Humanism, Venice, and Women Essays on the Italian Renaissance

Originally published between 1975 and 2003, the essays included in Humanism, Venice, and Women reflect Margaret L. King's distinct but interlocking scholarly interests: humanism and Venice; women and humanism; and women of the Italian Renaissance. The first part focuses on defining the key characteristics of Venetian as opposed to other Italian humanisms, with an analysis of Gramscian theory about the historical role of intellectuals as an aid to understanding humanism in Venice, followed by essays on three Venetian humanists who wrote about family relationships (or the need to avoid them). The third section introduces the major Renaissance women humanists and analyzes the relation of their work to that of male humanists, along with an essay on Renaissance mothers of sons, in Italy and beyond. Crossing boundaries of region and gender, and the subdisciplines of intellectual and social history, these essays are provocative in themselves while demonstrating how shifting historiographical contexts encourage scholars to view the historical record in new and fruitful ways.

Contents: Preface. Part I Humanism and the Transmission of Values: The Venetian Case: The social role of intellectuals: Antonio Gramsci and the Italian Renaissance; Humanism in Venice; L'Umanesimo cristiano nella Venezia del Quattrocento. Part II Caldiera, Marcello, and the Barbaros: Social Issues and Humanist Thought in Venice: Personal, domestic and republican values in the moral philosophy of Giovanni Caldiera; Caldiera and the Barbaros on marriage and the family: humanist reflections of Venetian realities; An inconsolable father and his humanist consolers: Jacobo Antonio Marcello, Venetian nobleman, patron, and man of letters; Jacopo Antonio Marcello and the war for the Lombard plain. Part III Renaissance Women And Renaissance Culture: Thwarted ambitions: six learned women of the Renaissance; The religious retreat of Isotta Nogarola (1418-66): sexism and its consequences in the 15th century; Goddess and captive: Antonio Loschi's epistolary tribute to Maddalena Scrovegni (1389); Book-lined cells: women and humanism in the early Italian Renaissance; Mothers of the Renaissance; Index.

Margaret L. King is Professor of History, Brooklyn College, and the Graduate Center, CUNY, USA