Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Italy – Intellectual life – 16th century'
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Stone, Villani Nicolas. "The dissolution of constitutions : Aristotle in Italian political thought from Niccolò Machiavelli to Giovanni Botero." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:600663d5-b566-46c0-8a7a-418fca1d635b.
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This thesis studies the reception of Aristotle's political thought in sixteenth-century Italy. It focuses on Aristotle's discussion of the dissolution of constitutions in Book 5 of the Politics and aims to show how Aristotle's political thought remained central to late Renaissance political discourse. No comprehensive study of the topic exists. Modern historiography on Renaissance political thought generally downplays the importance of Aristotle in the history of sixteenth-century Italian political thought and emphasises the Roman tradition over the Greek. This research aims to fill the gap in modern scholarship and revise modern interpretation of Renaissance political theory. This thesis is essentially divided into three parts, each part containing two chapters. Part I is largely introductory. Chapter 1 offers a historiographical review of modern scholarship on the reception of Aristotle in the Renaissance and early-modern political thought. Chapter 2 explores the revival of Greek studies in the fifteenth century and the changing perception of Aristotle's Politics in the Renaissance. Part II focuses on Aristotle and Machiavelli. Chapter 3 examines the similarities between Aristotle's analysis of the means of preserving tyranny and Machiavelli's discussion of how to mantenere lo stato in The Prince. Chapter 4 explores the effects that these similarities between Aristotle and Machiavelli had on the reception of Aristotle in Renaissance political thought. Part III centres on Aristotle in the republican and vernacular traditions. Chapter 5 explains the importance of Aristotle's discussion of the dissolution of constitutions to Renaissance republican political thought. Chapter 6 underlines the continuous relevance of Aristotle's Politics in the second half of the sixteenth century. The conclusion sums up the central argument of each chapter and invites us to explore the influence of Aristotle on reason of state literature.
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Maglaque, Erin. "Venetian humanism in the Mediterranean world : writing empire from the margins." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4d671b0d-6917-4a1f-bcfb-2045128a11e0.
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My dissertation examines the cultural history of the Renaissance Venetian maritime empire. In this project I bring into conversation two historiographical subfields, the intellectual history of Venetian Renaissance humanism and the colonial history of the early modern Mediterranean, which have previously developed separately. In doing so, I examine the relationship between power and knowledge as it unfolded in the early modern Mediterranean. The ways in which Venetian Renaissance intellectual culture was shaped by its imperial engagements - and, conversely, how Venetian approaches to governance were inflected by humanist practices - are the central axes of my dissertation. In the first part of the dissertation, I examine the ways in which writing and textual collecting were used by elite Venetian readers to represent the geopolitical dimensions of their empire. I consider a group of manuscripts and printed books which contain technical, navigational, and cartographic writing and images about Venetian mercantile and imperial activity in the Mediterranean. In the second part, I undertake two case-studies of Venetian patrician governors who were trained in the humanist schools of Venice, before being posted to colonial offices in Dalmatia and the Aegean, respectively. I examine how their education in Venice as humanists influenced their experience and practice of governance in the stato da mar. Their personal texts offer an alternative intellectual history of empire, one which demonstrates the formation of political thought amongst the men actually practicing and experiencing imperial governance. Overall, I aim to build a picture of the ways in which literary culture, the physical world of the stato da mar, and political thought came to be entwined in the Venetian Renaissance; and then to describe how these dense relationships worked for the Venetian administrators who experienced them in the Mediterranean.
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Lavenda, Daniel. "Disenchanted engagement : the philosophy and political praxis of Massimo Cacciari." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b322a1d4-2ec9-4d24-a847-4388832f5ba9.
