Renaissance Naples

Naples was a major center of the Italian Renaissance and capital of the most important state in the Italian balance of power. Under the late Angevins, the Aragonese, and then the Spanish the city grew ever more important as a focus of political and military power, as an exemplar of early modern urbanism, and as a driver of intellectual and cultural life rivaling Florence, Rome, and Venice. It both attracted and nurtured generations of writers, theorists, painters, sculptors, architects and urban planners, whose legacy still graces this city and makes it a major modern attraction.

Charlotte Nichols and James H. Mc Gregor offer the first comprehensive English-language collection of sources to treat the city of Naples from the end of the medieval to the early modern period. This book presents 169 readings in English translation drawn from historical, biographical, financial, literary, artistic, religious and cultural documents starting with the later Angevin dynasty and ending at the 17th century.

The Introduction provides an up-to-date survey of the period covered with discussions of the historiography and interpretive issues around each major topic, including the humanists, urbanism, architecture, the visual arts, and literary life.

This volume presents new English translations of several works. Among these are Giovanni Pontano’s The Prince, On Magnificence, and selections from On Splendor; Pietro Summonte’s letter to Marcantonio Michiel surveying the condition of the arts and culture in Renaissance Naples; and Loise de Rosa’s Praise of Naples. 

This book also offers extensive selections from a wide variety of authors ranging from Valla, Facio, Panormita, Sannazaro, and Masuccio Salernitano to Notar Giacomo, Ferraiolo, Tansillo, Tasso, Vasari, and important women writers like Vittoria Colonna, Isabella de Morra, and Laura Bacio Terracina.

558 pages, 169 readings, preface, introduction, notes and bibliography, appendices, including the Tavola Strozzi with key, Map of Renaissance Naples with thumbnail key, index.

86 black-and-white figures, plus 48 thumbnail views. Links to online resources from A Documentary History of Naples, including image galleries with 417 additional images in full color.

History, art history, literary history, cultural history, urban studies.