Subject and Object in Renaissance Culture.

Ranging from the origins of humanist learning in mid-fourteenth-century Italy to its impact on seventeenth-century English poetry, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism embraces an impressive diversity of literary materials and critical debates. It is, therefore, very much to the credit of both its editor and contributors that a clear sense of historical progression and argumentative cogency is maintained throughout this volume's fourteen essays. Also, as a collection they succeed admirably in conveying the sheer vitality and sense of intellectual exuberance inherent in the various strands of Western European humanism. The inclusion of a biographical index, supplying dates and a brief description of all individuals referred to in the essays, will prove especially helpful to students and nonspecialist readers. By systematically working through the page references supplied in the index, users of this companion volume (on one level, clearly intended as a library work of academic reference) will be able to construct their own critical pathways through the wealth of available material. For example, the career of Petrarch, widely regarded as the founding-father of humanism, is considered from a variety of illuminating perspectives: (to select only a few) his restoration of the text of Livy's History of …