Voices from the Italian Renaissance

Lisa Kaborycha holds a Ph.D. in medieval and early modern European history from the University of California, Berkeley and has been the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship with the Medici Archive Project, and Harvard’s Villa I Tatti Fellowship in Italian Renaissance Studies. In addition to A Short History of Renaissance Italy (2023), she is the author of A Corresponding Renaissance: Letters Written by Italian Women, 1375-1650 (2016). For years, Kaborycha taught courses in Renaissance history for the University of California and currently works as adjunct professor at the University of New Haven Tuscany Campus and lecturer at the British Institute of Florence.

Preface

PART I: The natural world

1 Expressing reverence for all of creation

2 Giotto and the birth of “modern” art

3 A river, a mountain, a young man’s soul

4 A city manages a natural disaster

5 Nature triumphs over nurture

6 Leonardo takes a close look at plants

7 How to create a realistic monster

8 Likenesses in art and in art history

9 Heretical belief in a “world soul”

10 A scientist’s method of observation

PART II: Under the infuence of the ancients

11 Rival humanists fght a war of words

12 Antiquity as inspiration for painters

13 Philology deployed against the papacy

14 The duke of Milan likened to Caesar

15 A triumphal arch for the king of Naples

16 Man’s unique place in the cosmos

17 Women’s place among humanists

18 A plea for architectural conservation

19 Benefts of civil strife in ancient Rome

20 Ancient fragmented statues speak

PART III: The sacred and the secular

21 The pope asserts supreme authority

22 A scholar denies secular power of papacy

23 A cardinal’s lavish party in Avignon

24 A holy woman urges the pope to reform

25 Papal patronage, largesse, and nepotism

26 Accounts of the 1527 Sack of Rome

27 The characters of two popes compared

28 Art, both sacral and sensuous

29 An artist feshes out religious doctrine

30 Religious diversity promoted in Tuscany

PART IV: The arts in social context

31 Painting as profession, craft, and art

32 Sculptors in corporation and in combat

33 The patronage of Cosimo de’ Medici

34 A masterpiece in a friar’s cell

35 An artist seeks employment at court

36 Two ladies consider a portrait

37 Networks of musical patronage

38 Titian, his patron, and his guests

39 Perseus and his heroic sculptor

40 The performance of a renowned actor

PART V: Loves, ideal and real

41 The notary who invented the love sonnet

42 A mystic marriage with Christ

43 A record of life’s loves and sorrows

44 Two extramarital encounters described

45 Venus triumphs at the court in Ferrara

46 Philosophers’ handbooks on love

47 A spiritual and earthly object of desire

48 A poet’s amorous raptures and torments

49 Love afairs of the Olympian gods

50 An artist’s love for a younger man

PART VI: Politics and statecraft

51 The doge, embodiment of the state

52 Political discord in communal Italy

53 A deadly attack on the Medici family

54 A sermon on Florentine political reform

55 Cesare Borgia’s assassinations

56 How the courtier ought to serve his prince

57 Praise for the Venetian constitution

58 Envisioning a queenly republic

59 Emperor Charles V in Italy

60 Art, luxury, and gifts in diplomacy

PART VII: Domestic life, family, society

61 A merchant criticized by his wife

62 A Venetian noble’s marriage advice

63 A saint’s stepmother fles her taxes

64 A friar preaches civic and domestic peace

65 Managing matters of life, death, dowry

66 A playwright stages scenes from life

67 The professional life of a courtesan

68 Venetian ladies discuss marriage

69 A lovely child remembered

70 Sexual abuse in art and in life

PART VIII: Travel, curiosity, and wonder

71 A medieval Jewish traveler in Italy

72 Marco Polo marvels at paper money

73 A merchant’s literal and literary voyages

74 Claiming and renaming a wondrous land

75 A Florentine invents America

76 Poet, artist, and scientist explore the Moon

77 Belief in witches or in a new world?

78 The marvelous city of Fez described

79 A strange and wonderful museum

80 Discovery of an ideal, “nowhere” city