The uses of humanism [electronic resource] : Johannes Sambucus (1531-1584), Andreas Dudith (1533-1589), and the republic of letters in East Central Europe / by Gábor Almási.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Almási, Gábor.

Series:

Brill's studies in intellectual history ; v. 185.

Brill's studies in intellectual history, 0920-8607 ; v. 185

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Humanism--Europe, Central--History--16th century.

Humanism.

Humanism--Social aspects--Europe, Central--History--16th century.

Renaissance--Europe, Central.

Renaissance.

Humanists--Hungary--Biography.

Humanists.

Scholars--Hungary--Biography.

Scholars.

Europe, Central--Intellectual life--16th century.

Europe, Central.

Austria--Court and courtiers--Biography.

Austria.

Zsámboki, János, 1531-1584.

Zsámboki, János.

Dudith, András, 1533-1589.

Dudith, András.

Habsburg, House of.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (408 p.)

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book is a novel attempt to understand humanism as a socially meaningful cultural idiom in Late Renaissance East Central Europe. Through an exploration of geographical regions that are relatively little known to an English reading public, it argues that late sixteenth-century East Central Europe was culturally thriving and intellectually open in the period between Copernicus and Galileo. Humanism was a dominant cluster of shared intellectual practices and cultural values that brought a number of concrete benefits both to the social-climber intellectual and to the social elite. Two exemplary case studies illustrate this thesis in substantive detail, and highlight the ambivalences and difficulties court humanists routinely faced. The protagonists Johannes Sambucus and Andreas Dudith, both born in the Kingdom of Hungary, were two of the major humanists of the Habsburg court, central figures in cosmopolitan networks of men learning and characteristic representatives of an Erasmian spirit that was struggling for survival in the face of confessionalisation. Through an analysis of their careers at court and a presentation of their self-fashioning as savants and courtiers, the book explores the social and political significance of their humanist learning and intellectual strategies.

Contents:

Introduction: on the uses of humanism

Humanist learning and networks in East Central Europe

Aspects of East Central European humanist learning

Humanist networks and the ethos of the republic of letters

The uses of humanism at the imperial court

The case of Johannes Sambucus

An ornament to the imperial court?

The multiple identities of the humanist : "vates, medicus bonus, historicusque"

The case of Andreas Dudith

The curious career of a heterodox humanist

The making of the humanist : self-fashioning through letters and treatises

Epilogue: Sambucus and Dudith encounter confessionalisation.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-282-95233-1

9786612952333

90-04-18364-7

OCLC:

701704120

Publisher Number:

10.1163/ej.9789004181854.i-390 DOI