"[A] provocative vision of the humanist movement." — Translation Review
"[T]his learned, witty and provocative book is extremely rich and instructive for anybody who has an interest in Renaissance thought, and makes us wish that also some other of Fubini's voluminous studies will soon become available in English." — Marcello Simonetta, Annali d'italianistica
"Fubini's exceptional learning and sensitivity to the material makes his collection of essays accessible even to those outside of the field, while his meticulous research and careful citation of sources makes this work highly valuable to the Italian Humanist scholar. . . . His analytical method is innovative and his learning prodigious. . . . This book will undoubtedly become a staple for students and scholars of Italian Humanism alike." — Heather A. Sexton , Comitatus
"These five essays should be required reading for every student of Quattrocento intellectual history. Their argument illuminates major events in the movement known as humanism, and the extensive footnotes contain an encyclopedic wealth of close readings and commentary. . . . [T]his volume makes an important collection of Renaissance studies available to the wider readership it deserves." — David Marsh , CLIO
"This is an important, densely argued, and deeply learned book. Fubini's approach represents the best in a postwar Italian historicist tradition. . . . [A] provocative and interesting book. Its virtues lie not only in Fubini's learning, which is prodigious, but also in his analytical method, which is context-sensitive, intertextual, and sparklingly alive with intellectual agility." — Christopher S. Celenza, The Catholic Historical Review
"This series of essays is thoroughly documented, containing a notes section which comprises 40 percent of the book. This section is itself a valuable resource, providing, among other things, numerous Latin experts substantiating Fubini's thesis." — Margaret Franklin, Sixteenth Century Journal
“A splendid collection. Fubini’s studies offer a powerful and coherent account of Italian humanism from Petrarch to Valla. They make a strong case for the seriousness of humanism as an intellectual movement, rather than a simply literary or pedagogical one. They thus do us the important service of making our image of humanism at once more complex and more responsive to primary sources. . . . Fubini lays the basis for a whole new approach to humanist texts.” — Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
“Fubini is a major figure in the study of Italian humanism today. In this collection he addresses what has always been since Burckhardt a central issue in the interpretation of humanism, namely, to what extent and in what ways is the humanist movement responsible for secularizing Western cultural traditions at the end of the Middle Ages. His is an important voice urging us to see the full range and complexity of humanist attitudes to religion and helping us to situate the humanists more precisely vis a vis the Protestant Reformers and the Deists and philosophes of the Enlightenment.” — James Hankins, Harvard University