The Intellectual Struggle for Florence is an analysis of the ideology that developed in Florence with the rise of the Medici, during the early fifteenth century, the period long recognized as the most formative of the early Renaissance. Instead of simply describing early Renaissance ideas, this volume attempts to relate these ideas to specific social and political conflicts of the fifteenth century, and specifically to the development of the Medici regime. It first shows how the Medici party came to be viewed as fundamentally different from their opponents, the "oligarchs," then explores the intellectual world of these oligarchs (the "traditional culture"). As political conflicts sharpened, some humanists (Leonardo Bruni and Francesco Filelfo) with close ties to oligarchy still attempted to enrich traditional culture with classical learning, while others, such as Niccolo Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini, rejected tradition outright and created a new ideology for the Medici party. What is striking is the extent to which Niccoli and Poggio were able to turn a Latin or classical culture into a "popular culture," and how the culture of the vernacular remained traditional and oligarchic.

This study provides an overview of Florentine intellectual life and community in the late Renaissance. It shows how studies of language helped Florentines to develop their own story as a people distinct from ancient Greece or Rome.

By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de' Medici they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances. In Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury, Savonarola's sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations and intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events—invasions, trials by fire, the 'Bonfire of the Vanities', terrible executions and mysterious deaths—featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.In an exhilaratingly rich and deeply researched story, Paul Strathern reveals the paradoxes, self-doubts, and political compromises that made the battle for the soul of the Renaissance city one of the most complex and important moments in Western history.

Family tree -- Glossary of names -- Timeline -- Map -- A note on money -- Prologue -- Book one: The bastard son -- Book two: The obedient nephew -- Book three: The prince alone -- Afterword: Alessandro's ethnicity.

The bestselling author who made mincemeat of political correctness in Thank You for Smoking, conspiracy theories in Little Green Men, and Presidential indiscretions No Way to Treat a First Lady now takes on the hottest topic in the entire world-Arab-American relations-in a blistering comic novel sure to offend the few it doesn't delight. Appalled by the punishment of her rebellious friend Nazrah, youngest and most petulant wife of Prince Bawad of Wasabia, Florence Farfarletti decides to draw a line in the sand. As Deputy to the deputy assistant secretary for Near East Affairs, Florence invents a far-reaching, wide-ranging plan for female emancipation in that part of the world. The U.S. government, of course, tells her to forget it. Publicly, that is. Privately, she's enlisted in a top-secret mission to impose equal rights for the sexes on the small emirate of Matar (pronounced "Mutter"), the "Switzerland of the Persian Gulf." Her crack team: a CIA killer, a snappy PR man, and a brilliant but frustrated gay bureaucrat. Her weapon: TV shows. The lineup on TV Matar includes A Thousand and One Mornings, a daytime talk show that features self-defense tips to be used against boyfriends during Ramadan; an addictive soap opera featuring strangely familiar members of the Matar royal family; and a sitcom about an inept but ruthless squad of religious police, pitched as "Friends from Hell." The result: the first deadly car bombs in the country since 1936, a fatwa against the station's entire staff, a struggle for control of the kingdom, and, of course, interference from the French. And that's only the beginning. A merciless dismantling of both American ineptitude and Arabic intolerance, Florence of Arabia is Christopher Buckley's funniest and most serious novel yet, a biting satire of how U.S. good intentions can cause the Shiite to hit the fan.

This book offers a new view of Italian Renaissance intellectual life, linking philosophy and literature as expressed in both Latin and Italian.

James Hankins offers the first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi’s life and thought. A key but largely forgotten Renaissance thinker, Patrizi wrote influentially on “virtue politics,” with the goal of nurturing citizens’ character and education so societies could effectively balance demands of liberty, equality, and merit-based leadership.

Cicero's Brutus is a history of Roman oratory, in the form of a dialogue between Cicero, Atticus, and the eponymous Brutus. This new edition by Douglas R. Thomas presents the first comprehensive study of the transmission of the text, a critical edition of the Latin text, and a textual commentary. The first part of the book presents the study of the manuscript tradition, employng the stemmatic method to establish the relationships between all 107 extant manuscripts of Brutus, and demonstrating that the stemma has three independent branches in the first part of the text and four in the second. The study also shows that the ninth-century Cremona fragment is part of the long-lost archetype, the Codex Laudensis, and that F, the manuscript copied by Niccolò Niccoli, is the source of the majority of the tradition. Brief descriptions are provided of the manuscripts in a catalogue. The second part of the volume presents a new edition of Brutus with critical apparatus, based on the study of the text's transmission. Each textual problem is considered afresh and careful attention is paid to historical evidence and Ciceronian style. The edition is followed by a detailed textual commentary, which discusses a range of significant textual problems.

Antonio da Rho’s Three Dialogues against Lactantius (1445) followed the lead of Jerome and Augustine yet went well beyond patristic concerns. During the Middle Ages Lactantius’ works, while largely neglected, had enjoyed moments of intense interest and study. From the death of Lactantius (325) to his broad Quattrocento recovery, many profound cultural and intellectual shifts had transpired. Consequently, Rho’s dialogues engage topics arising from scholastic and other debates in jurisprudence, cosmology, astrology, geography, philosophy, and theology. He was convinced that insights from these fields would elucidate errors of Lactantius that his readers had overlooked. This reveals much about the cultural and intellectual developments that shaped readers’ efforts to recover, comprehend, and define Lactantius as an author. Significantly, the list of Lactantius’ errors discussed in the dialogues was printed with nearly every edition of Lactantius through the sixteenth century and beyond.

The bestselling, prizewinning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores 700 years of writers, thinkers, scientists and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human. If you are reading this, it’s likely you already have some affinity with humanism, even if you don’t think of yourself in those terms. You may be drawn to literature and the humanities. You may prefer to base your moral choices on fellow-feeling and responsibility to others rather than on religious commandments. Or you may simply believe that individual lives are more important than grand political visions or dogmas. If any of these apply, you are part of a long tradition of humanist thought, and you share that tradition with many extraordinary individuals through history who have put rational enquiry, cultural richness, freedom of thought and a sense of hope at the heart of their lives. Humanly Possible introduces us to some of these people, as it asks what humanism is and why it has flourished for so long, despite opposition from fanatics, mystics and tyrants. It is a book brimming with ideas, personalities and experiments in living – from the literary enthusiasts of the fourteenth century to the secular campaigners of our own time, from Erasmus to Esperanto, from anatomists to agnostics, from Christine de Pizan to Bertrand Russell, and from Voltaire to Zora Neale Hurston. It takes us on an irresistible journey, and joyfully celebrates open-mindedness, optimism, freedom and the power of the here and now—humanist values which have helped steer us through dark times in the past, and which are just as urgently needed in our world today. The bestselling, prizewinning author of How to Live and At the Existentialist Café explores 700 years of writers, thinkers, scientists and artists, all trying to understand what it means to be truly human.