"The Renaissance has a peculiar status in philosophical historiography: it tends to disappear from the dominant narrative-as Charles Schmitt famously noticed-but it also resurfaces unexpectedly in marginal reception histories. This book casts light on intellectual constellations or geographical areas, which have traditionally been considered peripheral to the emergence of the Renaissance. The case studies presented in the book explore philosophical historiography as a political practice, showing how, in times of cultural crisis or change, the scholarly rediscovery of the Renaissance often served to develop or legitimise an ideal of social, religious or moral reform. Driven by personal concerns and political choices, historiography is revealed as an act of dissent against mainstream reconstructions"--
The essays collected in this volume demonstrate that philosophical historiography is not mere erudition but a device of intellectual dissidence. The book studies philosophical genealogies of the European Renaissance from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
1 Renaissance Historiography and Political Practice, Or: The History of
Philosophy as Dissent
Mario Meliadņ and Cecilia Muratori
2 A Tale of Many, but None of Mine: Dionysius Andreas Frehers Alternative
Portrait of Jacob Boehme
Cecilia Muratori
3 The Renaissance in Retreat. Debating the Image of Humanist Culture in the
German Early Enlightenment
Zornitsa Radeva
4 Dissenting words: Rinascimento and Risorgimento in 19th-century Italy
Alessio Cotugno
5 A Transatlantic Renaissance in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century:
Vincenzo Botta Between Italy and the United States of America
Catherine König-Pralong
6 The Medieval and Renaissance Origins of Nationalism: Alois Dempfs
Historiography as a Practice of Intellectual Freedom
Andrea Fiamma
7 Freedom and the shaping of national culture in South American
representations of the Renaissance: Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, José
Ingenieros and Alejandro Korn
Silvia Manzo
8 The Italian Renaissance in Post-War America: Paul Oskar Kristeller and
Felix Gilbert
Iryna Mykhailova
9 The Renaissance in Soviet Interpretation: From Progressive Revolution to
Type of Culture (1960s1970s)
Iva Manova
10. Machiavelli, the Perennial Dissident
Robert Black
Bibliography
Index of NamesXXX
Mario Meliadņ is Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Siegen (Germany). His research focuses on fifteenth-century schools of thought, and the history of modern philosophical historiography. He published a monograph on Heymeric of Campo and late medieval Albertism in 2018, as well as studies on Nicholas of Cusa and Victor Cousin.
Cecilia Muratori is Assistant Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Pavia (Italy). She has published on the role of mysticism for philosophical speculation (The First German Philosopher: The Mysticism of Jakob Böhme as Interpreted by Hegel, 2016), and on the ethical implications of the distinction between humans and animals (Renaissance Vegetarianism: The Philosophical Afterlives of Porphyrys 'On Abstinence', 2020).
