Ross, Sarah Gwyneth. Everyday Renaissances : the quest for cultural legitimacy in Venice

Folger bibliographic ID: 345593
Folger call number: CB361 .R67 2016
Folger holdings ID: 496395

"The Renaissance mattered to everyday people. Cultural Legitimacy recovers the cultural and intellectual lives of 147 Venetians of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries from household inventories that recorded their book ownership, from the philosophical ruminations they inserted (illegally) into their final wills and testaments, and from the laconic memoranda of mental universes wedged into the narrow margins of account books. Part I presents a broad view of the Venetian Renaissance as it unfolded in the houses and shops of artisans, merchants and professionals. Part II maps the worlds of three eloquent physicians: Nicolò Massa (1485-1569); Francesco Longo (1506-1576), and Alberto Rini (d.1599). These university-trained doctors left longer documentary trails than innkeepers, wives of goldsmiths and perfumers, apothecaries, parish priests, and retail merchants. Yet physicians had more in common with other men and women in the middle ranks than we might assume. While both popular and professional histories can make it seem as if Renaissance culture touched only aristocrats and the geniuses on their payrolls, this study reveals literary values inspiring people who did any number of things to feed their families."--Provided by publisher

General notes

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents

Part I: Venice's reading public -- Testamentary humanism -- Part II: Nicolò Massa, a self-made man of letters -- Francesco Longo's philosophical testaments -- Cultural life in the journals of Alberto Rini

Extended title: Everyday Renaissances : the quest for cultural legitimacy in Venice / Sarah Gwyneth Ross

Renaissance Philosophy, Renaissance Physicians Middle class Venice (Italy)

author: Ross, Sarah Gwyneth, 1975-