Connecting the Renaissance
Italy and East Central Europe (1300-1600)
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 28. September 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-041-07435-9 (ISBN)
Description
Why did Italian culture come to occupy such privileged status and interest among the societies of East-Central Europe during the period 1300-1600? In 1300 East-Central Europe regarded Italy not necessarily as an undisputed center of cultural emulation but drew from a much wider range of models centered in France, Germany, and even Kievan Rus'. Two centuries later the same region was saturated with Italianate forms - architecture, humanism, diplomacy, commerce, and print - that rivalled the most sophisticated centers of the High Renaissance.
This volume argues that the transformation was neither passive reception nor mere "Italianism." Rather, East-Central-European societies deliberately appropriated, hybridized, and reinterpreted Italian practices and values specifically to achieve their own political, economic, and intellectual aims and meet an array of regional challenges.
Ranging in focus from fourteenth-century Italian mining practices to digital Latin corpus analysis, diplomatic history, and early print studies, together the chapters in this volume present nine case studies which draw on a number of methodologies, new sources, and fresh archival research that all advance an understanding of this important and complex phenomenon. This book is a vital reading for scholars of cultural transfer, early modern studies, and East-Central European history more broadly.
This volume argues that the transformation was neither passive reception nor mere "Italianism." Rather, East-Central-European societies deliberately appropriated, hybridized, and reinterpreted Italian practices and values specifically to achieve their own political, economic, and intellectual aims and meet an array of regional challenges.
Ranging in focus from fourteenth-century Italian mining practices to digital Latin corpus analysis, diplomatic history, and early print studies, together the chapters in this volume present nine case studies which draw on a number of methodologies, new sources, and fresh archival research that all advance an understanding of this important and complex phenomenon. This book is a vital reading for scholars of cultural transfer, early modern studies, and East-Central European history more broadly.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Academic and Postgraduate
Illustrations
1 s/w Tabelle
1 Tables, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-041-07435-9 (9781041074359)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Leslie Carr-Riegel studied at Kalamazoo College, USA before transferring to complete her BA degree at the American University in Rome. She took her first MA from the University of Durham before completing her second MA and PhD at the Central European University. She has worked as a Teaching Fellow with the Princeton University Global History Lab and most recently was a fellow at the Kaete Hamburger Kolleg "Legal Unity and Pluralism".
Anna Horeczy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Modern Studies at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her research interests focus on the reception of Italian intellectual culture in late medieval and Early Modern Poland, and book and manuscript studies.
Michael T. LoPiano received his PhD in History and Renaissance Studies from Yale University in 2022 and his BA in History and Italian from the Johns Hopkins University in 2015. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus where his research focuses on the reception of the Tablet of Cebes (?????) in Latin Europe during the period 1500-1850.
Adam Zapala is the Head of the Digital History Lab at the Department of Historical Atlas of the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland. His research interests focus on contacts between Poles and the Holy See in the second half of the fifteenth century, as well as on the impact of digital tools on historical research.
Anna Horeczy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Early Modern Studies at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her research interests focus on the reception of Italian intellectual culture in late medieval and Early Modern Poland, and book and manuscript studies.
Michael T. LoPiano received his PhD in History and Renaissance Studies from Yale University in 2022 and his BA in History and Italian from the Johns Hopkins University in 2015. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus where his research focuses on the reception of the Tablet of Cebes (?????) in Latin Europe during the period 1500-1850.
Adam Zapala is the Head of the Digital History Lab at the Department of Historical Atlas of the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences in Poland. His research interests focus on contacts between Poles and the Holy See in the second half of the fifteenth century, as well as on the impact of digital tools on historical research.
Content
List of Contributors
Introduction
Michael LoPiano
Chapter 1
Little Genoa - The First Italian Community in Poland
Leslie Carr-Riegel
Chapter 2
From Padua to Krakow: Niccolo Bonavia's De laudibus sancti Hieronymi and Its Manuscript Afterlife
Anja Bozic
Chapter 3
A Polish Bishop on the Italian Chessboard: Renaissance Diplomatic Patterns in Zbigniew Olesnicki's Struggle for Cardinalate Confirmation
Adam Zapala
Chapter 4
John of Capestrano and his Spiritual Networks: the Case of Bohemia
Antonin Kalous and Petra Mutlova
Chapter 5
The Humanist Library of Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480). An Attempt at Reconstruction
Zdzislaw Koczarski
Chapter 6
Connecting the Italian Humanist Literary Circle to Poland: The Case of Callimachus, Conrad Celtis, and the Origins of the Sodalitas Litteraria Vistulana
Michael LoPiano
Chapter 7
Aldine Prints in Krakow at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century as Vehicles of Cultural Transfer
Anna Horeczy
Chapter 8
From Queen to Deceived Bride - Beatrice of Aragon's Struggle to Become the Wife of Vladislaus II Jagiellon
Hajnalka Kuffart
Chapter 9
Ippolito I d'Este's Episcopal Court in Eger (1498-1520)
Ilona Kristof
Index
Introduction
Michael LoPiano
Chapter 1
Little Genoa - The First Italian Community in Poland
Leslie Carr-Riegel
Chapter 2
From Padua to Krakow: Niccolo Bonavia's De laudibus sancti Hieronymi and Its Manuscript Afterlife
Anja Bozic
Chapter 3
A Polish Bishop on the Italian Chessboard: Renaissance Diplomatic Patterns in Zbigniew Olesnicki's Struggle for Cardinalate Confirmation
Adam Zapala
Chapter 4
John of Capestrano and his Spiritual Networks: the Case of Bohemia
Antonin Kalous and Petra Mutlova
Chapter 5
The Humanist Library of Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480). An Attempt at Reconstruction
Zdzislaw Koczarski
Chapter 6
Connecting the Italian Humanist Literary Circle to Poland: The Case of Callimachus, Conrad Celtis, and the Origins of the Sodalitas Litteraria Vistulana
Michael LoPiano
Chapter 7
Aldine Prints in Krakow at the Turn of the Sixteenth Century as Vehicles of Cultural Transfer
Anna Horeczy
Chapter 8
From Queen to Deceived Bride - Beatrice of Aragon's Struggle to Become the Wife of Vladislaus II Jagiellon
Hajnalka Kuffart
Chapter 9
Ippolito I d'Este's Episcopal Court in Eger (1498-1520)
Ilona Kristof
Index