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Several commentators have argued that the focus within political theory in recent decades on abstraction rather than 'reality' has left it with has nothing to say to political actors. On these grounds, some have even expressed concern regarding the discipline's future. As a reply to these concerns, I introduce in this thesis the scholarship and political career of the Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari. Cacciari shares many goals with Anglophone political theorists, but neither his scholarship nor his practice have engaged in the kind of intellectual abstraction which they now find so troubling. Drawing from Cacciari's philosophy, political career, and interventions as a public intellectual, I show how his understanding of real-world conflicts and contradictions begins with a commitment to what I call his 'geophilosophy of the archipelago', which regards the foundations of human knowledge to be irreducibly plural. A commitment to irreducibly plural foundations means that philosophers and political actors must discard what Cacciari views as 'enchantment' with the possibility of ultimate or absolute resolution of all political discord. In return, however, he argues that hopeful political engagement is still possible, because political actors remain able to cope in material and semiotic terms with the complex realities they face. I suggest that serious consideration of Cacciari's example of recognising irreducible plurality, coupled with a disenchanted engagement with both the material and the semiotic dimensions of political life, offers a compelling alternative orientation to the world that may suggest new ways forward in political theory.
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Steczowicz, Agnieszka. "'The defence of contraries' : paradox in the late Renaissance disciplnes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2004. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:f2f93089-60f6-4408-aae9-2b3e595efcdc.
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The aim of this thesis is to examine the meanings and functions of paradox in the late Renaissance. My understanding of Renaissance paradox, in contrast to that of most critics and historians, rests entirely on contemporary definitions of the term, rather than on its present-day meaning. Paradoxes as they are envisaged in this study begin to appear in the wake of the humanist rediscovery and dissemination of Cicero's Paradoxa Stoicorum. In this work, paradoxes are characterized as 'admirabilia contraque opinionem omnium', a definition that draws attention to two important traits of paradox, repeatedly invoked in the Renaissance: its association with wonder, and its opposition to common opinion. This thesis examines the history of classical paradox as it was revived, expanded beyond the narrow confines of Stoic ethics, and adapted to new purposes so successfully that it became a recognisable genre of polemical writing, with hundreds of works in Latin and the vernacular being described as paradoxes. Previous studies of Renaissance paradox have centred almost exclusively on its literary and vernacular manifestations, and on the paradoxical encomium in particular. My own work charts the rise to prominence and the ensuing transformations of paradox in a range of disciplines: rhetoric and ethics, theology, law, medicine, and natural philosophy. I compare the different associations that paradoxes acquire in all these areas, and the argumentative strategies that they deploy. My analysis of specific examples of paradox is informed by the methods of both literary analysis and intellectual history. Paradoxes, I argue, offered their authors the possibility of departing from established norms and of voicing novel views in a period of intellectual unrest. In their challenge to received and common opinion, they paved the way for more radical ideas in the following century, and they have much to tell us about dissident ways of thinking in the late Renaissance.
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Robert-Nicoud, Vincent Corentin. "The world upside-down in sixteenth-century French literature and visual culture." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1c0536cf-ffcf-4324-a626-19075e1acca8.
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To call something 'inverted' or 'topsy-turvy' in the sixteenth century is, above all, to label it as abnormal, unnatural and going against the natural order of things. The topos of the world upside-down brings to mind a world returned to its initial state of primeval chaos, in which everything is inside-out, topsy-turvy and out of bounds: fish live in trees, children rule over their parents, wives command their husband and rivers flow back to their source. This thesis undertakes a detailed account of the development of the topos of the world upside-down in sixteenth-century French literature and visual culture. By examining different uses of this topos - comic, moralising and polemical - it relates the transformations of the topos to religious, social and political conflicts of the period. To explain the shift of this topos from comic and moralising device to satirical and polemical tool, this thesis argues that troubled times produce troubled texts. In order to demonstrate this hypothesis, two kinds of evidence will be examined: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 present diachronic evidence of the 'polemicisation' of the topos of the world upside-down in literary genres of the period (adages, paradoxes and emblems) and within François Rabelais's body of work; Chapter 3 and 4 provide synchronic evidence of the polemical use of the topos of the world upside-down during the French religious wars in Huguenot and Catholic polemic and in depictions of socio-political turmoil. Charting the variety of uses of the topos of the world upside-down throughout the sixteenth century, this thesis connects the world upside-down and its historical context; and contributes to the scholarship on religious polemic.
