Renaissance Thought And Its Sources

Representing an extraordinary lifetime of scholarship, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources offers a systematic account of major themes in Renaissance philosophy, science, and literature. Here, in some of Paul Oskar Kristeller's most comprehensive and ambitious writings, is an exploration of the distinctive trends and concepts of the Renaissance, grounded in detailed historical investigation.

This is a fascinating collection of essays focusing on humanism and thought and other key aspects of Renaissance culture such as philology, political thought and scholastic and platonic philosophy. An essential read for all students of this era.

Written by an eminent authority on the Renaissance, these classic essays deal not only with Paul Kristeller's specialty, Renaissance humanism and philosophy, but also with Renaissance theories of art. The focus of the collection is on topics such as humanist learning, humanist moral thought, the diffusion of humanism, Platonism, music and learning during the early Renaissance, and the modern system of arts in relation to the Renaissance. For this volume the author has written a new preface, a new essay, and an afterword.

This third collection of Charles Schmitt's articles complements the previous two and consists largely of studies published in the last few years of his life. It therefore contains his mature reflections on central issues in the fields of Renaissance philosophy and science, as well as important new research findings. The main subjects are Aristotelianism and Scepticism, and the history of medicine and natural philosophy. Some articles assess the place of traditional elements in the work of major scientific innovators, such as Galileo or Harvey, others make available new sources of documentation and show the significance of writings others had not deigned to look at. Charles Schmitt's insistence that Renaissance thought should be reconstructed in terms faithful to the value systems of the period also led to an increasing interest in the socio-economic context of philosophical speculation, reflected here in the studies on the University of Pisa in the 16th century.

Professor Kristeller's Renaissance Thought is one of the most valuable books in a valuable series, and readers of his later scattered studies will be glad to have them collected in Renaissance Thought II, a volume that enlarges his already wide domain. He is a prime authority on Renaissance humanism and philosophy and, while he is conversant with all the scholarship, his discriminating and illuminating surveys and inquiries are founded on an extraordinarily comprehensive and minute command of the original materials. - Back cover.