The twelve essays in this volume, each written by a leading specialist, present an accessible and comprehensive introduction to Italian Renaissance society, intellectual history, and politics, with each contribution reflecting the most recent innovations in the way that historians view and study the period.

• Introduction


• 1: Robert Black: Education and the Emergence of a Literate Society


• 2: Carol Everhart Quillen: Humanism and the Lure of Antiquity


• 3: David S. Peterson: Religion and the Church


• 4: Julius Kirshner: Family and Marriage: a Socio-Legal Perspective


• 5: Diane Owen Hughes: Bodies, Disease, and Society


• 6: Franco Franceschi: The Economy: Work and Wealth


• 7: Andrea Zorzi: The Popolo


• 8: Dale Kent: The Power of the Elites: Family, Patronage, and the State


• 9: John M. Najemy: Governments and Governance


• 10: David Abulafia: The South


• 11: Edward Muir: Representations of Power


• 12: Alison Brown: Rethinking the Renaissance in the Aftermath of Italy's Crisis


• Further Reading


• Chronology

John M. Najemy is Professor of History at Cornell University.