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Baggioni, Laurent. "La « forteresse de la raison ». Lectures de l’humanisme politique florentin d’après l’Epistolario de Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406)." Thesis, Lyon, École normale supérieure, 2011. http://www.theses.fr/2011ENSL0677.
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Prenant appui sur une historicisation critique des postulats méthodologiques et idéologiques au fondement des catégories d’humanisme civique et de républicanisme, la thèse entend renoncer à une lecture uniquement théorique de l’œuvre des humanistes florentins et restituer aux textes leur statut d’énoncés historiques. L’enjeu est de redessiner les lignes portantes d’une tradition civile et républicaine propre à la réalité florentine dont les penseurs des guerres d’Italie (Savonarole, Guichardin, Machiavel) seront les dépositaires critiques. Un travail d’interprétation de la correspondance familière de Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) constitue le socle de la recherche et fait apparaître la dimension juridique de la pensée du chancelier, et ce à double titre : d’une part elle révèle l’omniprésence d’un lexique juridique qui fournit l’essentiel de l’arsenal interprétatif de l’analyse politique, et d’autre part, elle définit un « office d’exhortation » qui constitue la théorie politique de Salutati non pas simplement comme une rhétorique propagandiste mais aussi comme un discours réformateur. L’apport de Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444) est ainsi réévalué dans le sillage de l’humanisme politique de Salutati, et se distingue de ce dernier surtout par la valeur nouvelle accordée à l’histoire dans l’élaboration d’une langue et d’une science de la vie civileStarting from a critical historicization of the methodological and ideological foundations of categories such as civic humanism and republicanism, this thesis investigates the works of the Florentine humanists not only from the point of view of political theory but also in relation to their historical significance. The aim is to redefine the structural lines of a republican tradition characteristic of Florentine history, a tradition which the thinkers of the Italian Wars (Savonarola, Guicciardini, Machiavelli) inherited and criticized. An extensive reading of the private letters by Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) constitutes the central part of this work and reveals the juridical character of the Chancellor’s thought : on the one hand, the juridical vocabulary is omnipresent in the letters and provides the core of the hermeneutic tools necessary to political analysis ; on the other hand, it helps defining an « office of exhortation » which discloses Salutati’s urge for reform rather than his role of propagandist. New light is then shed on Leonardo Bruni’s contribution to political thought as Bruni is seen following the path of Salutati’s political humanism. Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444), in comparison with his master, stresses the superiority of history, but finds himself equally involved in the formulation of a language and a science of political life
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Doyle, John F. (John Francis). "Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and the Introduction of Italian Humanism in Fifteenth Century England." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1991. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc501124/.
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Duke Humphrey of Gloucester is often given credit for the renaissance of English learning in the fifteenth century. It is true that the donations of books he made to Oxford, his patronage of English and Italian writers, and his patronage of administrators who had humanist training resulted in the transmittal of humanist values to England. But is it also true that these accomplishments were mainly the by-product of his self-aggrandizing style, rather than a conscious effort on the duke's part to promote learning. The duke, however, does deserve recognition for what he unwittingly may have done.
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Bedon, Elettra. "La poesia in lingua veneta dalla fine della Prima Guerra Mondiale a oggi." Thesis, McGill University, 1994. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=26252.
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Writers and poets who wrote in the "language of Venice" are far more numerous than is commonly reported in the history of Italian literature. It is the purpose of this dissertation to present and highlight their works.Since here we mainly deal with writers and poets of the second half of the twentieth century, for which there is no roll call, we deemed it appropriate to research and introduce them, supplying for each of them detailed biobibliographical data.
