Harvard UP, 2016
The world of wealth and patronage that we associate with sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italy can make the Renaissance seem the exclusive domain of artists and aristocrats. Revealing a Renaissance beyond Michelangelo and the Medici, Sarah Gwyneth Ross recovers the experiences of everyday men and women who were inspired to pursue literature and learning.
Ross draws on a trove of original unpublished sources—wills, diaries, household inventories, account books, and other miscellany—to reconstruct the lives of over one hundred artisans, merchants, and others on the middle rung of Venetian society who embraced the ennobling virtues of a humanistic education. These men and women sought out the latest knowledge, amassed personal libraries, and passed both their books and their hard-earned wisdom on to their families and heirs.
Physicians were often the most avid—and the most anxious—of professionals seeking cultural legitimacy. Ross examines the lives of three doctors: Nicolò Massa (1485–1569), Francesco Longo (1506–1576), and Alberto Rini (d. 1599). Though they had received university training, these self-made men of letters were not patricians but members of a social group that still yearned for credibility. Unlike priests or lawyers, physicians had not yet rid themselves of the taint of artisanal labor, and they were thus indicative of a middle class that sought to earn the respect of their peers and betters, protect and advance their families, and secure honorable remembrance after death.
For more about this author, read Sarah Gwyneth Ross' Wordpress site.
Sarah Gwyneth Ross
Associate Professor and Director of the History Core
The Art of Anatheism
Edited by Richard Kearney
& Matthew Clemente
Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society
Edited by Rowena Fong
& James Lubben
& Richard Barth
The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation
by Gerald C. Kane
& Anh Nguyen Phillips, Jonathan R. Copulsky, & Garth R. Andrus
Lebanon's Jewish Community: Fragments of Lives Arrested
by Franck Salameh
Jesuit Philosophy on the Eve of Modernity
by Cristiano Casalini
Televising Restoration Spain
by Wan Sonya Tang
Various Articles
by Joseph F. Quinn, Ph.D
A Lily Blooms in Winter
by Alston Conley
Navigating Toward Adulthood: A Theology of Ministry with Adolescents
by Theresa O'Keefe
The History and Philosophy of Science: A Reader
by Daniel McKaughan
& Holly VandeWall
Motherhood across Borders: Immigrants and Their Children in Mexico and New York
by Dr. Gabrielle Oliveira
Redefining Retirement For Nurses; Finding Meaning In Retirement
by Patricia A. Tabloski
& Joanne Evans
Holy Spirit: Setting the World on Fire
Co-Edited by Richard Lennan
& Nancy Pineda-Madrid
Learn to Program using Swift for iOS Development
by John Gallaugher
Technology and Engagement: Making Technology Work for First-Generation College Students
by Heather T. Rowan-Kenyon
& Ana M. Martínez Alemán
& Mandy Savitz-Romer, PhD
Coercion: The Power to Hurt in International Politics
by Peter Krause
& Timothy Crawford
Why You Eat What You Eat
by Rachel Herz
Antique Coptic Textiles in McMullen Museum
by Nancy Netzer
Listening to Early Modern Catholicism: Perspectives from Musicology
Edited by Michael Noone
& Daniele V. Filippi
Nazi Law: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg
Edited by John J. Michalczyk
Academic–Practitioner Relationships: Developments, Complexities and Opportunities
by Jean M. Bartunek
& Jane McKenzie
Rebel Power: Why National Movements Compete, Fight, and Win
by Peter Krause
Father Blake on his life long involvement with Film Studies and his twenty-two years at Boston College
by Richard Blake S.J. Ph.D.
Written for Our Instruction: Theological and Spiritual Riches in Romans
by Thomas D. Stegman, S.J.
English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History
by Eric Weiskott
From Neither Here Not There
by Sammy Chong, S.J.
21st Century Corporate Citizenship: a Practical Guide to Delivering Value to Society and Your Business
by Katherine Valvoda Smith and Dave Stangis
