John Monfasani Research Articles

A Note on Two Works of George of Trebizond Edited by John Monfasani

Review article of: Vindicatio Aristotelis. Two Works of George Trebizond in the Plato-Aristotle Controversy of the Fifteenth Century, ed. and transl. John Monfasani, Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe (Arizona) 2021 (Medieval and Renaissance Text and Studies, 573).

Renaissance Education: Between Religion and Politics (CS 845). By Paul F. Grendler Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century (CS 801). By John Monfasani

Renaissance Education: Between Religion and Politics (CS 845). By Paul F. Grendler Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15^th Century (CS 801). By John Monfasani

The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy (review)

Reviewed by: The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy John Monfasani James Hankins, editor, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xvi + 430. Paper, $29.99. This volume cannot but call to mind The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy published twenty years ago (1988) under the editorship of Charles B. Schmitt and Quentin Skinner. The Cambridge Companion fares well in the comparison. The Cambridge History contained some weak or irrelevant articles, as well as articles that flatly contradicted each other, but its largest flaw was its artificial division of Renaissance philosophy, in almost cookie-cutter fashion, into synthetic themes that tended to obscure rather than illuminate historical developments and connections. Far more successful was what has, up to now, been unquestionably the best survey of Renaissance philosophy available, Schmitt’s and Brian Copenhaver’s Renaissance Philosophy (Oxford University Press) that appeared in 1992, where the chapters are organized by schools of thought (Aristotelianism, Platonism, etc.), and thinkers are presented in diachronic succession within each chapter. The Cambridge Companion combines many of the virtues of both volumes and, of course, brings the reader up to speed on the literature that has appeared in the last two decades. To start from the rear, The Cambridge Companion takes over whole (with appropriate updating) the very useful appendix of biographies that first appeared in the Cambridge History. Hankins begins and ends the volume with an argument for the relevance of Renaissance philosophy—times have changed; The Cambridge History took this for granted—and though he is completely right to speak of continuities with earlier, “medieval” philosophy, [End Page 138] Hankins is much more concerned with showing communalities and parallels with modern philosophy, even to the extent of playing upon modern clichés, such as philosophers as challengers of (Christian) orthodoxy and as deeply engagés in the social and political problems of the world. He also contributes a judicious chapter on Renaissance humanism as a cultural rather than a philosophical movement, endorsing therefore Paul Oskar Kristeller’s interpretation of humanism against that of Eugenio Garin and others. Hankins pays special attention to Petrarch’s prejudicial view of contemporary philosophy, namely, medieval Aristotelianism, especially in the form of Averroism, and the competing scientific culture of the medieval university (“scholasticism”). Therefore, Luca Bianchi’s brilliant chapter on “Continuity and change in the Aristotelian tradition,” which follows immediately after, serves as a nice counterpoint. Bianchi surveys the many forms of Renaissance Aristotelianism with masterful ease and good sense, moving from issues of translation, philology, and hermeneutics to discussions of evolving science, logic, and philosophy. Dag Nikolaus Hasse’s chapter on “Arabic philosophy and Averroism,” John Doyle’s on “Hispanic scholastic philosophy,” and David Lines’s on “Humanistic and scholastic ethics” all expertly combine to complete the picture and give the reader a wonderfully rich and textured introduction to Renaissance Aristotelianism. Of the other Renaissance traditions, Jill Kraye does a superb job surveying in compact fashion the revived Hellenistic philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism. Christopher Celenza treats Platonism. This comes down mainly to discussing Marsilio Ficino, whose esoteric, magical, and therapeutic interests, quite prominent in the latest literature, Celenza especially emphasizes, as opposed to the more rationalist and metaphysical analysis once offered by Kristeller. Indeed, the volume contains an article by Brian Copenhaver dedicated exclusively to elucidating Ficino’s magical theory. The only other figures meriting articles of their own are Nicholas of Cusa, whom Dermot Moran correctly characterizes as “at heart . . . a conservative Platonic theologian,” and the humanist Lorenzo Valla, whose originality and limitations Lodi Nauta sensibly analyzes. Both articles therefore serve as salutary correctives to the extravagant talk of Cusanus’s and Valla’s modernity that one finds in the older literature. It is interesting (and, I think, just) that a long-time favorite of modern commentators on the Renaissance, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, receives only modest attention in the volume. Except for Eric Nelson’s “The problem of the prince,” which verges on the silly at points, the handful of articles on general themes work fairly well. Peter Harrison rightly points out in his “Philosophy and the crisis of religion” that the “crisis of religion was, perhaps above...