In the course of our work we tried to sketch a subdivision of the matter which keeps in mind what has been previously done, but which is also new if one takes into account the whole scope and breadth of this literature.
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Harikae, Ryoko. "John Bellenden's Chronicles of Scotland : translation and circulation." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d0ebf41c-8263-45e0-a6d5-5826bf8e0396.
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John Bellenden's Chronicles of Scotland (1531-r. 1537) is a humanist Scots translation of Hector Boece's Scotorum Historia (1527). As the first full-scale printed national history in the vernacular, the Chronicles assumed a pivotal role in sixteenth-century Scottish literary culture. Despite its contemporary importance,however, relatively little critical attention has been paid to Bellenden's work itself, primarily due to the misconception that it is a neutral translation of the Scotorum Historia. However, as Bellenden successively revised his text in several stages with stylistical, ideological and material alterations, the Chronicles needs to be evaluated as an individual literary work. The
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Fonsato, Vanna Marisa. "Giudizi letterari di Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi nel carteggio inedito della Raccolta Piancastelli." Thesis, McGill University, 1992. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=61287.
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The present work examines the literary criticism expressed by Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi in several of her unpublished letters.The first part outlines the cultural and historical tradition of Venice during the Eighteenth Century. Particular attention is subsequently given to the intellectual role of women, their contribution to the literary salons of the time, and the neoclassical tradition. This first part is essential in that it supplies a valuable context to Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's writings.
In the second part, I examine Isabella Teotochi Albrizzi's literary criticism of major European authors and works. Through these criticisms she exposes her misvision of the literary world to which she aspired, and reveals that although she was influenced by the subtle preromantic tendencies, she remained faithful to the neoclassical school.
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Kay, Simon Michael Gorniak. "Literary, political and historical approaches to Virgil's Aeneid in early modern France." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/13837.
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This thesis examines the increasing sophistication of sixteenth-century French literary engagement with Virgil's Aeneid. It argues that successive forms of engagement with the Aeneid should be viewed as a single process that gradually adopts increasingly complex literary strategies. It does this through a series of four different forms of literary engagement with the Aeneid: translation, continuation, rejection and reconciliation. The increasing sophistication of these forms reflects the writers' desire to interact with the original Aeneid as political epic and Roman foundation narrative, and with the political, religious and literary contexts of early modern France. The first chapter compares the methods of and motivations behind all of the sixteenth-century translations of the Aeneid into French; it thus demonstrates shifts in successive translators' interpretations of Virgil's work, and of its application to sixteenth-century France. The next three chapters each analyse adaptation of Virgil's poem in a major French literary work. Firstly, Ronsard's Franciade is analysed as an example of French foundation epic that simultaneously draws upon and rejects Virgil's narrative. Ronsard's poem is read in the light of Mapheo Vegio's “Thirteenth Book” of the Aeneid, or Supplementum, which continues Virgil's narrative and carries it over into a Christian context. Next, Agrippa d'Aubigné's response to Virgilian epic in Les Tragiques is shown to have been mediated by Lucan's Pharsalia and its anti- epic and anti-imperialist interpretation of the Aeneid. D'Aubigné's inversion of Virgil is highlighted through comparison of attitudes to death and resurrection in Les Tragiques, the Aeneid and Vegio's Antoniad. Finally, Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas' combination, in La Sepmaine and La Seconde Sepmaine of the hexameral structure of Genesis with Virgil's narrative of reconciliation after civil war is shown to represent the most sophisticated understanding of and most complex interaction with the Aeneid in sixteenth-century France.
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LUNA, GONZALEZ Adriana. "From self-preservation to self-liking in Paolo Mattia Doria : civil philosophy and natural jurisprudence in the early Italian Enlightenment." Doctoral thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/12705.
