necessary for political leadership—above all, practical wisdom and sound character. The first full-length study of Patrizi’s life and thought in any language, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy argues that Patrizi is a thinker with profound lessons for our time. A pioneering advocate of universal literacy who believed urban planning could help shape civic values, he concluded that limiting the political power of the wealthy, protecting the poor from debt slavery, and reducing the political independence of the clergy were essential to a functioning society. These ideas were radical in his day. Far more than an exemplar of his time, Patrizi deserves to rank alongside the great political thinkers of the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Thomas More, and Jean Bodin.
Author: James Hankins
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674293290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
Get Book Here
Book Description
The first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi—the most important political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance before Machiavelli—who sought to reconcile conflicting claims of liberty and equality in the service of good governance. At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was a longing to recapture the wisdom and virtue of Greece and Rome. But how could this be done? A new school of social reformers concluded that the best way to revitalize corrupt institutions was to promote an ambitious new form of political meritocracy aimed at nurturing virtuous citizens and political leaders. The greatest thinker in this tradition of virtue politics was Francesco Patrizi of Siena, a humanist philosopher whose writings were once as famous as Machiavelli’s. Patrizi wrote two major works: On Founding Republics, addressing the enduring question of how to reconcile republican liberty with the principle of merit; and On Kingship and the Education of Kings, which lays out a detailed program of education designed to instill the qualities necessary for political leadership—above all, practical wisdom and sound character. The first full-length study of Patrizi’s life and thought in any language, Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy argues that Patrizi is a thinker with profound lessons for our time. A pioneering advocate of universal literacy who believed urban planning could help shape civic values, he concluded that limiting the political power of the wealthy, protecting the poor from debt slavery, and reducing the political independence of the clergy were essential to a functioning society. These ideas were radical in his day. Far more than an exemplar of his time, Patrizi deserves to rank alongside the great political thinkers of the Renaissance: Machiavelli, Thomas More, and Jean Bodin.
Author: James Hankins
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674242521
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 769
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Book Description
Winner of the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.” —Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement “Magisterial...Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.” —Wall Street Journal “Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way...For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be...nothing less than transformative.” —Noel Malcolm, American Affairs “[A] masterpiece...It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents...and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct—almost for the first time in 550 years—[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.” —Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement “The lessons for today are clear and profound.” —Robert D. Kaplan Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft. A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis: the precursor to our embattled humanities.
Author: Aurelio Lippo Brandolini
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674033986
Category : History
Languages : la
Pages : 340
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Book Description
A Socratic dialogue set in the court of King Mattias Corvinus of Hungary (the book was written ca. 1490), the work depicts a debate between the king himself and a Florentine merchant. This is the first critical edition and the first translation into any language. --publisher's description.
Author: Nicholas Terpstra
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674067924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
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Book Description
Renaissance debates about politics and gender led to pioneering forms of poor relief, devised to help women get a start in life. These included orphanages for illegitimate children and forced labor in workhouses, but also women’s shelters and early forms of maternity benefits, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and credit union savings plans.
Author: David Marsh
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674238354
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
An introduction to one of the premier humanists of the Italian Renaissance, whose extraordinary work in biography, politics, religion, and philosophy has been largely unknown to Anglophone readers. A celebrated orator, historian, philosopher, and statesman, Giannozzo Manetti (1396–1459) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance. The son of a wealthy Florentine merchant, he was active in the public life of the Florentine republic and embraced the new humanist scholarship of the Quattrocento. Among his many contributions, Manetti translated from classical Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, bringing attention to great works of the ancient world that were previously unknown. He also offered a humanist alternative to the Vulgate Bible by translating into Latin the Greek text of the New Testament and the Hebrew Psalms. His other works included biographies of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio; A Translator’s Defense, an indispensable treatise on the art of translation; and Against the Jews and the Gentiles, an apologia for Christianity. Manetti is most remembered for his treatise On Human Worth and Excellence, a radical defense of human nature and of the new world view of Renaissance humanism. In this authoritative biography, the first ever in English, David Marsh guides readers through the vast range of Manetti’s writings, which, despite growing scholarly interest, are still largely unfamiliar to the English-speaking world. Marsh’s fresh appraisal makes clear why Manetti must be considered among the great expositors of the spirit of his age.
