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The article reports on kissing in Renaissance Latin poetry. It is said that experts have considered the existence of a Renaissance poetry of kissing, that is, a poetics of kissing. It highlights the tensions operating within that oscular poetics. A volume of French vernacular paraphrases appeared related to kissing.

In the original redaction of his first literary work, the Latin comedy Philodoxeos (1424), Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) named himself ‘Lepidus’ and the work circulated for a while as if it were the work of an ancient Roman comedian with this name. Later the author renamed himself, adding the first name ‘Leo’ (in Latin) or ‘Leon’ (in the vernacular) in front of Battista, and using it in the second version of his comedy (1434–37). Around 1440 he decided not to give his name as the author of two works: his unfinished Latin autobiography, the Vita (c. 1438–41) and the anonymous vernacular Protesta (c. 1441). Much of Alberti’s authorship between the 1420s and 1440s thus revolved round pseudonyms, added names, and anonymity. The article suggests that such preoccupations were bound up with the two traumas of Alberti’s birth: he was born illegitimate and into a family in exile from Florence. This concern with nomenclature and individuality is also linked to the fact that Alberti was the first early mod...

This book presents the first English translation of an important Renaissance Latin text: Angelo Poliziano’s Lamia, an opening oration to a 1492 course at the University of Florence that amounts to a rethinking of the mission and nature of philosophy. An edition of the Latin text is also offered, as are four contextualizing studies.

1. The Theology of Lorenzo Valla John Monfasani 2. Renaissance Latin translations of the Greek Commentaries on Aristotle Charles H. Lohr 3. From Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples to Giulio Landi: Uses of the Dialogue in Renaisssance Aristotelianism Luca Bianchi 4. The Adoption and Rejection of Aristotelian Moral Philosophy in Reformed 'Casuistry' M.W.F. Stone 5. The Relationship of Stoicism and Scepticism: Justus Lipsius A.H.T. Levi 6. 'Ethnicorum omnium sanctissimus': Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations from Xylander to Diderot Jill Kraye 7. The Myth of Francis Bacon's 'Anti-Humanism' Brian Vickers 8. 'Delicate learning', Erudition and Enterprise of Philosophy J.R. Milton 9. Grandeur and the Mechanical Philosophy Susan James 10. Renaissance Humanism, Lingering Aristotleianism and the New Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi on Final Causes Margaret J. Osler 11. Galileo, Ficino and Renaissance Platonism James Hankins 12. Humanist Platonism in Seventeenth-Century Germany Christia Mercer

These pages continue the inventory of Renaissance Latin Aristotle Commentaries published in Studies in the Renaissance, XXI (1974), 228-289; Renaissance Quarterly, XXVIII (1975), 689-741; XXIX (1976), 714-745; XXX (1977), 681-741; XXXI (1978), 532–603. The commentaries have been arranged alphabetically according to the author's family name, with a brief biobibliographical note and indication of the manuscripts and printed editions.

The Renaissance humanists’ quest for the perfect Latin style formed the central element in their views of literature and history and contributed fundamentally to the genesis of their cultural values. In order to establish the ideal Latin, the humanists searched the treasures of Antiquity and formed the critical standards necessary to judge and use ancient writers. As a consequence Renaissance Latin prose was dynamic, although within definite limits. It changed according to the increased knowledge and sophistication of both its practitioners and their audience. This essay will describe the changes that Latin prose (Latin poetry will be discussed only in passing) experienced in Italy in the last decades of the Quattrocento and first years of the Cinquecento. It will review the major schools of Latin prose composition—the eclectic, the strict imitative, and the “archaizing“— and concentrate on the last of these in an attempt to explain why some Italian humanists followed certain ancient but uncommon Latin models in their writing and, thereby, rejected, at least implicitly, a number of basic elements in the view of the Latin language and its history that was accepted during the Quattrocento.

