Inventing the Renaissance : The Myth of a Golden Age.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Palmer, Ada.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Italy--History--15th century.
• Italy--History--16th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (821 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2025.

Summary:

An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age. From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity. Palmer’s Renaissance is altogether desperate. Troubled by centuries of conflict, she argues, Europe looked to a long-lost Roman Empire (even its education practices) to save them from unending war. Later historians met their own political challenges with a similarly nostalgic vision, only now they looked to the Renaissance and told a partial story. To right this wrong, Palmer offers fifteen provocative portraits of Renaissance men and women (some famous, some obscure) whose lives reveal a far more diverse, fragile, and wild Renaissance than its glowing reputation suggests.

Contents:

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Medici Family Tree
• Prologue: The Great and Terrible Renaissance
• I Machiavelli the Patriot: SPQF
• PART I Why You Shouldn't Believe Anyone (Including Me) About the Renaissance
• 2 Everybody Wants to Claim a Golden Age
• 3 The Flexible X-Factor of the Renaissance
• 4 Time for a Tangent About Vikings! (It's Relevant, I Swear. . .)
• 5 The Quest for the Renaissance X-Factor Begins
• 6 Super Sexy Secular Humanism
• 7 A New X-Factor: 1he Baron 1hesis and Proto-Democracy
• 8 Another X-Factor: Enter Economists!
• 9 Florence:A Se!f-Fu!filling SourceB ase
• 10 What Makes People Start to Study the Renaissance
• 11 Lorenzo de Medici: Hero or Villain?
• 12 Or Were We Brought Here by Romance?
• 13 The Invention of the Middle Ages
• 14 The Un-Modern Renaissance
• 15 Why Did Ada Palmer Start Studying the Renaissance?
• PART II Desperate Times and Desperate Measures
• 16 Desperate Times
• 17 Cruel Wars for Light Causes
• 18 A Strange Peace, A Stranger War
• 19 Rome: The Eternal Problem City
• 20 Medieval but Ever-So-Much-More-So
• 21 The Desperate Measure: Reviving Antiquity
• INTERMISSION Are You Remembering Not to Believe Me?
• 22 Antiquity Was Not New Either
• 23 The Umanista's Rival· Scholasticism
• 24 Studia Humanitatis-1he Words 1hat Sting and Bite
• 25 Italian Renaissance Becomes European Renaissance
• 26 The Supremacy of Antiquity
• 27 Is This About Virtue or Power?
• PART III Let's Meet Some People from 1his Golden Age
• 28 Patrons and Clients All the Way Up
• 29 Our Friends So Far
• 30 Alessandra Strozzi: Labors of Exile
• 31 Manetto Amanatini: 1here Is a World Elsewhere
• 32 Francesco Filelfo: Between Republics and Monarchies
• 33 Montesecco: An Assassin Fears for His Soul
• 34 Ippolita Maria Visconti Sforza: 1he Princess and the Peace
• 35 josquin des Prez: 1he International Renaissance
• 36 Angelo Poliziano: Patronage Repays
• 37 Savonarola: Saint or Demon?
• 38 Alessandra Scala: 1he Girl of Our Dreams
• 39 Raffaello Maffei ii Volterrano: A Scholar Fears for His Soul Too
• 40 Lucrezia Borgia: Princess of Nowhere
• 41 Camilla Bartolini Rucellai: Spirit of the Last Republic
• 42 Michelangelo: 1he Great and Terrible
• INTERLUDE Let's Ground Ourselves in Time
• 43 Julia the Sibyl· A Prophetess in an Age of Science
• 44 Our Friend Machiavelli
• PART IV What Was Renaissance Humanism?
• 45 What Was Behind the Curtain? Garin vs. Kristel/er
• 46 Who Gets to Count as a Renaissance Humanist?
• 47 Back to Our X-Factors
• 48 Once Upon a Time at Vergil's House . ..
• 49 Follow the Money!
• 50 It's Getting Weird in Florence
• 51 Scraps of Philosophia
• 52 Was There Renaissance Secular Humanism?
• 53 How (Not) to Dodge the Renaissance Inquisition
• 54 Why We Care Whether Machiavelli Was an Atheist
• 55 Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 1
• 56 Virtue Politics
• 57 Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 2
• PART V The Try Everything Age
• 58 An Exponential Information Revolution
• 59 We Can't just Abelard Harder Anymore
• 60 1he Presumptive Authority of the Past
• 61 The New Philosophy
• 62 A Brief History of Progress
• 63 Progresses
• PART VI Conclusion
• 64 Great Forces History vs. Individual Choice History
• 65 The Papal Election of 20I6
• 66 Which Horseman of the Apocalypse?
• 67 What Did the Black Death Really Cause?
• Sources and Recommended Reading
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Image Credits
• About the Author

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-226-83798-X

OCLC:

1506099457