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‘Those folk are all men [and women] of my kidney who delight in miracles and fictitious marvels, whether hearing or telling about them’, exclaimed Erasmus’s Folly. As for saints, Each one of these is assigned his [or her] special powers … so that one gives relief from toothache, another stands by women in childbirth.… There are some whose influence extends to several things, notably the Virgin, mother of God, for the common ignorant man comes near to attributing more to her than to her son.Reformers saw such cults as detracting from the centrality of Christ in Christian devotion. One of the reforming factors of anticlericalism in the early sixteenth century was the search for a more direct route to salvation, a more direct line to God than through the mediating authority of the perhaps all too earth-bound priest. Increasingly often in pre-Reformation Europe the mediating influence of Mary or of a favourite saint was felt to be more effective than that of the priest. Both lay and religious found Mary, the mother of God, more accessible than a judgemental Christ. Despite the teaching of the Church, Mary did appear to come between Christ and his people, as often illustrated by the iconography of the Madonna of Mercy upon whose mantle the arrows rained down by Christ or God the Father were broken.

Sabellico is known as the historian of Renaissance Venice, but there is much more to be understood about this ambitious humanist and his success in establishing a secure career for himself in his adopted city. This paper explores the ways in which Sabellico in the closing years of the Quattrocento took advantage of the established studia humanitatis to master a variety of its genres and disciplines. Sabellico was also a master of publicity through the new medium of the printing press, and the reader can be guided through his published works and work in progress in two important letters written in 1493 and intended for publication. The paper considers first the relation between his works and his appointments and civic duties in public employment in Udine and Vicenza, on to his twenty years in government service in Venice. Secondly it surveys the various genres that he explored, and shows how his works complied with contemporary expectations from the studia humanitatis. At the same time, the discussion reveals his own understanding of this cultural and intellectual programme. (pp. 27–38)

The dual meaning of humanitas, as the study of the humanities and of the emotional humanity of the fifteenth-century humanist, were concepts dear to Marcantonio Sabellico (14367–1506).1 This chapter discusses the relationships within Sabellico’s extended Venetian household, with his extended family in his hometown of Vicovaro in Lazio, as well as within the households that hosted his son during the boy’s education in Ferrara and Padua. The household was comprised of the family and all those contributing to or benefiting from the unit of the household, which in this case extended to amanuenses, tutors, foster-carers, students and, somewhat silently, servants. It was from its start in Venice a one-parent household, as the shadowy figure of the mother had disappeared before Marcantonio and his son Mario moved there. The father, in any case, was accustomed to take over a son’s upbringing when the boy reached the age of seven so the discussion that follows emphasises the model of the male-oriented household. It was the household of a scholar who himself taught both publicly and privately, and took in residential students in his own household. Marcantonio Sabellico managed the household according to his own priorities, with education as a focal point within the domestic setting. His authority extended to the households where he sent his son to board; these, like his own, were geared towards the education of adolescents.