scholarly journals Vulgar Latin as an emergent concept in the Italian Renaissance (1435–1601): its ancient and medieval prehistory and its emergence and development in Renaissance linguistic thought

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-230
Author(s):  
Josef Eskhult
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Questione Della Lingua ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract This article explores the formation of Vulgar Latin as a metalinguistic concept in the Italian Renaissance (1435–1601) considering its continued, although criticized, use as a concept and term in modern Romance and Latin linguistics (1826 until the present). The choice of this topic is justified in view of the divergent previous modern historiography and because of the lack of a coherent historical investigation. The present study is based on a broad selection of primary sources, in particular from classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Firstly, this article traces and clarifies the prehistory of the concept of Vulgar Latin in ancient and medieval linguistic thought. Section 2 demonstrates that the concept of Vulgar Latin as a low social variety does not exist in pre-Renaissance linguistic thought. Secondly, this article describes and analyzes how, why and when the concept of Vulgar Latin emerged and developed in the linguistic thought of the Italian Renaissance. Section 3 surveys the historical intellectual contexts of the debates in which this concept was formed, namely questione della lingua in the Latin and Vernacular Italian Renaissances. Section 4 demonstrates how the ancient concept and term of sermo vulgaris as a diaphasic variety was revived, but also modified, in the Latin Renaissance of the fifteenth century, when the leading humanists developed new ideas on the history, nature and variability of ancient Latin. Section 5 demonstrates how a diglossic concept of Vulgar Latin was formed in the vernacular Italian Renaissance of the sixteenth century, when Italian philologists more carefully approached the topic of the historical origin and emergence of Italian. Thirdly, Section 6 presents a synthesis of the historiographical results that are attained and revises modern historiography on some important points.

The Orsini Sala Theatri at Monte Giordano in Rome

1973 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-172
Author(s):  
Robert L. Mode
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Italian Renaissance

The designing of permanent indoor theatres did not command the attention of Italian Renaissance architects until the sixteenth century was well under way, temporary structures and portable facilities having previously sufficed for dramatic presentations. Yet already in the second quarter of the quattrocento a chamber in one of the most prominent palaces of fifteenth-century Rome was referred to as the sala theatri.

Vernacular Books and Domestic Devotion in Cinquecento Italy

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
Marco Faini
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Low Literacy ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
Large Audience ◽  
Devotional Writings ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
The Ideal

Abstract From the fifteenth century onwards, devotional texts represented a prominent part of the output of the Italian printing press. Much of this production, which often represented a privileged way to access the biblical text, is still largely unexplored. My article will analyse a selection of devotional writings printed at the end of the fifteenth century and in the first three decades of the sixteenth century that were directed to a large audience of laymen and women of medium to low literacy. I will analyse how these texts entered the domestic devotional practices of Italian devotees, focussing especially on reading. I will take into account their suggestions about how, when, and by whom reading should be performed; what readings devotees were encouraged to pursue; how the ideal reader was shaped in the paratextual apparatuses; and, finally, what textual tools the readers were offered to perform their reading practices.

Sefirot as the Essence of God in the Writings of David Messer Leon

AJS Review ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 409-425
Author(s):  
Hava Tirosh-Rothschild
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Jewish Intellectual

The period from the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth century marks a transition in Jewish intellectual history in the Italian Renaissance characterized by the decline of Jewish rationalism and the rise of kabbalah. This process reached its culmination with the printing of Sefer ha-Zohar in 1558–59, an event accompanied by heated controversy on many fronts. During these years we find those thinkers who unambiguously profess their allegiance to one camp or the other, but we also find many whose allegiance is at least superficially ambivalent.

A Renaissance Keyword

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-29
Author(s):  
Ita Mac Carthy
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Renaissance Art ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Questione Della Lingua ◽  
Full Maturity ◽  
Ancient Texts

This chapter discusses ‘grace’ in the context of the Italian Renaissance. During this time, the term became a mark of distinction in the questione della lingua and in the new language of literature. It was reenergised by the recovery of ancient texts that extolled its virtues as an instrument of persuasion in the language and visual arts. And it was the central bone of contention in Reformation and Counter-Reformation discussions about the nature of God's intervention in human salvation. Within each of these contexts, grace became a defining quality that Italians made their own. Grace provides a unique perspective on sixteenth-century Italy, for it rose to prominence in the context of so-called High Renaissance art, yet it also played a pivotal role in its polemical progress towards Mannerism. It was not, therefore, a banner that united artists in their advance towards the full maturity of their discipline, but a locus of encounter and conflict between different ways of conceiving of the visual arts.

Italian Influence on French Gothic Choir Stalls

Reinardus ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Elaine C. Block
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract French gothic choir stalls flourished during the fifteenth century. Hundreds of sets were commissioned for cathedrals, collegiate churches and private chapels of the nobility. The stalls were adorned with carvings on dorsal panels, jouées (end panels), arm-rests and misericords. Motifs included inventive monsters and realistic narratives. The miniature figures wore contemporary clothing and performed ordinary tasks to illustrate tales, proverbs and daily life. In the sixteenth century the Italian Renaissance slowly made its way through France leaving a magnificent mingling of Gothic and Renaissance on the stalls of the château of Gaillon (Eure), commisioned by the influential cardinal Georges d'Amboise. The stalls, but not the château, survived the Revolution and may be seen today at the Basilica St. Denis.

