Renaissance Battle for Rome
Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry
1st Edition
Published on 16. January 2024
256 pages
978-0-19-887891-9 (ISBN)
Description
The Renaissance Battle for Rome examines the rhetorical battle fought simultaneously between a wide variety of parties (individuals, groups, authorities) seeking prestige or legitimacy through the legacy of ancient Rome-a battle over the question of whose claims to this legacy were most legitimate. Distinguishing four domains-power, morality, cityscape and literature-in which ancient Rome represented a particularly powerful example, this book traces the contours of this rhetorical battle across Renaissance Europe, based on a broad selection of Humanist Latin Poetry. It shows how humanist poets negotiated different claims on behalf of others and themselves in their work, acting both as "e,spin doctors"e, and "e,new Romans"e,, while also undermining competing claims to this same idealized past. By so doing this book not only offers a new understanding of several aspects of the Renaissance that are usually considered separately, but ultimately allows us to understand Renaissance culture as a constant negotiation between appropriating and contesting the idea and ideal of "e,Rome."e,
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Susanna de Beer
The Renaissance Battle for Rome
Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry
Book
01/2024
Oxford University Press
€106.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Content
- Cover
- The Renaissance Battle for Rome: Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry
- Copyright
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Conventions
- Introduction: Forging Privileged Links to an Idealized Past
- 0.1 A Rhetorical Battle between Insiders and Outsiders
- 0.2 Images of Rome as Weapons in Four Domains
- 0.3 The Latin Literary Tradition, the Humanists, and Their Patrons
- 0.4 Examining Cultural and Intellectual History through the Lens of Humanist Latin Poetry
- 1: A New Golden Age: Rome Reclaims her Ancient Past
- 1.1 The Name Rome
- 1.2 Petrarch's Rhetoric of Return and Renewal
- 1.3 Papal Rome Reborn
- 1.4 Literary Rome and the Cultural Hegemony of Italy
- 1.5 Conclusion
- 2: Competing Appropriations of Rome's Empire without End
- 2.1 Divine Origins for an Eternal Empire
- 2.2 Genealogical Claims to Rome's Imperial Legacy
- 2.3 Grounding the Imperium in the Physical Location of Rome
- 2.4 Augustus and the Return of the Golden Age
- 2.5 Conclusion
- 3: Weaponized Images of Roman Virtue and Vice
- 3.1 Rome's Circular Discourse of Moral Reform
- 3.2 Portrayals of Virtue Having Left Rome
- 3.3 The Thin Line between Virtue and Vice: Rome's Military Ambition
- 3.4 Renaissance Rome as "Selling God"
- 3.5 A Stereotype of Sexual License
- 3.6 Conclusion
- 4: The Symbolic Resonances of Rome's Cityscape
- 4.1 Competing Narratives of Decay and Restoration
- 4.2 Ambivalent Responses to the Ancient Remains
- 4.3 The Humanists as Guides to Rome's Literary Landscape
- 4.4 Roman Ruins as Symbol of Universal Truths
- 4.5 Conclusion
- 5: The Humanist Poets as "New Romans"
- 5.1 Literary and Cultural Competition in Renaissance Europe
- 5.2 Poets Reviving or Plundering the Latin Legacy of Rome
- 5.3 Humanist Efforts to Reconstruct Rome in Writing
- 5.4 The Durability of Poetic Monuments
- 5.5 Conclusion
- Epilogue
- Appendix of Humanist Authors
- Bibliography
- Index of Authors and Works
- Index of Keywords and General Index