Review: John Monfasani, Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century, Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2004; 352 pp.; 0860789519, £60/$124.95 (hbk)

Review: John Monfasani, Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century, Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate: Aldershot, 2004; 352 pp.; 0860789519, £60/$124.95 (hbk)

Interpretations of Renaissance humanism

Preface Contributors Introduction, Angelo Mazzocco PART I 1. Kristeller's Humanists as Heirs of the Medieval Dictatores, Ronald G. Witt 2. The Origins of Robert Black 3. Humanism: Ancient Learning, Criticism, Schools and Universities, Paul F. Grendler 4. Curial Humanism Seen Through the Prism of the Papal Library, Massimo Miglio 5. Humanism and the Medieval Encyclopedic Tradition, Giuseppe Mazzotta PART II 6. Humanism and Scholasticism: Toward an Historical Definition, Riccardo Fubini 7. Religion and the Modernity of Renaissance James Hankins 8. Rethinking Christian Humanism, Charles G. Nauert 9. Renaissance Humanism: the Rhetorical Turn, Eckhard Kessler 10. Literary Humanism in the Renaissance, Arthur F. Kinney PART III 11. Petrarch: Founder of Renaissance Humanism?, Angelo Mazzocco 12. Angelo Poliziano, Aldo Manuzio, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and Chapter 90 of the Miscellaneorum Centuria Prima (With an Edition and Translation), John Monfasani 13. Reinterpreting Renaissance Humanism: Marcello Adriani and the Recovery of Lucretius, Alison Brown Bibliography Index

John Monfasani, Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century. (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 801.) Aldershot, Eng., and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004. Pp. xii, 334, numbered nonconsecutively; black-and-white frontispiece portrait, black-and-white plates, and tables. $111.95.

John Monfasani, Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy: Studies on Humanism and Philosophy in the 15th Century. (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 801.) Aldershot, Eng., and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004. Pp. xii, 334, numbered nonconsecutively; black-and-white frontispiece portrait, black-and-white plates, and tables. $111.95.

Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe

This volume examines the transformation in ways of studying naturethat took place in Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies. This volume examines the transformation in ways of studying nature that took place in Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the essays trace particular textual traditions, while others follow the development of scholarly and professional communities. Some concentrate on the internal analysis of primary sources, while others examine the spread of practices to larger groups. Central to all is the search for a context for the increased fascination with nature, and especially with natural particulars-the details of natural forms, plants, and animals-that characterized this period. The essays also discuss how older theories and methods continued to exist; how the renewed study of classical sources introduced new problems and theories into the study of nature; how the structure of disciplines, both old and new, shaped approaches to the natural world; and how the material and practical means of disseminating knowledge helped to shape its content. Recently the history of science in early modern Europe has been both invigorated and obscured by divisions between scholars of different schools. One school tends to claim that rigorous textual analysis provides the key to the development of science, whereas others tend to focus on the social and cultural contexts within which disciplines grew. This volume challenges such divisions, suggesting that multiple historical approaches are both legitimate and mutually complementary. Contributors Michael J. B. Allen, Ann Blair, Daniela Mugnai Carrara, Brian P. Copenhaver, Chiara Crisciani, Luc Deitz, Paula Findlen, James Hankins, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, John Monfasani, William Newman, Vivian Nutton, Katharine Park

:Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe

This volume examines the transformation in ways of studying naturethat took place in Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies. This volume examines the transformation in ways of studying nature that took place in Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some of the essays trace particular textual traditions, while others follow the development of scholarly and professional communities. Some concentrate on the internal analysis of primary sources, while others examine the spread of practices to larger groups. Central to all is the search for a context for the increased fascination with nature, and especially with natural particulars-the details of natural forms, plants, and animals-that characterized this period. The essays also discuss how older theories and methods continued to exist; how the renewed study of classical sources introduced new problems and theories into the study of nature; how the structure of disciplines, both old and new, shaped approaches to the natural world; and how the material and practical means of disseminating knowledge helped to shape its content. Recently the history of science in early modern Europe has been both invigorated and obscured by divisions between scholars of different schools. One school tends to claim that rigorous textual analysis provides the key to the development of science, whereas others tend to focus on the social and cultural contexts within which disciplines grew. This volume challenges such divisions, suggesting that multiple historical approaches are both legitimate and mutually complementary. Contributors Michael J. B. Allen, Ann Blair, Daniela Mugnai Carrara, Brian P. Copenhaver, Chiara Crisciani, Luc Deitz, Paula Findlen, James Hankins, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, John Monfasani, William Newman, Vivian Nutton, Katharine Park

The Eightieth Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association

eightieth annual meeting was held at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers, beginning with registration on Thursday afternoon, January 6, and the meeting of the Executive Council that evening. Seventy persons registered their attendance. Cool and sunny on the first day the weather became ever warmer until the clouds arrived on Sunday. Twelve sessions were presented on the three days. On Friday morning a session onCatholics, Republicans, and Papal Diplomacy in the Cold War Era consisted of three papers. Richard Dominic Wiggers of Georgetown University spoke on the Service of Rome: An Expanded Role for American Catholics after 1945. John Donovan of Marquette University gave an account of Father John Cronin, Richard Nixon, and the 1960 Presidential Race. Lawrence J. McAndrews of St. Norbert College read a paper entitled Late and Never: Ronald Reagan and Tuition Tax Credits. chairman and commentator was R. Emmett Curran of Georgetown University. Concurrently in another room a session was devoted to Religion, Humanism, and Philosophy in the Renaissance and chairman was David Rutherford of Central Michigan University. Christopher Celenza of Michigan State University spoke first, on Pre-Socratic Heritage and the Search for Ancient Wisdom in Early Modern Europe: Reuchlin and Agricola. Celenza argued that Johannes Reuchlin in his De arte cabalistica was tapping into an esoteric mentality forged in late Antiquity and revived in the late fifteenth century. He individuated five features around which he framed his treatment of Reuchlin: first, a certain approach to allegoresis; second, a specific set of soteriological concerns; third, a connection of texts with praxis and ritual efficacy; fourth, a recognition of the radical disjunction between the human and the divine; and, fifth, a characteristic approach to the issue of information transfer. Arthur Field of Indiana University then spoke on Critiques of Humanism in Early Fifteenth-Century Italy. It is now commonplace to argue that the Renaissance humanists were not antireligious: textbooks and summaries label such notions as products of old-fashioned or Burckhardtian thinking. Yet a number of religious thinkers relentlessly criticized the humanist movement, accusing the humanists of outlandish opinions and an utter scorn for the Christian texts. Field's paper examined the nature of these criticisms and some humanist responses. Finally, John Monfasani of the State University of New York at Albany spoke on The Augustinian Platonists in the Renaissance and Reformation. Platonism of the general of the Augustinians and cardinal Giles of Viterbo and his proteges has received much favorable notice in the historical literature. However, Giles's most substantial Platonic work, his commentary ad mentem Platonis on the first book of the Sentences, is a very problematic work. His most illustrious disciple, general of the Augustinians and cardinal in his turn, Girolamo Seripando, eventually turned his back on his early Platonism to concentrate on the theological problems of the In sum, Giles's Platonism proved to be a dead-end for the Augustinian Order. There was a lively fifteen-minute open discussion at the end of the session. One of the three sessions held on Friday afternoon was entitled Transcending Enclosure: Women Religious in Catholic Reformation Europe..Allyson Poska of Mary Washington College occupied the chair Elizabeth Lehfeldt of Cleveland State University spoke first, on The Struggle for Autonomy: Administration and Identity in Early-Modern Spanish Convents:' This paper examined the impact of the Council of Trent on the institutional autonomy of convents. Convents in early-modern Spain possessed a profound sense of institutional identity that was tied inextricably to their ability to govern themselves with little interference from outside the cloister. Abbesses held and exercised the privileges of seignioral lords. …

