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Mary Ever‐Virgin? Jovinian and Marian Heresy

David G. Hunter

in Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jovinianist Controversy

A survey of the history of the idea of Mary's virginitas in partu shows that the notion had only marginal support in the tradition of the first three centuries. Associated with both docetism and ... More

A survey of the history of the idea of Mary's virginitas in partu shows that the notion had only marginal support in the tradition of the first three centuries. Associated with both docetism and encratism, the doctrine was opposed even by ascetically minded teachers, such as Tertullian and Origen. In the late fourth century, however, the notion of Mary's virginitas in partu reappeared in the sermons of Zeno of Verona and the ascetical treatises of Ambrose; Jerome, by contrast, was more reticent about embracing the idea. Jovinian's opposition to the virginitas in partu, therefore, stood squarely in the mainstream of Christian opinion, as it had developed by the late fourth century.Less

Interlude: The Clown as Dog

Harry Berger

in Harrying: Skills of Offense in Shakespeare's Henriad

This chapter argues that in our post-New Critical age, there is a danger of reductive reading in which the relation of major speakers to their language is characterized in terms of the analysis of ... More

This chapter argues that in our post-New Critical age, there is a danger of reductive reading in which the relation of major speakers to their language is characterized in terms of the analysis of minor speaking parts. It illustrates this problem by turning to Robert Weimann's attempt, in his study of Two Gentlemen of Verona, to define a comic position that gives the character more parity with the actor—the position of characters the audience laughs with as opposed to those it laughs at. Weimann's example is Proteus' servant, the clown Launce. He distinguishes Launce from another clown, Speed, who is Valentine's servant. Whereas Speed's asides provoke laughter at others, Launce “and his family experience are the objects of his own mirth.” Weimann's point is that in the traditional situation, the audience laughs with the actor at the comic figure the actor plays, but the character who laughs with the audience at himself assimilates the perspective and position of the actor.Less

In Love

Gillian Knoll

in Conceiving Desire in Lyly and Shakespeare: Metaphor, Cognition and Eros

Part II focuses on spatial metaphors of permeability and containment that dramatize erotic desire as a rupture between self and world. Such metaphors raise the stakes of erotic desire when intimacy ... More

Part II focuses on spatial metaphors of permeability and containment that dramatize erotic desire as a rupture between self and world. Such metaphors raise the stakes of erotic desire when intimacy requires characters to make themselves vulnerable. They compromise their personal and bodily boundaries but they also gain access to new forms of intimacy. This section of the book begins by exploring different philosophies of place, from thinkers such as Kenneth Burke to Luce Irigaray and Edward Casey, which illuminate the dynamics of desire in Lyly and Shakespeare. The introductory pages focus on the container schema, a basic cognitive structure that allows us to conceptualize bounded regions in space by imagining an inside, outside, and boundary. To illustrate the role of the container schema in erotic experience, these pages analyze Valentine’s speeches about Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Although the famous questions in the play are “Who is Silvia? What is she?,” Valentine himself turns out to be preoccupied with the question, where is Silvia?Less

Dux neutrorum and the Jewish Tradition of the Guide of the Perplexed

Caterina Rigo

in Maimonides' "Guide of the Perplexed" in Translation: A History from the Thirteenth Century to the Twentieth

In this chapter, it is my intention to situate the early Latin translation of the Guide, Dux Neutrorum, within the Jewish tradition. An examination of the Hebrew manuscript tradition of the al-Ḥarizi ... More

In this chapter, it is my intention to situate the early Latin translation of the Guide, Dux Neutrorum, within the Jewish tradition. An examination of the Hebrew manuscript tradition of the al-Ḥarizi translation, which has never been undertaken before, has the potential to indicate which version of that translation was available to the translator (or to one of the translators) of DN. And a detailed examination of its reception among Jewish thinkers, which I can only outline in this chapter, will be helpful both to place DN geographically and to illuminate the historical contexts in which it was composed. This is particularly true in light of the fact that it has been accepted since Perles that the translator (or one of the translators) of DN was Jewish. Moreover, a close study of the technical-philosophical terminology of the translation, its sources, and the translator’s own approach to Maimonides’ text can teach us something about the educational background of the anonymous translator and help us identify this individual and his cultural world. At the conclusion of the chapter, on the basis of these data, I will put forth a new hypothesis about the identity of DN’s translator.Less

