The Italian Renaissance

A discussion of recent studies of the Italian Renaissance needs to begin by questioning the assumption that there really was such a movement. Historians are somewhat more reluctant than they used to be to assert confidently that Italian culture of the period (say) 1350-1600 (no one can agree on the dates, which is one of the problems), was different in kind from what went before it, and that there was a sharp break in tradition. Two recent books which cut usefully across the conventional divide between 'Middle Ages' and 'Renaissance' are John Larner's vivid and perceptive Italy in the Age of Dante and Petrarch (Longman, 1980), and the vigorous, crude study by Lauro Martines, Power and Imagination (1979; Penguin, 1983). Another helpful introduction is Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background (second ed., Cambridge University Press, 1977).