Byzantine Scholars in Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Emigrés. Selected Essays by John Monfasani

Byzantine Scholars tn Renaissance Italy: Cardinal Bessarion and Other Emt gres. Selected Essays By John Monfasani. [Collected Studies Series.] (Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Co. 1995. Pp. xii, 351.) This is the second of two collections of his articles that John Monfasani has recently published in Variorum's Collected Studies Series. The first volume, Language and Learning in Renaissance Italy, contains his articles on fifteenth-century humanism. The present volume contains fourteen articles in English and Italian on Byzantine emigre scholars in Quattrocento Italy, all previously published, including nine articles on Cardinal Bessarion and his circle. In addition to Bessarion, the volume contains studies dealing with Niccolo Perotti, Theodore Gaza, Pletho, Alexius Celadenus, Andronicus Contoblacas, Andronicus Callistus, Nicholas Secundinus, and numerous other figures. The articles are rather spottily updated in a four-page appendix, but the author adds a useful index of manuscripts and an index nominum. All of the articles display Professor Monfasani's deep learning and brilliant skills in textual and historical criticism; with their publication, he inherits Deno John Geanakoplos' place as the leading American authority on the emigration of Byzantine intellectuals to Renaissance Italy Much of this volume consists of detailed textual studies of the works of Bessarion and his `academy, including hitherto unpublished texts of Bessarion, Gaza, Callistus, and others, collations of new manuscripts of previously published texts, manuscript descriptions, paleographical data, and rich new material on the textual tradition of Bessarion's writings. There is also important new biographical information on Bessarion, Niccol6 Perotti, and Andronicus Callistus. Beyond this, we are given an intimate view of Bessarion's struggles to enter the new linguistic environment of Latin humanism. From the Council of Ferrara-Florence onwards, Bessarion's three great causes were the union of the Greek and Latin churches, the preservation of the Greek cultural heritage, and the launching of a crusade against the Turks to recover Constantinople. In order to compass these ends, Bessarion needed the ability to write persuasively in Latin and to defend, against numerous detractors, his image as a pious, orthodox, and loyal prince of the Roman Church. Though competent enough in the Italian and Kchenlatein of the papal court, Bessarion never really developed first-rate skills as a writer of Latin prose. Monfasani shows the important role played by Niccolo Perotti in translating or transforming many of Bessarion's controversial and scholarly writings into good humanistic Latin; Perotti's lost biography of Bessarion, as Monfasani demonstrates, was probably the most important source for the encomiastic biographical tradition of the great Greek cardinal that took shape after the latter's death. …

