The Italian Renaissance: The Essential Readings

List of Illustrations.

Acknowledgements.

Part I: Introduction.

1. Understanding the Italian Renaissance. (Paula Findlen).

Part II: Was there a Renaissance State?.

2 Civil Traditions in Premodern Italy. (Gene Brucker).

3 Cosimo de'Medici. Pater Patriae or Padrino?. (Anthony Molho).

Part III: Urban Life and Values.

4 'Kins, Friends and Neighbors': The Urban Territory of a Merchant Family in 1400. (Christiane Klapisch Zuber).

5 Sumptuary Law and Social Relations in Renaissance Italy. (Diane Owen Hughes).

6 The Virgin on the Street Corner: The Place of the Sacred in Italian Cities. (Edward Muir).

Part IV: Gender and Society.

7 'The Most Serious Duty'. Motherhood, Gender and Patrician Culture in Early Renaissance Venice. (Stanley Chojnacki).

8 Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy. (Michael Rocke).

Part V: The Power of Knowledge.

9 Petrach's Conception of the 'Dark Ages'. (Theodor Mommsen).

10 Commerce with the Classics. (Anthony Grafton).

11 Isotta Nogarola: Women Humanists - Education for What? (Lisa Jardine).

Part VI: Patronage, Art and Culture.

12 Haroes and Their Workshops: Medici Patronage and the Problem of Shared Agency. (Melissa Meriam Bullard).

13 The Court Lady's Dilemma. Isabella d'Este and Art Collecting in the Renaissance. (Rose Marie San Juan).

Index.