Editorial

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From the Renaissance to the Modern World—Introduction

by Peter Iver Kaufman

Religions 2012, 3(4), 1138-1139; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3041138 - 06 Dec 2012

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On November 11 and 12, 2011, a symposium held at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill honored John M. Headley, Emeritus Professor of History. The organizers, Professor Melissa Bullard—Headley’s colleague in the department of history at that university—along with Professors Paul [...] Read more.

On November 11 and 12, 2011, a symposium held at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill honored John M. Headley, Emeritus Professor of History. The organizers, Professor Melissa Bullard—Headley’s colleague in the department of history at that university—along with Professors Paul Grendler (University of Toronto) and James Weiss (Boston College), as well as Nancy Gray Schoonmaker, coordinator of the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies—assembled presenters, respondents, and dozens of other participants from Western Europe and North America to celebrate the career of their prolific, versatile, and influential colleague whose publications challenged and often changed the ways scholars think about Martin Luther, Thomas More, the Habsburg empire, early modern Catholicism, globalization, and multiculturalism. [...] Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Unifying Themes in the Oeuvre of John M. Headley

by James M. Weiss

Religions 2012, 3(4), 1094-1102; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3041094 - 20 Nov 2012

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Abstract

The great variety of historical figures and themes found in the published works of John Headley since 1963 reveal a unity of themes and values. The numerous persons whom Headley studied all envisioned a humane universal order even as they moved from theoretical [...] Read more.

The great variety of historical figures and themes found in the published works of John Headley since 1963 reveal a unity of themes and values. The numerous persons whom Headley studied all envisioned a humane universal order even as they moved from theoretical reflection to actual political implementation. His more recent work holds up the European legacy of human rights, democracy, and freedom that have become a Western gift and challenge to non-Western cultures. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

320 KiB

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The Confessions of Montaigne

by John Jeffries Martin

Religions 2012, 3(4), 950-963; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3040950 - 15 Oct 2012

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Abstract

Montaigne rarely repented and he viewed confession—both juridical and ecclesiastical—with skepticism. Confession, Montaigne believed, forced a mode of self-representation onto the speaker that was inevitably distorting. Repentance, moreover, made claims about self-transformation that Montaigne found improbable. This article traces these themes in the [...] Read more.

Montaigne rarely repented and he viewed confession—both juridical and ecclesiastical—with skepticism. Confession, Montaigne believed, forced a mode of self-representation onto the speaker that was inevitably distorting. Repentance, moreover, made claims about self-transformation that Montaigne found improbable. This article traces these themes in the context of Montaigne’s Essays, with particular attention to “On Some Verses of Virgil” and argues that, for Montaigne, a primary concern was finding a means of describing a self that he refused to reduce, as had Augustine and many other writers before and after him, to the homo interior. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

234 KiB

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Francesco Petrarca and the Parameters of Historical Research

by Ronald Witt

Religions 2012, 3(3), 699-709; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030699 - 20 Aug 2012

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Abstract

Although scholars in the first two generations of humanism wrote the histories drawing heavily on ancient Roman sources, Petrarca was the first humanist historian to focuses on the history of ancient Roma. Because he was also the earliest to approach ancient Romans as [...] Read more.

Although scholars in the first two generations of humanism wrote the histories drawing heavily on ancient Roman sources, Petrarca was the first humanist historian to focuses on the history of ancient Roma. Because he was also the earliest to approach ancient Romans as historically conditioned human beings, he was able to see the achievements of the Romans in historical perspective. At the same time he was unable to separate mythology from history and acknowledged the effect of divine and diabolical forces on the course of human events. Full article

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Saving Renaissance and Reformation: History, Grammar, and Disagreements with the Dead

by Constantin Fasolt

Religions 2012, 3(3), 662-680; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030662 - 06 Aug 2012

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Abstract

Renaissance and Reformation used to serve historians as the main terms with which to refer to European history from roughly 1300–1600. Today those terms are commonly replaced with early modern history, and the periodization of European history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods [...] Read more.

Renaissance and Reformation used to serve historians as the main terms with which to refer to European history from roughly 1300–1600. Today those terms are commonly replaced with early modern history, and the periodization of European history into ancient, medieval, and modern periods itself is looking increasingly suspect. There are good reasons for those changes. But they obscure both the significance of disagreements dividing the living from the dead and the significance of grammar, in the fundamental sense of grammar advanced by Wittgenstein, for treating such disagreements. Renaissance and Reformation have the advantage of doing just the opposite: they confront us with both those disagreements and the significance of grammar. That makes them very much worth keeping. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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The Global Consequences of Mistranslation: The Adoption of the “Black but …” Formulation in Europe, 1440–1650

by Kate Lowe

Religions 2012, 3(3), 544-555; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3030544 - 26 Jun 2012

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 7112

Abstract

This article investigates the genesis of a linguistic model occasioned by a mistranslation that was taken up in the Renaissance, and had an enduring global impact. I call this model the “black but…” formulation, and it is to be found in the fifteenth, [...] Read more.