Language and Learning in Renaissance Italy: Selected Articles by John Monfasani

BOOK REVIEWS95 sentiment and scolds him for ignoring die positive aspects of Mary's brief reign. Moreover, medieval Catholicism was not totally bankrupt. According to Duffy, "It has been one of the principal contentions of this book, however, diat into the 1 530s the vigour, richness, and creativity oflate medieval religion was undiminished, and continued to hold the imagination and elicit the loyalty of the majority of the population" (p. 479). Duffy presents his arguments is a convincing and intelligent manner and successfully chaUenges some accepted tenets of Reformation historiography. His description of traditional religion, especially the chapters on die Mass and die saints, is exceptionally good and shows the vitality of die pre-Reformation church. Keith Thomas's book on refigion and magic makes an excellent companion volume to Duffy's discussion on liturgy. The local or parish environment was the arena where the reforming policies touched the lives of the people, and the audior's description ofparish life, worship, and the opposition to the new Tudor policies is entertaining and informative. In addition to an impressive list of secondary sources, Duffy skUlfuUy uses wills, churchwardens' accounts, parish and gild records, primers, and a weakh of contemporary printed evidence to support his arguments. He does not rely exclusively on die printed word. The faithful also learned the fundamentals of their faith from paintings, carvings, and the glass in their churches, and die inclusion of photographs of ecclesiastical art which has survived gives important pictorial proof to Duffy's contention that parish life on the eve of the Reformation was not in decay. This is an important book and a significant contribution to Reformation studies. No serious student of the period can avoid confronting the arguments presented in uiis work. Rene Kollar St Vincent Archabbey Language andLearning in RenaissanceItaly: SelectedArticles. ByJohn Monfasani . [Variorum CoUected Studies Series, CS 460.] (Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, Ashgate Publishing Company. 1994. Pp. xii, 338. Í8995.) John Monfasani himselfnotes diat this collection reflects two ofhis interests, Renaissance rhetoric and the cultural world of his earliest subject, George of Trebizond. Variorum has given him a chance to coUect these studies and to update them with Addenda et Corrigenda. Since some of these articles are very technical, it is well that he has placed die studies ofmost general interest at eidier end to frame the rest. Readers unwiUing to embark on discussions of topics like Anti-Quintilianism should, nonetheless, read the first study, "Humanism and Rhetoric." For the ecclesiastical historian, the pay-off comes at die end, where rhetoricians prove to have written on homiletics and where rhetoric plays a role in die earliest curriculum for Jesuit schools. On the way to die last article, readers might want to read the two reviews of editions of 96BOOK REVIEWS Lorenzo Valla, whose writings from his Neapolitan days challenged not just die pretensions of the religious but even the fllioque. (Interested scholars also should read Riccardo Fubini, "Lorenzo VaUa tra U Concilio di BasUea e quello di Firenze, e il processo deU'Inquisizione," in Conciliarismo, stati nazionali, inizi dell'umanesimo [Spoleto: Centro di Studi suU'Alto Medieoevo , 1990].) Also of importance are "A Description of the Sistine Chapel under Pope Sixtus IV," which helps us date die construction and the earlier works of art more accurately, and "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in MidQuattrocento Rome," which casts light on "the Renaissance unmasking of the Dionysian corpus as apocryphal." I caU particular attention to the concluding study, "The Fraticelli and Clerical Wealth in Quattrocento Rome," because it highlights the tensions between the professed ideals of the vita apostólica, represented by the mendicants, and the curial ethos, "which differed little in its attitude toward wealth and display from the courts ofprinces. Anyone who has read Pius IPs unsympathetic account ofNicholas ofCusa's outburst against curial opposition to reform is aware of how this conflict of values helped undermine Rome in the period culminating in the Reformation crisis. (A bit more might have been done with die FraticeUi problem during die reign of Nicholas V, especiaUy the trial in Fabriano; see Charles Burroughs, From Signs to Design: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome [Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990].) Some of Monfasani's...

Fernando of Cordova, A Biographical and Intellectual Profile by John Monfasani

Fernando of Cordova, A Biographical and Intellectual Profile by John Monfasani

Fernando of Cordova: a biographical and intellectual profile (review)