Dante and the Three Religions

Giorgio Battistoni

in Dante and Islam

This essay examines questions of Dante and Islam, as well as Judaism and Christianity, through the historically specific lens of Verona and the court of Cangrande della Scala as well as a personal ... More

This essay examines questions of Dante and Islam, as well as Judaism and Christianity, through the historically specific lens of Verona and the court of Cangrande della Scala as well as a personal scholarly journey. By drawing attention to the transmission of the Liber scale machometi that is attested to not in Tuscany but in Verona and Lombardy in the later part of the 14th century, it shows how the northern Italian setting is particularly relevant in tracing the possible influence of non-Christian sources on Dante during his time at the court of Cangrande. The figures of Hillel of Verona and Manoello giudeo, mentioned but briefly by Asín Palacios, are further examined as they attest to a vibrant intercultural exchange from the early 13th century to Dante’s time in Verona and to the particular Jewish role in bringing the three monotheistic traditions into literary contact with one another. In finding links between the work of Dante and Manoello in particular, we might see a culture of tolerance as well as a shared risk that leads both to be lambasted and damned in a later sonnet by Cino da Pistoia.Less

Roma caput mundi: Rome’s local antiquities as symbol and source

Kathleen Christian

in Local antiquities, local identities: Art, literature and antiquarianism in Europe, c. 1400–1700

It will consider different antiquarian strategies in Rome adopted during a window of time (from the second half of the fifteenth century into the early sixteenth) when antiquity was open and ... More

It will consider different antiquarian strategies in Rome adopted during a window of time (from the second half of the fifteenth century into the early sixteenth) when antiquity was open and available, to Romans and non Romans, to the lay nobility, to new men, to Cardinals and literati. A glimpse into the patronage of art, literature, architecture and festival décor by Cardinal Pietro Riario, Cardinal Raffaele Riario, Lorenzo Manlio, and as will be discussed in most detail, the Maffei family from Verona, will emphasize the variety and diversity of approaches to the antique, each re-using the past to establish a new beginning or a moment of the re-foundation of antique glory. Diverse strategies heralded the refoundation of Rome, in a way which vaunted the rise to prominence of a particular patron or family. This is seen by comparing the antiquarian strategies of foreigners and locals, of men of different ranks and with different social roles: those of Cardinals (the Riario), a native Roman (Manlio), and a family of non-native Veronese (the Maffei).Less

Ferrara in the 1430s

Lewis Lockwood

in Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400–1505: The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century

In the 1430s Niccolò continued to wield local power, to father bastards, and to live as feudal lords had always lived. But the new shaping forces at the court, and in the seats of power in Italy, ... More

In the 1430s Niccolò continued to wield local power, to father bastards, and to live as feudal lords had always lived. But the new shaping forces at the court, and in the seats of power in Italy, were centered in the rising influence of the forms of thought associated with humanism and the new learning. At Ferrara, this was especially visible in the education and growing maturity of Niccolò’s son and chosen heir, Leonello d'Este, who was to become one of the most remarkable ruling figures in the first half of the fifteenth century. A familiar commonplace of local history is that Leonello’s training under Guarino of Verona launched the humanistic movement at Ferrara, and that the impact of these teachings on him marks an example of the success of humanism as a program for the training of the aristocracy.Less

Ovid and the Styles of Adaptation in The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Goran Stanivukovic

in Ovid and Adaptation in Early Modern English Theatre

The Two Gentlemen of Verona heralds the beginning of Shakespeare’s long-lasting appropriations of Ovid in his drama and poetry. This chapter analyzes the stylistic resonance of Ovid’s Heroides in ... More

The Two Gentlemen of Verona heralds the beginning of Shakespeare’s long-lasting appropriations of Ovid in his drama and poetry. This chapter analyzes the stylistic resonance of Ovid’s Heroides in Shakespeare’s earliest comedy. The focus of exploration is on the affinities between the emotional intensity and stylistic exuberance of Ovid’s love poetry and the richness of the figurative language of Shakespeare’s early Ovidianism in drama. Shakespeare turned to Ovid for crafting his own dramatic poetry of love and erotic desire because Ovid’s works resonated with the expressive freedom to which Shakespeare turns to free his love poetry from conventions. Shakespeare transforms the rhetoric of the verse epistle from the Heroides, a work associated with women, to suit the male voice.Less

