Ross, James Bruce, ed.; McLaughlin, Mary Martin, ed., The Portable Renaissance Reader (New York: Viking Penguin)
Text name(s):
Number of pages of primary source text: 590
Author(s):
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Bessarion
- Dei, Benedetto
- Platina, Bartholomew
- Jean de Montreuil
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Thomas à Kempis
- Arnold von Harff
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Skelton, John
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Pius II
- Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni Francesco
- Petrarch
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Machiavelli, Niccolò
- Luther, Martin
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Erasmus, Desiderius
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Calvin, John
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bracciolini, Paggius
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Valla, Lorenzo
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Platina, Bartolomeo
- Pomponazzi, Pietro
- Michelangelo
- Oresme, Nicholas
Dates: 1300 - 1700
Archival Reference:
Original Language(s):
- Latin
- English - Middle English
- French - Old French
- Italian
- German
Translation:
- Translated into English.
Translation Comments:
Geopolitical Region(s):
- Italy
- England
- Germany
- France
County/Region:
Record Types:
- Literature - Drama
- Literature - Prose
- Literature - Verse
- Treatise - Scientific/Medical
- Treatise - Political
- Letter
- Biography
- Treatise - Instruction/Advice
Subject Headings:
- Women / Gender
- Science / Technology
- Clergy - Anticlericalism
- Education / Universities
- Architecture and Buildings
- Art
- Clergy - Priests, Bishops, Canons
- Papacy
- Classics / Humanism
- Diplomacy
- Economy - Trade
- Piety
- Crusades
- Government
Apparatus:
- Bibliography
- Introduction
Comments:
This volume contains many short excerpts from thinkers, popes, politicians, preachers, artists, writers, and religious figures of the 14th through the 17th centuries. The work is divided into five parts: I. An Age of Gold (with excerpts on political events across Europe, the “renaissance” in the arts, and the New World), II. The City of Man (business pursuits, diplomatic affairs, political thought, and humanist writings on man); III. The Study of Man (education, drama, treatises on the dignity of man), IV. The Book of Nature (the arts and nature, astronomy); and V. The Kingdom of God (the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, debates on free will). The editors also include a useful alphabetical listing of authors with brief biographical notes, and chronological tables of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Introduction Summary:
The editors’ lengthy (42 pp) and rather dated introduction provides a brief overview of persistent debates about the Renaissance, including whether or not it can be considered as a unified period, what factor geography should play in any such assessment, and the fluidity of the boundary between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. They briefly describe the types of writing they have selected and justify the divisions they created. The 1997 and subsequent editions include a revised list of suggestions for further reading, chiefly of secondary sources.
Cataloger: MCB