Reviews 159 exclusion from the affairs of the realm of some of the established nobility, particularly families with Norman connections who had been prominent under Baldwin n, and especiaUy Hugh of Jaffa. There are many other studies in this collection which have not been mentioned, including all eight which appear in the second part of the volume and which deal with the 'Lordships', i.e., baronies, of the Kingdom. Many of these also impact on the reigns of Baldwin II, Fulk, and Melisande. The volume wUl be an indispensable addition to the libraries of all scholars of the Crusades. John H. Pryor Department of History University of Jerusalem Monfasani, John, Fernando of Cordova: a biographical and intellectual profile (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 82, Part 6), Philadelphia, The American Philosophical Society, 1992; paper; pp. x, 116; R.R.P. US$18.00. John Monfasani presents with enormous erudition all the information he has gathered over twenty years on the life and work of Fernando of Cordova. This wUl certainly be the definitive treatment since it is difficult to imagine another scholar considering the topic worthy of the effort. In fairness to Monfasani he admits in his preface that he never intended to write a book about Fernando of Cordova but discovered that he had too much material for even a large article. I wonder! The volume contains almost 50 pages of appendices, and the 50 pages of text are half covered in notes. I can understand why Fernando attracted Monfasani's attention, because Fernando likewise enjoyed displaying his erudition. Fernando of Cordovafirstcame to the attention of the world as a result of Lorenzo Valla's letter of recommendation to King Alfonso of Aragon in 1444. He had established areputationas a Wunderkind, having degrees in each of the four university faculties: arts, theology, medicine, and law. He furthermore claimed proficiency in Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin, as well as expertise in painting and playing and making all musical instruments. From such a promising start his career petered out in the service of cardinals and the papacy. His patrons in R o m e werefirstcardinal Juan Carvajal, then cardinal Bessarioh, and finally cardinal Francisco della Rovere, w h o became Pope Sixtus IV in 1471. Fernando's theological 160 Reviews writings demonstrated Scotist themes and arguments and supported the realists against the nominalists, while his largest extant philosophical work, De artificio omnis et investigandi et inveniendi natura scibilis, claimed establish the method of discovering everything that is knowable naturally. His more mundane works supported papal power, both spiritual and temporal, defended the lavish lifestyle of cardinals, and justified his own financial privileges as a Papal subdeacon. He died in 1486 and has an enormous tomb in the cloister of S. Maria di Montserrat on the via Giulia. A. Lynn Martin Department of History The University of Adelaide Moorhead, John, Theoderic in Italy, Oxford, Clarendon, 1992; cloth; pp. viii, 300; R.R.P. A U S $ 100.00. King Theoderic the Ostrogoth, who ruled in Italy from 493-526, has had a very good press: from the anonymous sixth-century Italian source which states that for thirty of these years he did nothing wrong ('Nihil enim perperam gessit'), to the medieval Germanic tradition (wherein Dietrich von Bern was equated to Theoderic of Verona, one of his capitals), and to this book, which concludes that 'his achievement was immense' (pp. 251 and 256). Above all, in Theoderic's reign Italy knew peace. When his Gothic forces, which sometimes had Roman commanders, fought beyond Italy, they generally won. He maintained the Roman system of government, bureaucracy, and taxation and legislated for the Goths. 'Edictum suum, quo ius constituit', in the source quoted previously, might be pushed even harder in attributing the Edict of Theoderic to him (p. 76). He supported drainage of the Pontine Marshes and, if there had been trains to be made to run on time, he would have done his best. The Roman equivalent, the public post, continued to function in his time. As Moorhead twice says in his conclusion, when Theoderic's reign looked backwards to antiquity, it did not do so across a gap. Several factors combine...

The Political Philosophy of Montaigne (review)