This article investigates the genesis of a linguistic model occasioned by a mistranslation that was taken up in the Renaissance, and had an enduring global impact. I call this model the “black but…” formulation, and it is to be found in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throughout written texts and reported speech, in historical as well as literary works. It was modeled grammatically and ideologically on the statement “I am black but beautiful” often attributed to the Queen of Sheba in 1:5 of the “Song of Songs”, and had a detrimental effect on how members of the early African forced diaspora were viewed by Renaissance Europeans. I argue that the newly adversarial nature of the phrase was adopted as a linguistic and cultural formulation, and introduced into Western European cultures a whole way of approaching and perceiving blackness or looking at black African people. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Europeanization of the World or Globalization of Europe?

by Jerry Bentley

Religions 2012, 3(2), 441-454; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3020441 - 14 May 2012

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 7541

Abstract

Building on his long career as a distinguished historian of early modern Europe, John Miles Headley has recently turned his gaze to the influence of Europe in the larger world. In The Europeanization of the World, Headley makes an insistent case for [...] Read more.

Building on his long career as a distinguished historian of early modern Europe, John Miles Headley has recently turned his gaze to the influence of Europe in the larger world. In The Europeanization of the World, Headley makes an insistent case for the uniqueness of European values—particularly human rights and democracy—and argues that these values are Europe’s most precious gifts to the larger world. Without seeking to diminish the remarkable intellectual and cultural achievements of European peoples, this presentation will suggest a more nuanced view of relations between Europe and the larger world. Human rights and democracy mean different things to different peoples in different contexts at different times, and there have in fact been numerous expressions of both in societies beyond Europe. Furthermore, European theorists of human rights and democracy drew influence from societies beyond Europe. To the extent that the Europeanization of the world is a persuasive idea, it is possible only because of a prior globalization of Europe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Towards a Global History of Voting: Sovereignty, the Diffusion of Ideas, and the Enchanted Individual

by David Gilmartin

Religions 2012, 3(2), 407-423; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3020407 - 08 May 2012

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Abstract

This article suggests a framework for moving toward a global history of voting and democracy that focuses less on the diffusion of European ideas (however important those ideas were) than on embedding the history of voting within a worldwide history of ideas on [...] Read more.

This article suggests a framework for moving toward a global history of voting and democracy that focuses less on the diffusion of European ideas (however important those ideas were) than on embedding the history of voting within a worldwide history of ideas on sovereignty. The article posits a general framework for such a history focusing on a “conundrum of sovereignty” grounding legitimate rule in a space imagined as simultaneously within and outside worldly society. Rooted in a “secular theology” such ideas shaped in the 19th and 20th centuries the establishment of systems of mass voting (including the secret ballot), and the sovereignty of the “people” both in Europe and other parts of the world alike, in the process producing an image of the individual voter as an “enchanted individual.” The article looks at developments within Europe and in India in these terms.¹ Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Art, Trent, and Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment”

by John O'Malley

Religions 2012, 3(2), 344-356; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3020344 - 25 Apr 2012

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7383

Abstract

Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel is one of the world’s most famous paintings, completed in 1542. Greatly admired, it was also criticized for the frontal nudity of some of the figures. Twenty-two years later, 1564, the nudity was painted over, an [...] Read more.

Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel is one of the world’s most famous paintings, completed in 1542. Greatly admired, it was also criticized for the frontal nudity of some of the figures. Twenty-two years later, 1564, the nudity was painted over, an action attributed to the Council of Trent, 1545–1563. To what extent is that attribution correct? Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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Res aut res publica: The Evidence from Italian Renaissance Manuscripts and Their Owners

by John M. McManamon

Religions 2012, 3(2), 210-227; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel3020210 - 11 Apr 2012

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Abstract

This paper examines a key tension in Renaissance culture as reflected in the origin and provenance of manuscript books. Were Renaissance manuscripts the private property of individual owners or the common wealth of a lettered public? Even an officially public library could not [...] Read more.

This paper examines a key tension in Renaissance culture as reflected in the origin and provenance of manuscript books. Were Renaissance manuscripts the private property of individual owners or the common wealth of a lettered public? Even an officially public library could not escape that tension, whether through abuse of borrowing privileges or plundering of vulnerable holdings. Market forces encouraged theft, while impoverished scholars used their knowledge to supplement meager incomes. Alternatively, a sense of common wealth is reflected in an ex-libris indicating that a codex belonged to an individual “and his friends.” Book collecting, finally, becomes a helpful clue in discerning to what a scholar is committed. Some Renaissance clergymen used culture as a way to promote their ecclesiastical careers, while others collected and shared manuscripts as a way to promote tolerance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue From the Renaissance to the Modern World)

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