ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how privileged narratives of the Renaissance focus on the contemplation of Roman ruins to the exclusion of other, more historically proximate remains. By juxtaposing Petrarch's hypercanonical humanist gaze upon the ruins of Rome with the Venetian ambassador Andrea Navagero's contemplation of new ruins in Granada soon after the fall of Al-Andalus, the chapter shows how the periodization and conceptualization of early modernity have privileged the Roman connection over other more pressing and immediate ruinations.
