Recreating Ancient History: Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literature of the Early Modern Period

This volume deals with the question: how did scholars and artists in the early modern period represent, or rather, recreate (Greek and Roman) history? It appears that ancient history was not just studied so as to reconstruct the past, it was used as a way of understanding and legitimizing the present.
Sixteen authors from various disciplines have studied the works of scholars and artists in different media so as to reveal how they used ancient history as a rich field of raw material, that could be used, recycled and adapted to new needs and purposes.
The studies in this volume are important for historians of the early modern period from all disciplines, and for all those interested in the reception of classical antiquity.

Contributors include: Maria Berbera, Jan Bloemendal, Anton Boschloo, Jeanine De Landtsheer, Jan L. de Jong, Karl Enenkel, Marc Laureys, Olga van Marion, Alicia Montoya, Mark Morford, Bettina Noak, Sjaak Onderdelinden, Paul Smith, Wilfried Stroh, Francesca Terrenato, Arnoud Visser, and Bart Westerweel.

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Karl Enenkel teaches Latin and Neo-Latin literature in the Department of Classics, Leiden University. He is the author of Francesco Petrarca: De vita solitaria, Buch 1. Kritische Textausgabe und ideengeschichtlicher Kommentar (1990), of Kulturoptimismus und Kulturpessimismus in der Renaissance (1995), and of numerous articles on Italian and Dutch humanism. He is the editor of Lipsius in Leiden (1997) and Modelling the Individual Biography and Portrait in the Renaissance.
Jan L. de Jong, Ph.D. (1987) in Art History, Leiden University, is Assistant Professor of Italian Renaissance Art at Groningen University, The Netherlands. He has published numerous articles on sixteenth century Italian history painting.
Jeanine De Landtsheer, Ph.D. in Classical Languages (1993), Research Fellow at the Catholic University of Leuven, focuses on Neolatin studies and History of the Humanism, more particularly Justus Lipsius, his works and correspondence. Publications include Iusti Lipsi Epistolae, V-VII (1592-1594); VIII (1595)(Brepols), the first edition of Justus Lipsius’s Diva Virgo Lovaniensis (Leuven Univ. Press, 2001) and Desiderius Erasmus, Gesprekken. Ingeleid, vertaald en toegelicht (Querido, 2001).