THE POLITICS OF CULTURE IN QUATTROCENTO EUROPE Rene of Anjou in Italy (Oxford Historical Monographs)

The poet-king without a throne appears here in an entirely new light. In The Politics of Culture in Quattrocento Europe: Rene of Anjou in Italy, Oren Margolis explores how this French prince and exiled king of Naples (1409-1480) engaged his Italian network in a programme of cultural politics conducted with an eye towards a return to power in the peninsula. Built on a series of original interpretations of humanistic and artistic material (chiefly Latin orations and illuminated manuscripts of classical texts), this is also a case study for a 'diplomatic approach' to culture. It recasts its source base as a form of high-level communication for a hyper-literate elite of those who could read the works created by humanist and artistic agents for their constituent parts: the potent words or phrases and relevant classical allusions; the channels through which a given work was commissioned or transmitted; and then the nature of the network gathered around a political agenda.

This is a volume for all those interested in the politics and culture of later medieval Europe and Renaissance Italy: the kings of France and dukes of Burgundy, the Medici, the Sforza, the Venetians, and their armies, ambassadors, and adversaries all appear here; so do Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna, Guarino of Verona, and their respective intellectual and artistic circles. Emerging from it is a challenge to conventional interpretations of the politics of humanism, and a new vision of the Quattrocento: a century in which the Italian Renaissance began its takeover of Europe, but in which Renaissance culture was itself shaped by its European political, social, and diplomatic context.

Oren Margolis is Departmental Lecturer in Early Modern History at Somerville College, Oxford. He is also a member of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Neo-Latin Studies, and a past award holder at the British School at Rome. He has published on topics including Renaissance humanism, Franco-Italian relations, and Jacob Burckhardt, with articles appearing in journals such as I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Journal of Medieval History, and Renaissance Studies. He is currently working on a cultural history of the Aldine Press. The Politics of Culture in Quattrocento Europe is his first monograph.