Some twenty years in the making, this catalogue identifies virtually all the manuscripts' texts on an encyclopedic range of subjects. Classical Latin authors, medieval scholastic texts, scripture, liturgy, and devotional books are most prominent, but history, law, music, medicine, astronomy, magic, and especially vernacular literature are also represented. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Princeton University Library has a fully integrated approach that gives equal emphasis to text and image and their historical context, offering insights into countless aspects of intellectual and artistic life. Don C. Skemer has been curator of manuscripts in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library since 1991, with responsibility for the Manuscripts Division's diverse holdings, spanning five millennia of recorded history.

Medieval Bologna through its books / Michael Byron Norris -- Bologna: the built environment / Areli Marina -- Bringing honor to that art called illumination : Bolognese manuscript painting techniques, ca. 1250-1400 / Nancy K. Turner -- Learning the law in Medieval Bologna : the production and use of illuminated legal manuscripts / Susan L'Engle -- The art of the friars in the university city / Trinita Kennedy -- Pride and glory in the art of illumination : manuscripts for church ceremonies from Bologna and environs / Bryan C. Keene -- Bolognese narrative painting around the time of papal legate Bertrand du Pouget (1327-1334) -- Lyle Humphrey.

"As recounted here by Ingrid D. Rowland, Curzio preyed on the Italian fixation with ancestry to forge an array of ancient Latin and Etruscan documents. For authenticity's sake, he stashed the counterfeit treasure in scarith (capsules made of hair and mud) near Scornello. To the seventeenth-century Tuscans who were so eager to establish proof of their heritage and history, the scarith symbolized a link to the prestigious culture of their past. But because none of these proud Italians could actually read the ancient Etruscan language, they couldn't know for certain that the documents were frauds. The Scarith of Scornello traces the career of this young scam artist whose "discoveries" reached the Vatican shortly after Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition, inspiring participants on both sides of the affair to clash again - this time over Etruscan history."--BOOK JACKET.

Which famous poet treasured his copy of Homer, but could never learn Greek? What prompted diplomats to circulate a speech by Demosthenes – in Latin translation – when the Turks threatened to invade Europe? Why would enthusiastic Florentines crowd a lecture on the Roman Neoplatonist Plotinus, but underestimate the importance of Plato himself? Having all but disappeared during the Middle Ages, classical Greek would recover a position of importance – eventually equal to that of classical Latin - only after a series of surprising failures, chance encounters, and false starts. This important study of the rediscovery and growing influence of classical Greek scholarship in Italy from the 14th to the early 16th centuries is brought up to date in a new edition that reflects on the recent developments in the field of classical reception studies, and contains fully up-to-date references to aid students and scholars. From a leading authority on Greek palaeography in the English-speaking world, here is a complete account of the historic rediscovery of Greek philosophy, language and literature during the Renaissance, brought up-to-date for a modern audience of classicists, historians, and students and scholars of reception studies and the Classical Tradition.

To whom should we ascribe the great flowering of the arts in Renaissance Italy? Artists like Botticelli and Michelangelo? Or wealthy, discerning patrons like Cosimo de' Medici? In recent years, scholars have attributed great importance to the role played by patrons, arguing that some should even be regarded as artists in their own right. This approach receives sharp challenge in Jill Burke's Changing Patrons, a book that draws heavily upon the author's discoveries in Florentine archives, tracing the many profound transformations in patrons' relations to the visual world of fifteenth-century Florence. Looking closely at two of the city's upwardly mobile families, Burke demonstrates that they approached the visual arts from within a grid of social, political, and religious concerns. Art for them often served as a mediator of social difference and a potent means of signifying status and identity. Changing Patrons combines visual analysis with history and anthropology to propose new interpretations of the art created by, among others, Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Raphael. Genuinely interdisciplinary, the book also casts light on broad issues of identity, power relations, and the visual arts in Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance.

The outstanding Burke Collection of Italian miniatures, which is housed in Special Collections in the the Stanford University Libraries, has been built over more than twenty years and includes manuscript leaves, cuttings, and codices by many of the greatest Italian artists of the medieval and Renaissance periods. Works in the collection range in date from the 12th through the 16th centuries, and in them we see masterfully painted initials, borders, and miniatures that enhance our appreciation of the great skill that John Ruskin called ?writing made beautiful.?00Comprised of over 40 miniatures from 35 different artists representing 13 different regions of Italy, the collection is characterized by its astonishingly high quality. It includes works produced by the most renowned Italian illuminators, who are often also documented as painters. Artists from Florence and Siena are certainly the best represented in the Burke collection. These include masterpieces by Don Simone Camaldolese and Lorenzo Monaco of Florence, and Giovanni di Paolo and Pellegrino di Mariano of Siena. The collection equally underlines the range of styles achieved by Italian illuminators active in Emilia-Romana, where great interpreters of Giotto were active, such as Neri da Rimini, Tommaso da Modena, and Nicolò di Giacomo, as well as masterpieces of the Venetian school, such as works by Cristoforo Cortese and the Master of the Murano Gradual. Lombardy is represented by one of the notable specialists of late Gothic painting, the Olivetan Master. Among the many highlights, there is the incomparable and world-class Crucifixion of the Master of Saint Francis of Assisi.