For more than a century, scholars have believed that Italian humanism was predominantly civic in outlook. Often serving in communal government, fourteenthcentury humanists like Albertino Mussato and Coluccio Saltuati are said to have derived from their reading of the Latin classics a rhetoric of republican liberty that was opposed to the tyranny of neighbouring signori and of the German emperors.In this groundbreaking study, Alexander Lee challenges this longheld belief. From the death of Frederick II in 1250 to the failure of Rupert of the Palatinates illfated expedition in 1402, Lee argues, the humanists nurtured a consistent and powerful affection for the Holy Roman Empire. Though this was articulated in a variety of different ways, it was nevertheless driven more by political conviction than by cultural concerns. Surrounded by endless conflict both within and between citystates the humanists eagerly embraced the Empire as the surest guarantee of peace and liberty, and lost no opportunity to invoke its protection. Indeed, as Lee shows, the most ardent appeals to imperial authority were made not by signorial humanists, but by humanists in the service of communal regimes.The first comprehensive, synoptic study of humanistic ideas of Empire in the period c.12501402, this volume offers a radically new interpretation of fourteenthcentury political thought, and raises wideranging questions about the foundations of modern constitutional ideas. As such, it is essential...

Binding: Hardcover;462 pages; Publisher: Oxford University Press; Classification: HBJD; Weight: 972 g; Dimensions: 205 x 314 x 35

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