Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: An Essay (The Modern Library of the World's Best Books, ML 32)

xv, 424 pp. Introduction by Hajo Holborn. The book is one of the best accounts of the colorful period of Italian life and thought between 1350 and 1550. CONTENTS: STATE AS A WORK OF ART: Introduction; Despots of the Fourteenth Century; Despots of the Fifteenth Century; Smaller Despostisms; Greater Dyansties; Opponents of the Despots; Republics: Venice and Florence; Foreign Policy; War as a Work of Art; Papacy; Patriotism; DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL: Personality; Glory; Ridicule and Wit; REVIVAL OF ANTIQUITY: Introductory; Ruins of Rome; Classics; Humanists; Universities and Schools; Propagators of Antiquity; Epistolography: Latin Orators; Treatise, and History in Latin; Antiquity as the Common Source; Neo-Latin Poetry; Fall of the Humanists In the Sixteenth Century; DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD AND OF MAN: Journeys of the Italians; Natural Sciences in Italy; Discovery of the Beauty of Landscape; Discovery of Man; Biography in the Middle Ages; Description of the Outward Man; Description of Human Life; SOCIETY AND FESTIVALS: Equality of Classes; Costumes and Fashions; Language and Society; Social Etiquette; Education of the 'Cortigiano'; Music; Equality of Men and Women; Domestic Life; Festivals; MORALITY AND RELIGION: Morality and Judgment; Morality and Immorality; Religion in Daily Life; Strength of the Old Faith; Religion and the Spirit of Renaissance; Influence of Ancient Superstition; General Spirit of Doubt; Index.