Commentaries, Volume 1: Books I-II (The I Tatti Renaissance Library)

Pius II

ISBN 10: 0674011643 / ISBN 13: 9780674011649

Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England, 2004

About this Item

Edited by Margaret Meserve and Marcello Simonetta. Blue boards with crisp gilt lettering on black background on the spine. Interior is clean and bright. Dust Jacket is crisp. The I Tatti Renaissance Library makes available to a broad readership the major literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works of the Italian Renaissance written in Latin.

Seller Inventory # 005329

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Commentaries, Volume 1: Books I-II (The I Tatti Renaissance Library)
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674011643
• ISBN 13: 9780674011649
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The Renaissance popes were among the most enlightened and generous patrons of arts and letters in the Europe of their day. The diaries of Pius II give us an intimate glimpse of the life and thought of one of the greatest of the Renaissance popes. Pius II (1405-1464) began life as Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini in a small town near Siena, and became a famous Latin poet and diplomat. Originally an opponent of the papacy as well as something of a libertine, Aeneas eventually reconciled himself with the Roman church and became a priest, then a cardinal. Finally he was elected Pope Pius II (1458) and dedicated his pontificate to organizing a pan-European crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Pius's Commentaries, the only autobiography ever written by a pope, was composed in elegant humanistic Latin modeled on Caesar and Cicero. This edition contains a fresh Latin text based on the last manuscript written in Pius's lifetime and an updated and corrected version of the 1937 translation by Florence Alden Gragg.

About the Authors

Margaret Meserve is Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean for Humanities and Faculty Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Marcello Simonetta is Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Wesleyan University.