Inventing the Renaissance
The Myth of a Golden Age
9780226837970
9780226837987
Inventing the Renaissance
The Myth of a Golden Age
An irreverent new take on the Renaissance, which reveals it as anything but Europe’s golden age.
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
Palmer’s Renaissance is altogether desperate. Troubled by centuries of conflict, she argues, Europe looked to a long-lost Roman Empire (even its education practices) to save them from unending war. Later historians met their own political challenges with a similarly nostalgic vision, only now they looked to the Renaissance and told a partial story. To right this wrong, Palmer offers fifteen provocative portraits of Renaissance men and women (some famous, some obscure) whose lives reveal a far more diverse, fragile, and wild Renaissance than its glowing reputation suggests.
From the darkness of a plagued and war-torn Middle Ages, the Renaissance (we’re told) heralds the dawning of a new world—a halcyon age of art, prosperity, and rebirth. Hogwash! or so says award-winning novelist and historian Ada Palmer. In Inventing the Renaissance, Palmer turns her witty and irreverent eye on the fantasies we’ve told ourselves about Europe’s not-so-golden age, myths she sets right with sharp clarity.
Palmer’s Renaissance is altogether desperate. Troubled by centuries of conflict, she argues, Europe looked to a long-lost Roman Empire (even its education practices) to save them from unending war. Later historians met their own political challenges with a similarly nostalgic vision, only now they looked to the Renaissance and told a partial story. To right this wrong, Palmer offers fifteen provocative portraits of Renaissance men and women (some famous, some obscure) whose lives reveal a far more diverse, fragile, and wild Renaissance than its glowing reputation suggests.
Reviews
Table of Contents
Family Trees
Prologue: The Great and Terrible Renaissance
1. Machiavelli the Patriot: SPQF
Part I: Why You Shouldn’t Believe Anyone (Including Me) About the Renaissance
2. Everybody Wants to Claim a Golden Age
3. The Flexible X-Factor of the Renaissance
4. Time for a Tangent About Vikings! (It’s Relevant, I Swear…)
5. The Quest for the Renaissance X-Factor Begins
6. Super Sexy Secular Humanism
7. A New X-Factor: The Baron Thesis and Proto-Democracy
8. Another X-Factor: Enter Economists!
9. Florence: A Self-Fulfilling Source Base
10. What Makes People Start to Study the Renaissance
11. Lorenzo de Medici: Hero or Villain?
12. Or Were We Brought Here by Romance?
13. The Invention of the Middle Ages
14. The Un-Modern Renaissance
15. Why Did Ada Palmer Start Studying the Renaissance?
Part II: Desperate Times and Desperate Measures
16. Desperate Times
17. Cruel Wars for Light Causes
18. A Strange Peace, A Stranger War
19. Rome: The Eternal Problem City
20. Medieval but Ever-So-Much-More-So
21. The Desperate Measure: Reviving Antiquity
Intermission: Are You Remembering Not to Believe Me?
22. Antiquity Was Not New Either
23. The Umanista’s Rival: Scholasticism
24. Studia Humanitatis—The Words That Sting and Bite
25. Italian Renaissance Becomes European Renaissance
26. The Supremacy of Antiquity
27. Is This About Virtue or Power?
Part III: Let’s Meet Some People from This Golden Age
28. Patrons and Clients All the Way Up
29. Our Friends So Far
30. Alessandra Strozzi: Labors of Exile
31. Manetto Amanatini: There Is a World Elsewhere
32. Francesco Filelfo: Between Republics and Monarchies
33. Montesecco: An Assassin Fears for His Soul
34. Ippolita Maria Visconti Sforza: The Princess and the Peace
35. Josquin des Prez: The International Renaissance
36. Angelo Poliziano: Patronage Repays
37. Savonarola: Saint or Demon?
38. Alessandra Scala: The Girl of Our Dreams
39. Raffaello Maffei il Volterrano: A Scholar Fears for His Soul Too
40. Lucrezia Borgia: Princess of Nowhere
41. Camilla Bartolini Rucellai: Spirit of the Last Republic
42. Michelangelo: The Great and Terrible
Interlude: Let’s Ground Ourselves in Time
43. Julia the Sibyl: A Prophetess in an Age of Science
44. Our Friend Machiavelli
Machiavelli Part 2: The Three Branches of Ethics
Machiavelli Part 3: Enter the Prince
Machiavelli Part 4: Julius II the Warrior Pope
Coda: Many Machiavellis
Part IV: What Was Renaissance Humanism?
