Renaissance Studies

Inventing the High Renaissance from Winckelmann to Wikipedia: An introductory essay

by Jill Burke

This is also available via the Ashgate website - with more information about the book as a whole - see http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&title_id=10906&edition_id=14230&calcTitle=1

This introductory essay considers how the term "High Renaissance" came into usage, and whether we should use... more This introductory essay considers how the term "High Renaissance" came into usage, and whether we should use it or not today. It links to particular methodologies we associate with High Renaissance artist and introduces the essays in the volume.

Words or Gestures? Marriage Rituals in Renaissance Italy: Continuity and Change, 1400-1600, in: Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom in Europe, 1150- 1600, Ed. Korpiola, M. (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 275-287.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Co-authored with Silvana Seidel Menchi

“‘Personal’ Rituals: The Office of Ceremonies and Papal Weddings, 1483-1521”

by Jennifer Mara DeSilva

Published in Marriage in Premodern Europe: Italy and Beyond, ed. Jacqueline Murray (Toronto: Centre for Reformation & Renaissance Studies, 2012), pp. 47-71.

In the early modern period getting married was a mix of legal, religious, and social acts that altogether proclaimed... more In the early modern period getting married was a mix of legal, religious, and social acts that altogether proclaimed the union of two people, two families, and two sets of possessions. Although the Church had formally established marriage as a sacrament in 1439, through the sixteenth century the act of marrying retained this tripartite identity, even in papal Rome. From 1484 to 1521 there were eight weddings held at the Vatican Palace of variously the pope’s children or nieces/nephews. These unions had significant political importance, but also held an unusual place in the papal court’s ritual life. Within an environment that was predominantly male, celibate, and focused almost exclusively on liturgical ceremonies, the legal and lay social rituals of these weddings strike an illicit chord. This paper will examine the papal Master of Ceremonies’ (Johann Burchard and Paris de’ Grassi) reactions to these weddings over five pontificates.

Elizabeth Spiller, Poetic Parthenogenesis and Spenser's Idea of Creation

by Elizabeth Spiller

Elizabeth A. Spiller, "Poetic Parthenogenesis and Spenser's Idea of Creation in the Faerie Queene." Studies in English Literature 40.1 (2000): 63-79.

See also http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/studies_in_english_literature/

La Pologne, un don maternel de Catherine de Médicis ? La cérémonie de la remise du Decretum electionis à Henri de Valois

by Ewa Kociszewska

Le Moyen Age 2011/3-4 (Le mécénat féminin en France et en Bourgogne, XIV-XVIe siècles. Nouvelles perspectives)

Montaigne's Two Plutarchs

by Alison CALHOUN

MONTAIGNE STUDIES, VOL. XXI, NO 1-2 (2009) - MONTAIGNE ET LES PHILOSOPHES

Redefining Nobility in the French Renaissance: The Case of Montaigne’s Journal de voyage

by Alison CALHOUN

MLN - Volume 123, Number 4, September 2008 (French Issue), pp. 836-854

Montaigne and the Comic: Exposing Private Life

by Alison CALHOUN

Philosophy and Literature, Volume 35, Number 2, October 2011, pp. 303-319

Between men of action, men of words, and men—like the philosophers—who find themselves curiously in between, Montaigne... more Between men of action, men of words, and men—like the philosophers—who find themselves curiously in between, Montaigne would ideally write like Epicurus and Seneca, in a style that unites his actions with his words. This union of "doings" and "sayings," of doctrine and daily activity, is also what Montaigne refers to as the wisdom of the philosophers. His new form of wisdom in the Essays unites his sayings and doings, but without losing touch with the paradox of making the private public, and the inevitability of being judged comic in his time for exposing his private life.

review of Kevin van Bladel, Arabic Hermes

by Tzvi Langermann

Marriage and Consent in Pretridentine Venice: Between Lay Conception and Ecclesiastical Conception, 1420-1545. In: The Sixteenth Century Journal, 39, 2008, 389-418.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice... more The main sources of this article are 750 matrimonial trials discussed before the ecclesiastical court in Venice (1420-1545). This article analyzes the differing conceptions of marriage held by the laity and by the ecclesiastical hierarchy as these ideas were expressed in a dialectical relationship in court. Central to this analysis is the concept of consent, since consent, with widely differing interpretations, formed the foundation and the essence of both canonical and lay customary marriage. In the pre-Tridentine ecclesiastical court, custom played a leading role in deciding matters related to the marriage bond. These sources allow access to aspects of marriage that are usually not recorded and make it possible to reevaluate social phenomena which have been defined from a post-Tridentine perspective as transgressive. Practices such as bigamy, concubinage, and stuprum appear not as deviant, but as part of socially accepted marital behavior that is much broader and more heterogeneous than historians have appreciated.

El error retórico de la alcahueta. Performatividad y nueva retórica en la Celestina

by Albert Lloret

Celestinesca 31 (2007): 119-132.