Vienna, Verona, Venice (1822–1823)

Richard Osborne

in Rossini: His Life and Works

Gioachino Rossini and Isabella Colbran arrived in Vienna on March 23. Four days later they attended a performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz. A new opera, Euryanthe, had been ... More

Gioachino Rossini and Isabella Colbran arrived in Vienna on March 23. Four days later they attended a performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz. A new opera, Euryanthe, had been commissioned for the following year. The disorder and apparent poverty in which Ludwig van Beethoven lived came as something of a shock to Rossini. The situation moved Rossini to speak of the need to find Beethoven better lodgings and greater recognition from Viennese society. Before leaving Vienna in July, he wrote a song as his farewell to a number of cities. With a difficult summit meeting of European leaders scheduled to take place in Verona in November, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich invited Rossini be the event’s “official composer.” At the same time as Rossini was talking to Metternich about Verona, he was also brokering deals with the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.Less

“Hark, Hark, the Dogs Do Bark …”: The Assault on Mendicant Holiness (1234–60)

Donald S. Prudlo

in Certain Sainthood: Canonization and the Origins of Papal Infallibility in the Medieval Church

This chapter examines how the mendicant orders that began to receive the honors of canonization caused opposition to saints within the church to sometimes break out into the open. By the middle of ... More

This chapter examines how the mendicant orders that began to receive the honors of canonization caused opposition to saints within the church to sometimes break out into the open. By the middle of the thirteenth century, papal canonization had become one of the most professional endeavors ever devised. It had explicit, streamlined processes, checks and balances, a diversity of legal explanations and defenses, and growing prestige among the membership of the church. It began to be a tool that the papal curia could use to reward devoted subjects, a method of elevating and underscoring certain types of piety and holiness, and a way to stress certain currents in papal policy. Canonized saints could also be explicitly deployed against heresy and heretics. This chapter analyzes the contours of antagonisms against papal saints and sainthood, including Peter of Verona, and how they collided with the rapidly developing theology surrounding papal canonization, its increasing institutionalization, and its promotion by the mendicants.Less

Systems of Conflict: An Overview

Patrick Lantschner

in The Logic of Political Conflict in Medieval Cities: Italy and the Southern Low Countries, 1370-1440

This chapter introduces the interpretative framework that underlies the analysis of systems of conflict in Chapters 5 to 7. It is suggested that different modes of conflict were concentrated in ... More

This chapter introduces the interpretative framework that underlies the analysis of systems of conflict in Chapters 5 to 7. It is suggested that different modes of conflict were concentrated in cities in different ways. Bologna and Liège saw especially high levels of urban warfare, in Florence and Tournai constitutional bargaining predominated over other modes of conflict, while in Verona and Lille various forms of protest constituted the principal mode of conflict. These diverse systems of conflict often crystallized around different configurations of political units, which had developed over time. The number, resources, and integration of collective associations, governmental institutions, and players involved in external war provided different conditions for and constraints on political action, leading to distinct patterns of conflict in different urban arenas.Less

Italy’s Suburban Amphitheaters

Allison L. C. Emmerson

in Life and Death in the Roman Suburb

“Italy’s Suburban Amphitheaters” traces the benefits that a city might derive from placing a major entertainment building in the suburb, concentrating on examples at Verona, Capua, Herdonia, and ... More

“Italy’s Suburban Amphitheaters” traces the benefits that a city might derive from placing a major entertainment building in the suburb, concentrating on examples at Verona, Capua, Herdonia, and Ocriculum. Not least, suburban amphitheaters took advantage of the zone’s open space to manage large festival crowds that included locals as well as the residents of neighboring cities. At the same time, the Italian highway system brought many regional and long-distance travelers to the suburbs, making a suburban amphitheater a particularly effective means of communicating competition with neighboring cities while at the same time expressing participation in a larger shared culture. Nearby monumental tombs, moreover, reinforced an amphitheater’s message, enhancing the urban façade while celebrating the city’s most prominent residents. In some cases, this interaction could even recall the architecture of the capital and declare a local endorsement of imperial power.Less

Discrepant emotional awareness in Shakespeare

R. S. White and Ciara Rawnsley

in The Renaissance of emotion: Understanding affect in Shakespeare and his contemporaries

The suggestive phrase ‘discrepant awareness’ was coined in 1960 by Bertrand Evans to explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents differences in knowledge and understanding between characters, and ... More

