The Italian Renaissance and the Origins of the Modern Humanities
An Intellectual History, 1400–1800

Connecting to issues in the humanities today, this book shows how the Italian Renaissance influenced and changed Early Modern Europe.

Christopher S. Celenza (Author)

9781108970419, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 April 2023

339 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.552 kg

'This is a thoughtful book on an important topic … Highly recommended.' P. Grendler, Choice

Christopher Celenza is one of the foremost contemporary scholars of the Renaissance. His ambitious new book focuses on the body of knowledge which we now call the humanities, charting its roots in the Italian Renaissance and exploring its development up to the Enlightenment. Beginning in the fifteenth century, the author shows how thinkers like Lorenzo Valla and Angelo Poliziano developed innovative ways to read texts closely, paying attention to historical context, developing methods to determine a text's authenticity, and taking the humanities seriously as a means of bettering human life. Alongside such novel reading practices, technology – the invention of printing with moveable type – fundamentally changed perceptions of truth. Celenza also reveals how luminaries like Descartes, Diderot, and D'Alembert – as well as many lesser-known scholars – challenged traditional ways of thinking. Celenza's authoritative narrative demonstrates above all how the work of the early modern humanist philosophers had a profound impact on the general quest for human wisdom. His magisterial volume will be essential reading for all those who value the humanities and their fascinating history.

1. Philology, the Italian renaissance, and authorship
2. Lorenzo Valla, philology, emotion
3. Losing your identity: Angelo Decembrio
4. Trust and authenticity
5. Pursuing a love of knowledge
6. Shaping knowledge
7. Forgetting philology: Rene Descartes
8. Certainty. Skepticism
9. Echoes.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]