Leonardo Bruni was famous in his day as a translator, orator, and historian, and was one of the best-selling authors of the 15th century. Bruni's History of the Florentine People is generally considered the first modern work of history.

A sweeping and magisterial four-hundred-year history of both the city and the people who gave birth to the Renaissance. Between the birth of Dante in 1265 and the death of Galileo in 1642, something happened that transformed the entire culture of western civilization. Painting, sculpture, and architecture would all visibly change in such a striking fashion that there could be no going back on what had taken place. Likewise, the thought and self-conception of humanity would take on a completely new aspect. Sciences would be born—or emerge in an entirely new guise. The ideas that broke this mold began, and continued to flourish, in the city of Florence in northern central Italy. These ideas, which placed an increasing emphasis on the development of our common humanity—rather than other-worldly spirituality—coalesced in what came to be known as humanism. This philosophy and its new ideas would eventually spread across Italy, yet wherever they took hold they would retain an element essential to their origin. And as they spread further across Europe, this element would remain. Transformations of human culture throughout western history have remained indelibly stamped by their origins. The Reformation would always retain something of central and northern Germany. The Industrial Revolution soon outgrew its British origins, yet also retained something of its original template. Closer to the present, the IT revolution that began in Silicon Valley remains indelibly colored by its Californian origins. Paul Strathern shows how Florence, and the Florentines themselves, played a similarly unique and transformative role in the Renaissance.

"I libri della famiglia has long been viewed by Italians as a classic of Italian literature. It displays a variety of styles--high rhetoric, systematic moral exposition, novelistic portrayal of character--in the typical Renaissance framework of the dialogue. The chief merit of the work lies in its scope: it directly assays the personal value system of the Florentine bourgeois class, which did so much to foster the development of art, literature, and science. This translation is based upon the critical edition by Cecil Grayson, Serena Professor of Italian Studies, Oxford."--Jacket.

In this history of Florence, distinguished historian John Najemy discusses all the major developments in Florentine history from 1200 to 1575. Captures Florence's transformation from a medieval commune into an aristocratic republic, territorial state, and monarchy Weaves together intellectual, cultural, social, economic, religious, and political developments Academically rigorous yet accessible and appealing to the general reader Likely to become the standard work on Renaissance Florence for years to come

Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444), the leading civic humanist of the Italian Renaissance, served as apostolic secretary to four popes (1405-1414) and chancellor of Florence (1427-1444). He was famous in his day as a translator, orator, and historian, and was the best-selling author of the fifteenth century. Bruni's History of the Florentine People in twelve books is generally considered the first modern work of history, and was widely imitated by humanist historians for two centuries after its official publication by the Florentine Signoria in 1442. This edition makes it available for the first time in English translation.

A new history of one of the foremost printers of the Renaissance explores how the Age of Print came to Italy. Lorenz Bšninger offers a fresh history of the birth of print in Italy through the story of one of its most important figures, Niccol˜ di Lorenzo della Magna. After having worked for several years for a judicial court in Florence, Niccol˜ established his business there and published a number of influential books. Among these were Marsilio FicinoÕs De christiana religione, Leon Battista AlbertiÕs De re aedificatoria, Cristoforo LandinoÕs commentaries on DanteÕs Commedia, and Francesco BerlinghieriÕs Septe giornate della geographia. Many of these books were printed in vernacular Italian. Despite his prominence, Niccol˜ has remained an enigma. A meticulous historical detective, Bšninger pieces together the thorough portrait that scholars have been missing. In doing so, he illuminates not only Niccol˜Õs life but also the Italian printing revolution generally. Combining Renaissance studiesÕ traditional attention to bibliographic and textual concerns with a broader social and economic history of printing in Renaissance Italy, Bšninger provides an unparalleled view of the business of printing in its earliest years. The story of Niccol˜ di Lorenzo furnishes a host of new insights into the legal issues that printers confronted, the working conditions in printshops, and the political forces that both encouraged and constrained the publication and dissemination of texts.