Master Tully' is the first full-scale examinnation of the influence of the Roman statesman, orator, essayist, and stylist Marcus Tullius Cicero upon English intellectual and cultural life during the sixteenth century. Following early chapters on Cicero's life, career, and writings, the author examines Cicero's reputation during the mediaeval period, with special emphasis upon the manuscript tradition of Ciceronian works, and details the emergence of Cicero as a model of the ideal civic humanist during the early years of the Renaissance in Italy.

The influence of Cicero is everywhere to be found. His rhetorical and philosophical writings have made an inescapable impact on the history of western culture, impressing figures such as Augustine, Jerome, Petrarch, Erasmus, Martin Luther, John Locke, David Hume, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Despite his wide appeal, until now no study has yet offered a comprehensive overview of 'Cicero' as a character in stage plays in the early modern and modern periods. The first book of its kind to discuss Cicero's reception on stage, it includes works by Ben Jonson (1611, Catiline His Conspiracy), Voltaire (1752, Rome sauvée, ou Catilina), Richard Cumberland (1761, The Banishment of Cicero), Henry Bliss (1847, Cicero, A drama) and, most recently, Mike Poulton (Imperium, adapted from the novels of Robert Harris in 2017). Through a chapter-by-chapter account of each play in turn, every oeuvre is placed in its historical and cultural context; the plots are discussed in relation to the ancient sources. These analyses demonstrate how the presentation and assessment of the figure of Cicero develop over time and how this character is exploited for varying political statements. The wealth of material in this book is vital reading for scholars of Classics, drama and literary studies as well as historians of ideas and of the early modern age.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) introduced Romans to the major schools of Greek philosophy, forging a Latin conceptual vocabulary that was entirely new. But for all the sophistication of his thinking, it is perhaps for his political and oratorical career that Cicero is best remembered. He was the nemisis of Catiline, whose plot to overthrow the Republic he famously denounced to the Senate. He was the selfless politician who turned down the opportunity to join Julius Caesar and Pompey in their ruling triumvirate with Crassus. He was briefly Rome's leading man after Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE.And he was the great political orator whose bitter coflict with Mark Antony led to his own violent death in 43 BCE. In her authoritative survey, Gesine Manuwald evokes the many faces of Cicero as well as his complexities and seeming contradictions. She focuses on his major works, allowing the great writer to speak for himself. Cicero's rich legacy is seen to endure in the works of Quintilian and the Church Fathers as well as in the speeches of Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama.

Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Cicero is a collection of essays by an international and interdisciplinary team of scholars that situates Cicero in the context of his use and abuse from antiquity to the present, and is intended to provide readers with several good reasons to return to the study of Cicero's writings with greater interest and respect.

This book brings unusually brings together work on 15th century and the 16th century Scottish history, asking questions such as: How far can medieval themes such as OCylordshipOCO function in the late 16th-century world of Reformation and state formation? How"e;

In Cultures of Correspondence in Early Modern Britain leading scholars approach the letter from different disciplinary perspectives to illuminate its workings. Contributors to this volume examine how elements, such as handwriting, seals, ink, and use of space, were vitally significant to how letters communicated.

John Merbecke (c.1505-c.1585) is most famous as the composer of the first musical setting of the English liturgy, The Booke of Common Praier Noted (BCPN), published in 1550. Not only was Merbecke a pioneer in setting English prose to music but also the compiler of the first Concordance of the whole English Bible (1550) and of the first English encyclopaedia of biblical and theological studies, A Booke of Notes and Common Places (1581). By situating Merbecke and his work within a broader intellectual and religio-cultural context of Tudor England, this book challenges the existing studies of Merbecke based on the narrow theological approach to the Reformation. Furthermore, it suggests a re-thinking of the prevailing interpretative framework of Reformation musical history. On the basis of the new contextual study of Merbecke, this book seeks to re-interpret his work, particularly BCPN, in the light of humanist rhetoric. It sees Merbecke as embodying the ideal of the 'Christian-musical orator', demonstrating that BCPN is an Anglican epitome of the Erasmian synthesis of eloquence, theology and music. The book thus depicts Merbecke as a humanist reformer, through re-evaluation of his contributions to the developments of vernacular music and literature in early modern England. As such it will be of interest, not only to church musicians, but also to historians of the Reformation and students of wider Tudor culture.