Sperone Speroni and the Debate over Sophistry in the Italian Renaissance

Teodoro Katinis, Ph.D. (2015) Johns Hopkins University and Ph.D. (2004) Roma Tre University, is Research Professor of Italian Literature (Department of Literary Studies, Ghent University) and Marie Curie Alumnus. He has published one monograph and several articles on Renaissance authors.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Fifteenth-century Perspectives on Ancient Sophists
 1.1 The Ancients and the Humanists
 1.2 Gorgias Redivivus
 1.3 Protagoras and Humanist Literature
 1.4 Marsilio Ficino’s Interpretation of Sophists
 1.5 Toward the 16th Century

2 Speroni and the Sophists
 2.1 Orator et Philosophus
 2.2 Defense and Rehabilitation of Sophistry
 2.3 The Dialogo della retorica

3 Speroni’s Practice of Sophistic Rhetoric
 3.1 From Theory to Practice
 3.2 Antilogies
 3.3 Rhetoric in Dialogues

4 The Debate on Dante and Sophistic Poetry
 4.1 Looking at the Debate on Dante from a New Perspective
 4.2 Tasso’s Concern about Poetry: An Overview of the Late Cinquecento
 4.3 Crafting Idols: Jacopo Mazzoni’s Poetics
 4.4 Dante among Sophists and Skeptics
 4.5 Ut Pictura Poesis: Mazzoni, Speroni, Comanini

Conclusion

Appendix: Two Trattatelli of Speroni for Sophistry
Bibliography
Index of Names