ABSTRACT
The Renaissance of Letters traces the multiplication of letter-writing practices between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries in the Italian peninsula and beyond to explore the importance of letters as a crucial document for understanding the Italian Renaissance.
This edited collection contains case studies, ranging from the late medieval re-emergence of letter-writing to the mid-seventeenth century, that offer a comprehensive analysis of the different dimensions of late medieval and Renaissance letters—literary, commercial, political, religious, cultural, social, and military—which transformed them into powerful early modern tools. The Renaissance was an era that put letters into the hands of many kinds of people, inspiring them to see reading, writing, receiving, and sending letters as an essential feature of their identity. The authors take a fresh look at the correspondence of some of the most important humanists of the Italian Renaissance, including Niccolò Machiavelli and Isabella d'Este, and consider the use of letters for others such as merchants and physicians.
This book is essential reading for scholars and students of Early Modern History and Literature, Renaissance Studies, and Italian Studies. The engagement with essential primary sources renders this book an indispensable tool for those teaching seminars on Renaissance history and literature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |28 pages
Introduction
part I|2 pages
Late medieval commerce and scholarship
part II|2 pages
Rulers and subjects
chapter 3|22 pages
Saving Naples
chapter 5|19 pages
Letters as Sources For Studying Jewish Conversion
part III|2 pages
Humanism, diplomacy, and empire
chapter 6|21 pages
Writing a Letter in 1507
chapter 8|21 pages
The Cardinal’s Dearest Son and the Pirate
part IV|2 pages
Science and travel
part V|2 pages
Information, politics, and war