286 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:2 APRIL i99 3 he did not provide at the end of the book an Index Auctorum to the whole volume. Such an index of passages of Ficino, Plato, Plotinus, Proclus, etc., would, have made still more useful what is without a doubt an already immensely valuable contribution to Platonic studies and Renaissance intellectual history. JOHN MONFASANI State University of New York, Albany David Lewis Schaeffer. The Political Philosophy of Montaigne. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 199o. Pp. xv + 4o7 . Cloth, $41.5o. Paper, $x3.95. By 'political philosophy', Prof. Schaeffer means, with Strauss and Fortin, philosophizing about any subject that is "deliberately accommodated to the opinions of the society in the midst of which the philosopher lives.''1 In sharp contrast to those Montaigne scholars who have argued for some developmental stages from the a58o edition of the Essais to its posthumous x595 edition, Schaeffer reads Montaigne as having designed his masterpiece not only deliberately to accommodate it to the opinions of his time, but to have intended and achieved a rhetorical mastery by which irony and the appearance of a highly personal, even wandering pathway turns out, in fact, obliquely and beguilingly to have led the alert reader to the foundations of modern liberal republican democracy and capitalism: "Montaigne's substantive purpose, I shall argue, is to undermine those moral and religious conventions that obstruct freedom of thought and discourse as well as the freedom to indulge in earthly pleasures" (32); "Montaigne's greater undertaking is to reconstitute the foundations of political life, so as to secure our well-being from dependence on such accidents as the royal succession or shifting religious currents" (156). Schaeffer opens with three chapters interpreting Bk. II, Ch. 12, the "Apology for Raimond Sebonde," both for its physical centrality in the book and because it provides the foundation for the remainder of the argument. These chapters are to establish Montaigne's undermining of conventional religions and dogmatic philosophies, in order to cast doubt on those who assign to us either intellectual powers which we lack, or spiritual or moral ends which in fact horribly distort us (because of the cruelty and ambition we justify as means to those ends). This same undermining prepares the foundation for toleration of a variety of personal and social goods, and for a political climate more hospitable to philosophy. Chapters 4 through i i argue that Montaigne then replaces classical moral philosophy with the beginnings of modern, secular, and liberal moral philosophy by rejecting the notion of a summum bonum in favor of plural goods and, more specifically, rejecting the ethics of "inward government" and spiritual well-being in favor of other-directed social utility and a more earthly, personal, bodily well-being. In the strife between l E. L. Fortin, Dissidenceetphilosophieau moyendge (Paris, 1981), 19, cited as footnote a, pp. ixx . Leo Strauss's What Is PoliticalPhilosophy?(Glencoe, IL, 1959)is also cited in this context. BOOK REVIEWS 987 honor and utility, the former gave vent to cruelty and ambition. Once this becomes apparent, a personal ethic of corporeal goods and a political ethic of the minimal state and maximal marketplace allow for a new foundation for order, security, and a plurality of personal life-plans. The final portion of Chapter 11, and all of the final, twelfth chapter then conclude with "liberal politics'--Montaigne's reasons for preferring a republic, his egalitarianism , and, in sum, his reworking of Machiavelli and anticipation of Hobbes and Locke as the founders of "classical political liberalism" (376). Only two brief evaluative comments are possible here: (1) Schaeffer cites passages where Montaigne rejects body/soul dualism in favor of a close union, even interdependency between the two (cf. lo9, 299), t yet he also builds his interpretation on a rejection of goods of the spirit and mind in favor of those of the body because the soul is "malleable" but the body is not (cir. 2 t 3, 37 t). He thus argues a Montaigne who both rejects dualism but also relies on it in order to opt for the more earthly side of it. (2) Schaeffer depicts classical philosophers as holding that only...

<sc>Donald R. Kelley</sc>. <italic>Renaissance Humanism</italic>. (Studies in Intellectual and Cultural History.) Boston: Twayne. 1991. Pp. xi, 176. $26.95

Donald R. Kelley. Renaissance Humanism. (Studies in Intellectual and Cultural History.) Boston: Twayne. 1991. Pp. xi, 176. $26.95 Get access Kelley Donald R.. Renaissance Humanism. (Studies in Intellectual and Cultural History.) Boston: Twayne. 1991. Pp. xi, 176. $26.95. John Monfasani John Monfasani State University of New York, Albany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 97, Issue 5, December 1992, Pages 1510–1511, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/97.5.1510 Published: 01 December 1992

George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic. John Monfasani

<i>George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic</i>. John Monfasani

John Monfasani. George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic. (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, number 1.) Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1976. Pp. xi, 414. 96 gls

Journal Article John Monfasani. George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic. (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, number 1.) Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1976. Pp. xi, 414. 96 gls Get access Monfasani John. George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of His Rhetoric and Logic. (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, number 1.) Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1976. Pp. xi, 414. 96 gls. Richard C. Dales Richard C. Dales University of Southern California Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 82, Issue 1, February 1977, Pages 80–81, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/82.1.80-a Published: 01 February 1977