Author: Camilla Russell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674261127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
A new history illuminates the Society of Jesus in its first century from the perspective of those who knew it best: the early Jesuits themselves. The Society of Jesus was established in 1540. In the century that followed, thousands sought to become Jesuits and pursue vocations in religious service, teaching, and missions. Drawing on scores of unpublished biographical documents housed at the Roman Jesuit Archive, Camilla Russell illuminates the lives of those who joined the Society, building together a religious and cultural presence that remains influential the world over. Tracing Jesuit life from the Italian provinces to distant missions, Russell sheds new light on the impact and inner workings of the Society. The documentary record reveals a textual network among individual members, inspired by Ignatius of LoyolaÕs Spiritual Exercises. The early Jesuits took stock of both quotidian and spiritual experiences in their own records, which reflect a community where the worldly and divine overlapped. Echoing the SocietyÕs foundational writings, members believed that each JesuitÕs personal strengths and inclinations offered a unique contribution to the wholeÑan attitude that helps explain the SocietyÕs widespread appeal from its first days. Focusing on the JesuitsÕ own words, Being a Jesuit in Renaissance Italy offers a new lens on the history of spirituality, identity, and global exchange in the Renaissance. What emerges is a kind of genetic codeÑa thread connecting the key Jesuit works to the first generations of Jesuits and the Society of Jesus as it exists today.
Author: Alison Brown
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674050327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
Brown demonstrates how Florentine thinkers used Lucretius—earlier and more widely than has been supposed—to provide a radical critique of prevailing orthodoxies. She enhances our understanding of the “revolution” in sixteenth-century political thinking and our definition of the Renaissance within newly discovered worlds and new social networks.
Author: Sharon T. Strocchia
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674241746
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
Winner of the Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize A new history uncovers the crucial role women played in the great transformations of medical science and health care that accompanied the Italian Renaissance. In Renaissance Italy women played a more central role in providing health care than historians have thus far acknowledged. Women from all walks of life—from household caregivers and nurses to nuns working as apothecaries—drove the Italian medical economy. In convent pharmacies, pox hospitals, girls’ shelters, and homes, women were practitioners and purveyors of knowledge about health and healing, making significant contributions to early modern medicine. Sharon Strocchia offers a wealth of new evidence about how illness was diagnosed and treated, whether by noblewomen living at court or poor nurses living in hospitals. She finds that women expanded on their roles as health care providers by participating in empirical work and the development of scientific knowledge. Nuns, in particular, were among the most prominent manufacturers and vendors of pharmaceutical products. Their experiments with materials and techniques added greatly to the era’s understanding of medical care. Thanks to their excellence in medicine urban Italian women had greater access to commerce than perhaps any other women in Europe. Forgotten Healers provides a more accurate picture of the pursuit of health in Renaissance Italy. More broadly, by emphasizing that the frontlines of medical care are often found in the household and other spaces thought of as female, Strocchia encourages us to rethink the history of medicine.
Author: Dag Nikolaus Hasse
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674971582
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 683
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Book Description
The Renaissance marked a turning point in Europe’s relationship to Arabic thought. On the one hand, Dag Nikolaus Hasse argues, it was the period in which important Arabic traditions reached the peak of their influence in Europe. On the other hand, it is the time when the West began to forget, and even actively suppress, its debt to Arabic culture. Success and Suppression traces the complex story of Arabic influence on Renaissance thought. It is often assumed that the Renaissance had little interest in Arabic sciences and philosophy, because humanist polemics from the period attacked Arabic learning and championed Greek civilization. Yet Hasse shows that Renaissance denials of Arabic influence emerged not because scholars of the time rejected that intellectual tradition altogether but because a small group of anti-Arab hard-liners strove to suppress its powerful and persuasive influence. The period witnessed a boom in new translations and multivolume editions of Arabic authors, and European philosophers and scientists incorporated—and often celebrated—Arabic thought in their work, especially in medicine, philosophy, and astrology. But the famous Arabic authorities were a prominent obstacle to the Renaissance project of renewing European academic culture through Greece and Rome, and radical reformers accused Arabic science of linguistic corruption, plagiarism, or irreligion. Hasse shows how a mixture of ideological and scientific motives led to the decline of some Arabic traditions in important areas of European culture, while others continued to flourish.
Author: Felix Gilbert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674689763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
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Book Description
This is a story of how men worked, intrigued, and made business deals in an Italy invaded by continental countries and England. It brings together diplomacy, war, business, and politics, juxtaposing differing institutional structures and political ways among Italy's city states, and bringing into focus the new men of the Renaissance.
