Review by Choice Review
Thirteen distinguished senior scholars contribute an essay each to this exploratory volume on Renaissance humanism--mainly in Italy, but with attention to England, Germany, and France--from the 13th to the 16th century. These are neither experts for whom humanism has become a dirty word, nor followers of a party line of pietistic reverence. The essays vary in length, approach, and implication as they explore the nature, origins, and influence of the movement later ages would label humanism. One salutary common theme is the development of what Paul Grendler, writing on education, here calls "a culture of criticism." At the origins of humanism Robert Black identifies, in 13th-century Italy, "a return to classical authors ... connected with antipathy to contemporary aristocratic society dominated by ... hierarchical values." Alison Brown's excellent final piece shows how around 1500 the university lecturer Marcello Adriani employed texts by the dangerously impious Roman poet Lucretius to attack superstitious practice in contemporary Italy. The book both asserts in argument and demonstrates in practice the vigor of cultural critique as developed in the Renaissance. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. E. D. Hill Mount Holyoke College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
