It may be useful to start this book by making clear what it is not. The term ‘Renaissance’ is used in academic and everyday discourse in two senses. First, it is used to denote a cultural movement or tradition, centring on the recuperation of classical literature, art, and thought. Second, it is sometimes used to denote an ‘age’, or a chronological period (in the case of Italy, generally from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century; in northern Europe, generally later). This book takes ‘Renaissance’ in the first sense of the term. No attempt is made here to summarize the social, economic, religious, or political history of Italy from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century in a systematic way, although mention is made of salient developments that impacted on cultural production. The chapters of this book are not organized in a chronologically narrated sequence, nor a geographical one, covering developments in the various Italian states. Instead, they take the freer form of thematic essays on key aspects of Renaissance culture, in a way that enables a deeper exploration than a book that aims at ‘coverage’ can afford.Footnote ¹

Although this book takes as its remit to narrate and analyse a cultural movement rooted in engagement with classical antiquity, it is not a history of Renaissance ‘humanism’ in the narrow sense in which that term is often used. The Italian Renaissance: A Cultural History does not merely survey the activities of those men and (very few) women who engaged with Latin and Greek literature, history, and thought, reading classical works in their original languages. It also gives space to material culture, including art inspired by antiquity in respect of its subject matter or form; and, where textual culture is concerned, it encompasses the vernacular reception of classical ideas and literary works. Nor does this book limit itself to describing the contributions of great scholars and thinkers and artists who forged the headline culture of this period. Instead, it looks beyond the headlines, to the mass of men and women who participated in the cultural movement of the Renaissance in a quieter, secondary way. Petrarch, Boccaccio, Alberti, Castiglione, and Machiavelli have a place here, as do Masaccio, Leonardo, Raphael, and Titian, but there is also space for mapmakers, mining engineers, lace designers, anatomists, tailors, chefs, courtesans, and celebrity meat carvers, along with a street poet who claims he made his first acquaintance with Ovid through a greasy page used to wrap food. The later phases of the cultural movement of the Renaissance coincided with a revolution in information technology, as printing and visual reproduction techniques such as woodcuts and engraving disseminated high culture as never before. Renaissance humanism touched a far wider segment of the population than earlier intellectual movements such as medieval scholasticism had done; yet its story is often told in a manner that stops at the study door.

A few technical points, in conclusion. This book is intended to be both accessible to general readers and of interest to specialists in the field of Renaissance studies. To enhance its utility for more specialized readers, I have cited the original Latin or vernacular text for most quotations from primary sources, especially in those sections that incorporate unpublished primary research. Where secondary literature is concerned, to enhance accessibility, I have given preference to works in English where possible. I have kept secondary references relatively sparing, to keep the word count within reasonable limits. In practice, I use citations mainly for less well-known topics or for novel or controversial arguments while simply stating facts and judgments on which there exists a broad and widely available scholarly consensus. Within the text, I have cited titles of Renaissance works at first mention in their original Latin or Italian, along with a translation, and in English thereafter. I give the most generally used title for ease of reference (so, Machiavelli’s Il principe / The Prince rather than De principatibus / On Principalities). All translations in the body of the text are mine, unless otherwise stated in the notes.