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Defence Date: 07/09/2009Examining Board: Prof. Martin van Gelderen (European University Institute) supervisor; Prof. Vittor Ivo Comparato (Università di Perugia); Prof. Sebastian Conrad (European University Institute); Prof. Maurizio Viroli (Princeton University) external supervisor
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From the outset of his intellectual life Doria had been a civil philosopher interested in reflecting, in a secular manner on the foundations of civil society thereby departing from the more traditional discussions that took as their framework moral philosophy and natural law theories. Unlike other Catholic thinkers, when discussing happiness Doria was not interested in debating religious issues such as salvation, revelation, or the states of beatitude or contemplation and how these might give meaning to ‘ happiness’. For this reason this thesis explores Doria’s varying and evolving conceptions of human nature and happiness, trying to follow their development and their role in shaping Doria’s political thought. A further aim is to ascertain the implications of these developments and to analyse Doria’s discussions of the foundations of the civil life, his understanding of men as individuals, their sociability and the legitimation of human politics. I am interested in elucidating to what extent he believed that men act as moral beings in Doria’s political philosophy, which features of their psychologies he considers decisive in judging men’s rationality and morality, i.e. how he grounds their judgements and acts in order to justify their legitimacy. In short the key question here is: How, in other words, does Doria ground his theory of human agency and men’s freedom to act in politics? Doria is writing at a critical moment in the history of civil and moral philosophy not only in the Neapolitan but also, in the European context.
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TERVOORT, Adrianus. "The Iter Italicum and the Northern Netherlands : Dutch students at Italian universities and their role in the Netherlands' society." Doctoral thesis, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5995.
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Defence date: 14 October 2000Supervisors: Prof. dr. J. Brewer ; Prof. dr. H. de Ridder-Symoens
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
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DELPHY, Christine. "Modèles italiens et traditions nationales : les artistes belges en Italie (1830-1914)." Doctoral thesis, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5748.
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EVANGELISTI, Silvia. "La povertà impossibile : monache, famiglia e proprietà in Italia (secc XVI-XVIII)." Doctoral thesis, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5758.
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Defence date: 30 April 1998Examining board: Prof. Renata Ago, Università di Cagliari ; Prof. Gérard Delille, Istituto Universitario Europeo ; Prof. Olwen Hufton, Morton College Oxford (Supervisor) ; Prof. Gianna Pomata, Università di Bologna e University of Minnesota, Minneapolis ; Prof. Gabriella Zarri, Università di Firenze
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
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ORTOLJA-BAIRD, Alexandra. "Where philosophy meets bureaucracy : Cesare Beccaria's social contract from page to practice." Doctoral thesis, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/49327.
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Defence date: 14 December 2017Examining Board: Prof. Ann Thomson, European University Institute (Supervisor); Prof. Pavel Kolář, European University Institute; Prof. Clorinda Donato, California State University; Prof. Richard Whatmore University of St. Andrews
Cesare Beccaria, renowned author of the 1764 Enlightenment treatise Dei delitti e delle pene, has long been celebrated as the voice of the abolitionist movement against the death penalty, the founding father of modern criminology, and the go-to source on penal reform. These personalities have been fuelled by the instant global success of Beccaria’s text, however this celebrity trajectory has clouded many of his less sensational identities in its wake: Beccaria, reluctant man of letters, enlightened Habsburg bureaucrat and practical philosopher. This thesis recovers these entangled personas and, in so doing, provides an intellectual history of Cesare Beccaria that emphasises his substantial contribution as a philosopher, not just on the page, but in practice. Beccaria envisioned an ambitious social project. Proposing a vision of society in which the social contract served to protect “the greatest happiness divided between the greater number” and which was based upon a hedonistic calculation of human nature, Beccaria concluded that individuals had the equal right to pursue pleasure and that government was obliged to provide this opportunity. Interpreting this in economic terms, Beccaria presented a case for the removal of all institutionalised obstacles to the pursuit of wealth: while not everyone could achieve riches, all had the equal chance at improving their lot. His philosophy was the product of both a rich reading culture and intellectual network, which were simultaneously patriotic and cosmopolitan. On the one hand, local, specialised and concerned with matters of public utility, on the other, internationally, intellectually and socially diverse. However, the social contract was no utopian vision, but rather a blueprint for the political classes. In the field of public health in particular, Beccaria demonstrated his commitment to providing equal access to the pursuit of pleasure, abiding by the tenets of his contract at all costs. It is this practically inclined philosophy that the thesis argues is Beccaria’s most important contribution to the Enlightenment.
