Petrarch and Boccaccio: the unity of knowledge in the pre-modern world

The early modern and modern cultural world in the West would be unthinkable without Petrarch and Boccaccio. Despite this fact, there is still no scholarly contribution entirely devoted to analysing their intellectual revolution. Internationally renowned scholars are invited to discuss and rethink the historical, intellectual, and literary roles of Petrarch and Boccaccio between the great model of Dante's encyclopedia and the ideas of a double or multifaceted culture in the era of Italian Renaissance Humanism. In his lyrical poems and Latin treatises, Petrarch created a cultural pattern that was both Christian and Classical, exercising immense influence on the Western World in the centuries to come. Boccaccio translated this pattern into his own vernacular narratives and erudite works, ultimately claiming as his own achievement the reconstructed unity of the Ancient Greek and Latin world in his contemporary age. The volume reconsiders Petrarch's and Boccaccio's heritages from different perspectives (philosophy, theology, history, philology, paleography, literature, theory), and investigates how these heritages shaped the cultural transition between the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern era, as well as European identity.

Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction /; The Formation of Knowledge and Petrarch's Books /; Sacra solitudo. Petrarch's authorship and the locus sacer /; Petrarch, Creator of the Christian Humanist /; Petrarch and the History of Philosophy /; The Secret Life of Classical and Arabic Medical Texts in Petrarch's Canzoniere /; From Paradox to Exclusivity: Dante and Petrarch's Lyrical Eschatologies /; Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio on Religious Conversion /; The Incipit of the Decameron: Textual Margins as an Index of Epochal Change /; The Proemio of the Decameron. Boccaccio's Hidden Dialogue with Scholasticism /; Boccaccio's Novel Hecuba: Beritola between Ovid and Dante /; Boccaccio, the Classics and the Latin Middle Ages /; The Inventors of Things in Boccaccio's De genealogia deorum gentilium /; Boccaccio's Critique of Petrarch /; The Perfect Woman in Boccaccio and Petrarch /; Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the Space of Vernacular Literature /; Between Petrarch and Boccaccio: Strategies of the End /; Contributors --; Index of Manuscripts --; Index Nominum / Candido, Igor --; Storey, H. Wayne --; Enenkel, Karl --; Witt, Ronald --; Celenza, Christopher --; Küpper, Joachim --; Gragnolati, Manuele / Southerden, Francesca --; Candido, Igor --; Regn, Gerhard --; Kablitz, Andreas --; Ciabattoni, Francesco --; Petoletti, Marco --; Cherchi, Paolo --; Mazzotta, Giuseppe --; Ficara, Giorgio --; Bragantini, Renzo --; Ferroni, Giulio --