The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance: A Sourcebook - Softcover

Bartlett, Kenneth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0669209007 ISBN 13: 9780669209006

Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991

Synopsis

The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance offers material drawn from the fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries surveying the social, economic, political, cultural, and intellectual history of Renaissance Italy. The diverse documents include court records, poetry, fiction, ricordanze, courtesy books, letters, maxims, histories, and humanist treatises.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth R. Bartlett is Professor of History and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of The English in Italy 1525-1558: A Study in Culture and Politics (1991), co-editor of Humanism and the Northern Renaissance (2000), and co-translator of Giovanni Della Casa's Galateo (third edition 1994).

Review

Kenneth Bartlett's The Civilization of the Italian Renaissance has long been my favorite sourcebook for undergraduate teaching; I could not be happier that it is coming back into print, and updated no less, so that I can assign it as a textbook. I teach a range of courses in the Renaissance, from broad art history surveys, to upper-division lectures and seminars, to interdisciplinary classes—all of which have benefited from this book. Bartlett has assembled not only the best sources, but the best selections from those sources. This is not a collage of short, obscure, or mystifying documents; rather, it is a collection of the most important thinkers and artists of the Renaissance, at their pithiest moments. For example, Alberti's On Painting, Vasari's Life of Michelangelo, and Cellini's Vita are all key texts that are too long and complex for most classes. Bartlett's selections from each are perfectly excised at the ideal length for teaching, and with their key themes intact. The book is endlessly adaptable to subject area (it includes art historical, literary, historical/political and philosophical sources) and to style of class—any material could be safely assigned to a lower-level Renaissance class, but much is in-depth enough for an upper-level lecture or seminar. There is no equivalent compendium of Renaissance sources for undergraduate teaching, which is why I have spent the last several years copying selections from the copy I purchased when it was assigned to me as an undergraduate textbook in 1994. I could not be happier to see this valuable teaching tool re-released, and to have the opportunity to share its contents with my students, as they were once shared with me. (Lisa Regan, University of California Berkeley )

Edition details

• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0669209007
• ISBN 13: 9780669209006
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464