45. What Was Behind the Curtain? Garin vs. Kristeller
46. Who Gets to Count as a Renaissance Humanist?
47. Back to Our X-Factors
48. Once Upon a Time at Vergil’s House…
49. Follow the Money!
50. It’s Getting Weird in Florence
51. Scraps of Philosophia
52. Was There Renaissance Secular Humanism?
53. How (Not) to Dodge the Renaissance Inquisition
54. Why We Care Whether Machiavelli Was an Atheist
55. Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 1
56. Virtue Politics
57. Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 2
Part V: The Try Everything Age
58. An Exponential Information Revolution
59. We Can’t Just Abelard Harder Anymore
60. The Presumptive Authority of the Past
61. The New Philosophy
62. A Brief History of Progress
63. Progresses
Part VI: Conclusion – Who Has Power in History?
64. Great Forces History vs. Individual Choice History
65. The Papal Election of 2016
66. Which Horseman of the Apocalypse?
67. What Did the Black Death Really Cause?
Sources and Recommended Reading
Notes
Acknowledgments
Image Credits
Index
About the Author
Prologue: The Great and Terrible Renaissance
1. Machiavelli the Patriot: SPQF
Part I: Why You Shouldn’t Believe Anyone (Including Me) About the Renaissance
2. Everybody Wants to Claim a Golden Age
3. The Flexible X-Factor of the Renaissance
4. Time for a Tangent About Vikings! (It’s Relevant, I Swear…)
5. The Quest for the Renaissance X-Factor Begins
6. Super Sexy Secular Humanism
7. A New X-Factor: The Baron Thesis and Proto-Democracy
8. Another X-Factor: Enter Economists!
9. Florence: A Self-Fulfilling Source Base
10. What Makes People Start to Study the Renaissance
11. Lorenzo de Medici: Hero or Villain?
12. Or Were We Brought Here by Romance?
13. The Invention of the Middle Ages
14. The Un-Modern Renaissance
15. Why Did Ada Palmer Start Studying the Renaissance?
Part II: Desperate Times and Desperate Measures
16. Desperate Times
17. Cruel Wars for Light Causes
18. A Strange Peace, A Stranger War
19. Rome: The Eternal Problem City
20. Medieval but Ever-So-Much-More-So
21. The Desperate Measure: Reviving Antiquity
Intermission: Are You Remembering Not to Believe Me?
22. Antiquity Was Not New Either
23. The Umanista’s Rival: Scholasticism
24. Studia Humanitatis—The Words That Sting and Bite
25. Italian Renaissance Becomes European Renaissance
26. The Supremacy of Antiquity
27. Is This About Virtue or Power?
Part III: Let’s Meet Some People from This Golden Age
28. Patrons and Clients All the Way Up
29. Our Friends So Far
30. Alessandra Strozzi: Labors of Exile
31. Manetto Amanatini: There Is a World Elsewhere
32. Francesco Filelfo: Between Republics and Monarchies
33. Montesecco: An Assassin Fears for His Soul
34. Ippolita Maria Visconti Sforza: The Princess and the Peace
35. Josquin des Prez: The International Renaissance
36. Angelo Poliziano: Patronage Repays
37. Savonarola: Saint or Demon?
38. Alessandra Scala: The Girl of Our Dreams
39. Raffaello Maffei il Volterrano: A Scholar Fears for His Soul Too
40. Lucrezia Borgia: Princess of Nowhere
41. Camilla Bartolini Rucellai: Spirit of the Last Republic
42. Michelangelo: The Great and Terrible
Interlude: Let’s Ground Ourselves in Time
43. Julia the Sibyl: A Prophetess in an Age of Science
44. Our Friend Machiavelli
Machiavelli Part 2: The Three Branches of Ethics
Machiavelli Part 3: Enter the Prince
Machiavelli Part 4: Julius II the Warrior Pope
Coda: Many Machiavellis
Part IV: What Was Renaissance Humanism?
45. What Was Behind the Curtain? Garin vs. Kristeller
46. Who Gets to Count as a Renaissance Humanist?
47. Back to Our X-Factors
48. Once Upon a Time at Vergil’s House…
49. Follow the Money!
50. It’s Getting Weird in Florence
51. Scraps of Philosophia
52. Was There Renaissance Secular Humanism?
53. How (Not) to Dodge the Renaissance Inquisition
54. Why We Care Whether Machiavelli Was an Atheist
55. Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 1
56. Virtue Politics
57. Was Machiavelli a Humanist? Part 2
Part V: The Try Everything Age
58. An Exponential Information Revolution
59. We Can’t Just Abelard Harder Anymore
60. The Presumptive Authority of the Past
61. The New Philosophy
62. A Brief History of Progress
63. Progresses
Part VI: Conclusion – Who Has Power in History?
64. Great Forces History vs. Individual Choice History
65. The Papal Election of 2016
66. Which Horseman of the Apocalypse?
67. What Did the Black Death Really Cause?
Sources and Recommended Reading
Notes
Acknowledgments
Image Credits
Index
About the Author