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