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PIERRE, Benoist. "Les réseaux cléricaux dans la construction de l'état moderne : la congrégation franco-italienne des Feuillants (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)." Doctoral thesis, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/5940.
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Examining board: M. Anthony Molho (I.U.E.) ; M. Mario Rosa (École Normale Supérieure de Pise) ; M. Bernard Dompnier (Univ. de Clermont-Ferrand) ; Mme Nicole Lemaitre (Univ. Paris-I Sorbonne) ; M. Gérard Delille (I.U.E.)Defence date: 19 December 2002
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digitised archive of EUI PhD theses completed between 2013 and 2017
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BERTILOTTI, Teresa. "Il palcoscenico della nazione : 1909-1918." Doctoral thesis, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/25194.
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Examining Board: Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, IUE (Supervisor); Professor Lucy Riall, IUE (Relatore IUE); Professor Martin Baumeister, Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München (Relatore esterno); Professor Catherine Brice, Université Paris-Est Créteil (Relatore esterno).Defence date: 7 November 2012
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This dissertation examines the forms and spaces of entertainment, such as theatres, cinemas and music halls, in Rome between 1911, when celebrations for the 50th anniversary of Italy’s unification took place, and the First World War. This was a time characterized by the emergence of popular and mass culture and by the spread of a specifically nationalist culture that changed dramatically after the war against Libya in 1911. By adopting a broad definition of "culture,” including both high and low culture, this dissertation explores the ways in which a specific theatrical tradition staged the nation’s history, in particular that of the Risorgimento, after Italian unification. It then broadens the analysis to other forms of entertainment. This dissertation argues that the 1909-1911 celebrations were marked by a renewed attention to the "patriotic” tradition, and spurred the emergence of new theatrical and cinematographic productions, which became particularly relevant in the context of the First World War, thus giving substance to the "culture de guerre”. I argue that theatre shows and movies avoided representing the violence and suffering that characterized the war, partly because of the existence of various forms of censorship. However, the presence of wounded bodies among the audience gave way to a dual representation, and transformed theatres, cinemas and music halls into privileged spaces where the war and the domestic front met. By taking into account the case-study of a girls’ school, I show the gendered dimension of civil society mobilization. Finally, this dissertation analyzes the role entertainment played in "building the enemy,” identified with Kultur, and the emergence of a moral discourse about entertainment, which coincided with the spread of popular culture - especially the cinema - and became even stronger and more complex with the outbreak of the First World War.
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ROICK, Matthias. "Mercury in Naples : the moral and political thought of Giovanni Pontano." Doctoral thesis, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1814/13281.
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Defence date: 26 October 2009Examining Board: Prof. Martin van Gelderen (EUI) - supervisor; Prof. Anthony Molho (EUI); Prof. Riccardo Fubini (University of Florence); Prof. Thomas Kaufmann (University of Göttingen).
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The present study returns to Giovanni Gioviano Pontano's role as a thinker and philosopher. It is based on the treatises and tracts Pontano wrote, to which scant attention has been paid until now, but also on his ad hoc political writings and his better known dialogues and poems. It moves between different fields of inquiry including history, philosophy, and literature, trying to represent Pontano's thought not only in its doctrinal aspects, but in a more comprehensive and contextualized perspective. Within this perspective, his thought will appear as mercurial as Pontano himself. It is not a set of explicit, philosophical doctrines that can be described within a coherent theoretical framework, but a cluster of different thoughts, attitudes, and practices.