These pages conclude the inventory of Renaissance Latin Aristotle Commentaries published in Studies in the Renaissance, XXI (1974), 228-289; Renaissance Quarterly, XXVIII (1975), 689-741; XXIX (1976), 714-745; XXX (1977), 681-741; XXXI (1978), 532-603; XXXII (1979), 529-580; XXXIII (1980), 623-734. The commentaries have been arranged alphabetically according to the author's family name, with a brief biobibliographical note and indication of the manuscripts and printed editions.On the completion of this inventory I should like to express my gratitude for the tireless cooperation of Gerlinde Danzeisen and Marlen Wronka.

The study of Latin manuscripts has been of vital importance not only to the student of classical and patristic literature but also to every serious scholar interested in the literature, theology, philosophy and science of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance. In this field, the manuscripts contain not merely new variants of well-known texts but an often unsuspected amount of new textual material that never got into print but often had as wide a circulation and importance as some of the printed works. This material is by no means easily accessible. If a collection of manuscripts has no printed catalogue, there is no way of investigating its content except by working on the spot. On the other hand, printed catalogues, when available, permit the location of pertinent material from a distance, and hence are a definite scholarly aid and desideratum. Since even the printed catalogues are often inadequate and sometimes rare, it has seemed useful to compile an annotated bibliography of these catalogues, which would serve as a guide to medievalists and Renaissance scholars in general, and in particular to the contributors to the project of ‘Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries,’ which has been undertaken by a group of scholars under the auspices of several learned societies. The present bibliography was originally compiled for the purposes of that project, and it has been decided to print it, since previous bibliographies of a similar nature were either conceived along narrower lines, like Weinberger's, or were inaccurate, like Richardson's.

Aristotelianism occupies a unique position in the intellectual history of the Latin West. From Boethius to Galileo—from the end of classical civilization to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and in some circles even beyond—die works of the philosopher had a decisive influence, not only on the development of theology, philosophy, and natural sciences, but also on university structure and the system of education. The history of Aristotle's influence in the Middle Ages, especially the history of its thirteenth- century beginnings, is quite well known. But renaissance scholars have generally concentrated on the revolt against the Scholastic Aristode, the revival of other ancient philosophies, and the birth of the new science, only recently turning their attention to the history of Aristotelianism and university philosophy.

QUID petitur sacris nisi tantum fama poetis?" inquired Boissard as a representative sixteenth-century man of letters.' That he cribbed the wording of his question from Ovid merely makes him a more typically Renaissance author. Like other literary theorists of the period, the emblematists-those essayists in prose and verse who reached such a vast public in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries-subscribed to the contention that the great poet achieves renown and immortality through his works. The emblematists frequently chose engravings or woodcuts containing symbols of glory, affixed brief titles or "posies" to these cuts, and then subjoined thereto essays or poems developing the theme of literary glory suggested by the plate. The accompanying reproduction from Peacham's Minerva Britanna (note 23) will acquaint the reader with a typical page from an emblem-book. Of all the literary notions encountered in emblem-books, this belief that the Muse saves poets from ignominy and death is the most frequent. It is the basic idea underlying the classic cult of poetic glory, the one cult shared by classic and Romanticist alike. It is interesting to see reappearing in every language of Western Europe the gratifying thought that authors win eternal life and kudos through their compositions. It strikes a most familiar note when we encounter it phrased in Renaissance Latin, for we remember reading it over and over in classic Latin texts. Four principal facets of this Pindaric or Horatian ideal will be pointed out in the subjoined paragraphs. Granting occasional overlapping, these four may be summarized as follows

Since Professor Marti has been in Europe for the past year and expects to stay there for another year, Professor Bradner has agreed to join the Executive Committee, first as an acting member and later as a regular member. This Committee has held three meetings since October 1954.The place of Miss Sanford as a member of the Editorial Board and as Section Editor for Latin Commentaries of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries has been filled by Professor Revilo P. Oliver of the University of Illinois.

Since Professor Marti has been in Europe for the past year and expects to stay there for another year, Professor Bradner has agreed to join the Executive Committee, first as an acting member and later as a regular member. This Committee has held three meetings since October 1954. The place of Miss Sanford as a member of the Editorial Board and as Section Editor for Latin Commentaries of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries has been filled by Professor Revilo P. Oliver of the University of Illinois.