ABSTRACT
One of the morals of Christopher Celenza’s excellent The Lost Italian Renaissance is, simply, that an impoverished sense of philosophy delivers an impoverished history of philosophy. Salvatore Camporeale’s enriched sense of philosophy, responsive to his strong positions on philosophy of religion, invests his brilliant work on Lorenzo Valla; the work marks a historiographical advance, for the innovative account of Valla makes a new case for the seriousness, intrinsic merit of humanistic thought of the fifteenth century. Celenza’s historiographical survey gives a wonderfully detailed context for Camporeale’s work. While Camporeale rarely indulged in programmatic statements, a pragmatic bent, a basic pragmatic allegiance informs both the topics and procedures of his account of Renaissance classicism. The Heideggerean Hellenic history argues: if originary, then inclusive. It is this capaciousness of the rhetorical disposition that Valla recognises, and Camporeale recognises in Valla.