Spenser and the Renaissance Ideal of Christian Heroism

PMLA ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 1013-1032 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael West
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
European Literature ◽  
Orlando Furioso ◽  
Missionary Zeal ◽  
Heroic Action ◽  
Allegorical Interpretation ◽  
Heroic Poem

WITH THE REEMERGENCE of the classics in the Italian Renaissance, particularly Homer, the concept of a Christian hero as distinct from the Christian champion arose to shape an enormous body of European literature. Broadly speaking, we may describe Christian heroism as aspiring to create an ideal figure, reminiscent of both the chivalric knight and the Christian Everyman, who might fit into a heroic poem that should at the same time rival and eclipse the epics of classical antiquity.1 Perhaps the first poem approaching such dimensions was Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, a superlative romance, but with more tenuous claims to either Christian or heroic values. Ovid, not Virgil, remains clearly the main inspiration for Ariosto's playfully pagan sensuosity, and only by strenuous allegorical interpretation can Christianity be construed as a major force in the poem. Significantly, however, such interpretation was by no means lacking in sixteenth-century Italy, where a host of commentators eagerly supplied it. Concurrently in Portugal Camoens could describe Vasco da Gama's daring voyage with a truly missionary zeal and so create a narrative where heroic action genuinely dramatizes the virtues of the Christian faith. But except for one peculiar episode the Lusiadas lacks the dimension of romance. The curious allegory of the Island of Love with which the epic concludes is apparently evidence of Camoens' felt need to define however hastily his military hero's relation to a world of pastoral romance, where hero and lover are inseparable.

Enlightening Symbols

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Mazur
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Number System ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Mathematical Notation ◽  
Rhetorical Style ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mathematical Symbols ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Different Cultures

While all of us regularly use basic mathematical symbols such as those for plus, minus, and equals, few of us know that many of these symbols weren't available before the sixteenth century. What did mathematicians rely on for their work before then? And how did mathematical notations evolve into what we know today? This book explains the fascinating history behind the development of our mathematical notation system. It shows how symbols were used initially, how one symbol replaced another over time, and how written math was conveyed before and after symbols became widely adopted. Traversing mathematical history and the foundations of numerals in different cultures, the book looks at how historians have disagreed over the origins of the number system for the past two centuries. It follows the transfigurations of algebra from a rhetorical style to a symbolic one, demonstrating that most algebra before the sixteenth century was written in prose or in verse employing the written names of numerals. It also investigates the subconscious and psychological effects that mathematical symbols have had on mathematical thought, moods, meaning, communication, and comprehension. It considers how these symbols influence us (through similarity, association, identity, resemblance, and repeated imagery), how they lead to new ideas by subconscious associations, how they make connections between experience and the unknown, and how they contribute to the communication of basic mathematics. From words to abbreviations to symbols, this book shows how math evolved to the familiar forms we use today.

The Grace of the Italian Renaissance

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ita Mac Carthy
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Italian Renaissance ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Vittoria Colonna ◽  
The World ◽  
Changing World

‘Grace’ emerges as a keyword in the culture and society of sixteenth-century Italy. This book explores how it conveys and connects the most pressing ethical, social and aesthetic concerns of an age concerned with the reactivation of ancient ideas in a changing world. The book reassesses artists such as Francesco del Cossa, Raphael, and Michelangelo and explores anew writers like Castiglione, Ariosto, Tullia d'Aragona, and Vittoria Colonna. It shows how these artists and writers put grace at the heart of their work. The book argues that grace came to be as contested as it was prized across a range of Renaissance Italian contexts. It characterised emerging styles in literature and the visual arts, shaped ideas about how best to behave at court and sparked controversy about social harmony and human salvation. For all these reasons, grace abounded in the Italian Renaissance, yet it remained hard to define. The book explores what grace meant to theologians, artists, writers, and philosophers, showing how it influenced their thinking about themselves, each other and the world. It portrays grace not as a stable formula of expression but as a web of interventions in culture and society.

Islamic Monuments as Christian Trophies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonio Urquízar-Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Medieval Chronicles ◽  
Late Fifteenth ◽  
Historical Accounts ◽  
Rodrigo Jimenez De Rada ◽  
The Way

Chapter 3 approaches the notion of trophy through historical accounts of the Christianization of the Córdoba and Seville Islamic temples in the thirteenth-century and the late-fifteenth-century conquest of Granada. The first two examples on Córdoba and Seville are relevant to explore the way in which medieval chronicles (mainly Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and his entourage) turned the narrative of the Christianization of mosques into one of the central topics of the restoration myth. The sixteenth-century narratives about the taking of the Alhambra in Granada explain the continuity of this triumphal reading within the humanist model of chorography and urban eulogy (Lucius Marineus Siculus, Luis de Mármol Carvajal, and Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza).

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document