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Education, civic virtue, and colonialism in fifteenth-century Italy : the Ogdoas of Alberto Alfieri / edited and translated with an introduction by Carla P. Weinberg and E. Ann Matter.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Alfieri, Alberto.
- Series:
- Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Series) ; v. 365.
- Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies (Series)
- Standardized Title:
- Ogdoas. English & Latin
- Language:
- English
- Latin
- Subjects (All):
- Education of princes--Early works to 1800.
- Education of princes.
- Kings and rulers--Early works to 1800.
- Kings and rulers.
- Political leadership--Moral and ethical aspects--Early works to 1800.
- Political leadership.
- Justice--Early works to 1800.
- Justice.
- Virtue--Early works to 1800.
- Virtue.
- Future life--Philosophy--Early works to 1800.
- Future life.
- Alfieri, Alberto.
- Philosophy.
- Political leadership--Moral and ethical aspects.
- Physical Description:
- 194 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
- Place of Publication:
- Tempe, Ariz. : ACMRS, 2011.
- Language Note:
- Latin text with English translation.
- Summary:
- This scholarly book is the first translation ever made into any language of the Ogdoas of Alberto Alfieri, an obscure fifteenth-century Italian schoolman's treatise on noble behavior and civic virtue. The translation is competent, if uninspiring (Alfieri was unlikely to be an inspiring prose stylist even in the original Latin). General readers may find it tedious. The book's main value, however, is in its wealth of details about Italian politics in the fifteenth century, and how people responded to government by multiple families of despots most notable for their corruption, incompetence, and cruelty. Alfieri, a loyalist desperate to be rescued from life in the provinces by his patron, offers pedantic prose but surprising levels of backhanded insight. Being tortured to death is good for a noble, he advises in the voice of several nobles who'd been recently tortured to death by their scheming family members or exasperated citizens. All that suffering will atone for all those sins you've committed, and you'll go straight to Heaven. Who knew that mercenary armies, thumbscrews, and poison rings were such a source of Christian virtue? An important book for scholars of the Renaissance, and anyone seriously interested in the place and time that simultaneously produced a wealth of art and culture and some of the worst government in history. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
- Notes:
- Ogdoas, written by Alberto Alfieri around the early part of the 15th century, is a manuscript of eight Latin dialogues which take place between the souls of deceased members of the Visconti and Adorno families in the afterlife; the only extant manuscript is in Milan's Biblioteca Ambrosiana.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- ISBN:
- 9780866984133
- 0866984135
- OCLC:
- 752286920
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