Medieval and Renaissance Books

As an architecture student I found ALberti's books, even this one....to be one ofthe most inspiring, intrigueing and most influential books that i have ever read. He was truly a man ahead of his time. I highly recommend this book and every other book that you could get your hands on by him. If you like theory and really in depth meaningful materials then i suggest you read this immediately.

Discourses On Love, Marriage, And Transgression In Medieval And Early Modern Literature is a collection of scholarly essays by learned authors discussing an extensive variation of period literary perspectives toward friendship, marriage, adultery, domestic violence, individual happiness, the breaking of promises and vows, the destructive side of sexuality, and more. Individual essays include "Accusations of Gay and Straight Sexual Transgression", "Caucer's Vows and How They Break: Transgression in The Manciple's Tale", and "Constructing New Women in Early Modern English Literature". Each topic is dissected from a multiplicity of literary, historical, and social viewpoints. A uniquely vivid and daring examination of love, sex, and culture as reflected in medieval writing.

Early Renaissance Invective and the Controversies of Antonia da Rho presents an edited translation of two works by medieval scholar Antonio da Rho (1395-1447). The text is also offered in its original Latin for side-by-side comparison. Extensive notes and commentary, as well as line-by-line citations allow for ease of close scrutiny. The rhetoric manuscripts include "Philippic Against Antonio Panormita" and "The Apology of Antonio da Rho". The scathing attacks present in these classical manuscripts demonstrate that all-out verbal assault was as skillfully used centuries ago as it is today, if not more so! A finely presented addition to medieval literature and studies shelves.

As I understand it, this book results from years of scholarship; certainly it's the most detailed edition of the Amoretti and Epithalamion that I've found.

Larsen has a clear editorial "take" on Spenser's sonnet cycle (which includes the 89 Amoretti and the 24 stanzas of the Epithalamion). He joins the many historicist Renaissance scholars who argue that one cannot understand Renaissance literature fully without taking its religious and political context into account. In particular, Spenser, like most of Elizabeth I's subjects, was steeped the the new Protestant religion begun by the queen's father and brother in the middle of the 16th century, and this religion, in turn, found its life in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer.

Building on the work of Alexander Dunlop and others, Larson pays particular attention to the resonances between the Amoretti and the lessons and psalms specified for particular days of the year in the Prayer Book. Most critics agree that almost all of Spenser's 89 Amoretti correspond to specific days in the calendar year 1594. Larsen supports this theory by noting many connections between specific sonnets and the Prayer Book readings which correspond to those sonnets' presumed dates. His introduction (some 60 pages) offers an especially helpful discussion of how Spenser may have read and used the Prayer Book and various English translations of the Bible.

Larsen also notes Spenser's numerous classical and Petrarchan sources. My only complaint here is that in his notes Larsen will often quote a source in the original language without providing a translation. Over all, though, Larsen's notes are extensive and provocative without shutting down further inquiry or discussion. I'd recommend this work to anyone who's doing a serious investigation of the Amoretti and Epithalamion.

This is a fine study of the filthy anti-conduct text, GROBIANUS, which Correll calls "that strange verse compendium of bad manners first written thirty years after THE COURTIER by the minor German humanist Friedrich Dedekind." Beautifully written, elegantly thought, this book analyzes early modern identity formation, "refocusing on the margins" to show how this text seeks to "secure normative masculine identity and construct the gendered subject of civility by means of the labor of aversion." Correll sees GROBIANUS as an end point of conduct books and connects it with a dense early modern European context. One comes away with an enlivened appreciation of the minor text and with the pleasure of contact with an insightful and deeply informed intellect.

Thank you for your rapid business! I am very glad to receive it so soon.

Evolving within the Exchequer Department during the Middle Ages for the purpose of settling legal disputes over the royal revenue, the High Court of Exchequer also began to hear common law disputes between private parties when relevant to the collection of those royal revenues. In the mid-seventeenth century the court extended its jurisdiction to all common law and equity cases. Painstakingly compiled, deftly edited, and superbly presented by William Hamilton Bryson, "Equity Cases In The Court Of Exchequer, 1660-1714" is an compilation of succinct descriptions of the cases brought before the court for adjudication. An impressive 724-page work of seminal and meticulous scholarship, "Equity Cases In The Court Of Exchequer, 1660-1714" is strongly recommended as a core contribution to academic library Medieval Studies, Judicial History Studies, and British History Studies reference collections.

In this volume a reader can take in Erasmus as he tackles questions ranging from warfare between Christian kingdoms to the place of classical rhetoric in Christian education to what to do when one must break wind at a banquet table. Each essay has Erasmus's gentle, deliberative touch, and Rummel's translation of "In Praise of Folly" is the best that I've encountered.

The book's binding has held up for nearly ten years now, and Rummel's translations convey a smoothness and learned style that make each of the great humanist's pieces a joy to read. These short pieces have become welcome respites to enjoy in my own breaks from the ardor of Calvin and the fury of Milton.

In counterpart to the late-medieval Italian tale "Decameron" and the late-medieval English work "Canterbury Tales", Erotic Tales of Medieval Germany offers a collection of titillating erotic stories from medieval German literature, many by anonymous authors. Flawlessly translated into English by Albrecht Classen, Erotic Tales of Medieval Germany covers a wide range of sexually charged subjects, including marriage, violence, adultery, and human sexuality. Each story features a brief, scholarly introduction; a final, lengthy poem in its original German "Der Enttauschte Liebhaber" rounds out this close examination of historic expressions of passion.

This an informative mosaic of thorougly researched and interesting biographies of some of history's most courageous and resourceful women. This book neither limits its focus to women of the Occident, nor meerly to "famous" females. Rather it pays homage to women from all over the globe many whose stories might have otherwise remained in obscurity. It would make a useful text for world history courses.