This article examines Celestina’s rhetorical arts in two episodes of the work: the persuasion of Pármeno —in María... more This article examines Celestina’s rhetorical arts in two episodes of the work: the persuasion of Pármeno —in María Rosa Lida’s words, the touchstone of Celestinesque persuasive arts—, and the moments prior to her death —namely, the time when her skills in dominating others’ wills fail. From a rhetorical stand-point that stems from Classical models, but readapts them to explain argumentative maneuvers not codified in ancient treatises (thus, in light of Chaim Perelman’s treatise on argumentation), several stratagems of the old bawd are underscored, and also the main rhetorical mistake that leads to her death.

La formazione di un canzoniere a stampa

by Albert Lloret

Ecdotica 5 (2008): 103-125.

This article details the process of printing a book of poetry with a hand-printing press. Such technique is... more This article details the process of printing a book of poetry with a hand-printing press. Such technique is illustrated by examining a sixteenth-century manuscript housed at Spain's National Library (MS 2985), which --this article claims-- was used as the printer's copy of a quarto edition (Barcelona: Carles Amorós, 1543) of the complete poems of Valencian author Ausiàs March (1400-1459).

Readers and Compilators of Ausiàs March’s Poetry in Barcelona (BNE, MS 2985)

by Albert Lloret

Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 1.1 (Spring 2012).

This article offers a codicological description of the most complete extant manuscript containing the poetical works... more This article offers a codicological description of the most complete extant manuscript containing the poetical works of Ausiàs March (Valencia, 1400-1459). It lays out the material characteristics of the codex, and sets them in contrast with a matrix of relevant features from other witnesses of March’s poetry. As a result, this study uncovers several stages in the compilatory process of the manuscript, and argues for it having been originally owned by Ferrando de Cardona, Admiral of Naples and Duke of Somma (Naples, 1521- Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1571).

I processi matrimoniali veneziani. In: Tribunali del matrimonio (secoli XV-XVIII), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Quaglioni, D. (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006), 101-122.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Rendering the Semantic Field of Help Meet: Etymology and the "True" Meaning of Marriage in Milton's Divorce Tracts and *Paradise Lost*

by Peter J. Roccia

Published in *Love, Marriage, Friendship: 32nd Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum at Plymouth State University (April 15-16, 2011)* (2012) Eds. Aniesha R. Andrews & Raffaele Florio. The Public Heritage Institute at Regis College: Weston, MA.

Of the phrase help meet in Genesis 2: 18, 20, Milton in his Tetrachordon says, “The originall heer is more expressive... more Of the phrase help meet in Genesis 2: 18, 20, Milton in his Tetrachordon says, “The originall heer is more expressive then other languages word for word can render it.” Here, in this paper, we will trace out that rendering process from the Hebrew Bible’s original ezer kenegdo, through the Wycliffe Bible’s “help like hym,” to what the Oxford English Dictionary calls the “absurdly formed” compound helpmeet. Against this semantic field, we will then position Milton’s use of the term and its cluster of related synonyms fit, mate, and associate within the other divorce tracts and passages from Paradise Lost. Through this process, we will test whether Milton is attempting to approximate those layers of expression contained in the Hebrew phrase through clusters of related English words, rather than through a strictly linear “word for word” rendering. The result will be a greater understanding of the role that “Right-wording, usually call’d Etymologie,” as Milton defines it in his Accedence Commenc’t Grammar, played in Milton’s crafting of his definition of marriage overall and within Renaissance English polemics and exegesis as a whole.

"Mysteries Wrapped in Enigmas”: Trithemius, Occultism and Cryptography

by Leo Ruickbie

in Angela Catalina Ghionea (ed.), Alchemy, Medicine, Science and the Occult (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming)

Does the Priest Have to Be There? Contested Marriages Before Roman Tribunals. Italy, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. In: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften, 3, 2009, 10-30.

by Cecilia Cristellon

The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more... more The Council of Trent established the requirements that a marriage be celebrated by the parish priest and two or more witnesses be present at the marriage (1563), but neglected to specify who the parish priest was. The decrees provoked confusion among both laymen and churchmen. Traces thereof can be found in the hitherto essentially unexplored documentation of The Congregation of the Council. This institution was founded in 1564 specifically to resolve the questions that arose all over the catholic world by the application of the decrees promulgated at Trent. The related records are held in the Vatican Secret Archive. Through an examination of this documentation, complemented by files of the Holy Office the author analyzes how the new rules were understood, experienced, used, circumvented, and manipulated both by laymen and churchmen in order to end an unwanted marriage, to facilitate a union that was socially transgressive, opposed by family, or even heterodox, and to respond to pastoral concerns.

Public Display of Affection: The Making of Marriage in the Venetian Courts before the Council of Trent (1420- 1545). In: The Erotic Cultures of Renaissance Italy, Hg. Matthews- Grieco, S. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 173-197.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Ritratto di una cortigiana del Cinquecento: Caterina de Medici da Verona e le sue vicende (1518-1582). In: Ritratti. La dimensione individuale nella storia (secc. XV- XIX), Hg. Seidel Menchi, S., Pierce, R. (Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2008), 147-176.

by Cecilia Cristellon

Elizabeth Spiller, “Recipes for Knowledge: Maker’s Knowledge Traditions, Paracelsian Recipes, and the Invention of the Cookbook,” in Renaissance Food from Rabelais to Shakespeare, ed. Joan Fitzpatrick (Ashgate, 2009), pp. 55-72.

by Elizabeth Spiller