The suggestive phrase ‘discrepant awareness’ was coined in 1960 by Bertrand Evans to explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents differences in knowledge and understanding between characters, and between characters and audience, in order to build up irony and suspense, and to complicate plotting. This device, Evans suggests, is crucial to Shakespeare’s dramatic craftsmanship and a clue to the great range of theatrical effects he creates, respecting the multiplicity of perceptions that coexist and interact. However, while Evans shows how narrative complexity is enhanced by studying the limitations of what each individual knows or is ‘aware of’ at a particular moment he pays little attention to what each character is feeling. The argument advanced in this chapter is that the neglected notion of discrepant awareness can fruitfully be developed to include consideration of emotional fluctuations in each play, including passions (fixed obsessions), affects (humoral aspects in character creation), and emotions (fleeting situational responses). We explore emotional complexity of scenes for both characters and audiences, using scenes respectively from The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Cymbeline. It might be regarded as a distinctive hallmark of Shakespeare’s dramatic method in dealing with emotional complexity.Less

Kin, Friends, and Books (1434–37)

in Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations

This chapter discusses several letters by and to Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466), an Italian-born French author. The early letters by and to Isotta Nogarola, sometimes jointly with her elder sister ... More

This chapter discusses several letters by and to Isotta Nogarola (1418–1466), an Italian-born French author. The early letters by and to Isotta Nogarola, sometimes jointly with her elder sister Ginevra, circulated among a close circle of humanistically trained aristocrats closely related to the Nogarola family, one of the leading noble clans of Verona. The quality of those relationships was conditioned to some extent by the longer history of the author's city and family. One of the letters discussed in the chapter is by Isotta Nogarola to Ermolao Barbaro in which Nogarola introduces herself to Barbaro as an author of letters in classical Latin style and thus a member of the coterie of youthful humanist professionals and amateurs. Other letters discussed are: Isotta Nogarola to Giorgio Bevilacqua and Isotta Nogarola to Antonio Borromeo.Less

Danmiano (1438–41)

in Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations

From 1434 to 1439, the literary career of Isotta Nogarola—an Italian-born French author—is documented by frequent letters, written by her and by correspondents, which attest to her growing fame in ... More

From 1434 to 1439, the literary career of Isotta Nogarola—an Italian-born French author—is documented by frequent letters, written by her and by correspondents, which attest to her growing fame in the humanist circles centered on Venice and Verona. A transitional series of letters dates from 1438 through 1441, all exchanged between Nogarola and her elder compatriot Damiano dal Borgo, a member of an important Veronese patrician family, yet inferior in status to the Nogarolas. The Nogarola–dal Borgo correspondence has features that distinguish it from the polite and formal letters. Although the two exchange descriptions of their literary labors and encouragements to study, these are not the main object of their correspondence. Dal Borgo conveys information in his letters about Verona and about persons known to both, and Nogarola reveals her state of mind.Less

Foscarini (1451–66)

in Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations

This chapter discusses letters by portray Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author to the nobleman Ludovico Foscarini (1409–80), a Venetian governor appointed in the year 1451. He wrote her ... More

This chapter discusses letters by portray Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author to the nobleman Ludovico Foscarini (1409–80), a Venetian governor appointed in the year 1451. He wrote her twenty times in the course of 1453 (nearly twice per month), when, after a year back in Venice, he was stationed as the governor of Brescia, further to the west in Venice's northern Italian empire. During that period, it appears that Nogarola was corresponding with Foscarini regularly. His subsequent letters to her of 1461 and 1466 also attest to their continued relationship. Foscarini's letters to Nogarola may not be complete. His letters to her of 1461 and 1466, and to Damiano dal Borgo and Ermolao Barbaro in 1461 and 1464, respectively, document his sustained contact with Nogarola over the interval from 1454 to 1466, the year of her death.Less

The Black Swan: Two Orations for Ermolao Barbaro (1453)

in Complete Writings: Letterbook, Dialogue on Adam and Eve, Orations

Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author dedicated two orations to Ermolao Barbaro when he came to Verona as the city's bishop in 1453, the first of these an encomium congratulating him on his ... More

Isotta Nogarola, an Italian-born French author dedicated two orations to Ermolao Barbaro when he came to Verona as the city's bishop in 1453, the first of these an encomium congratulating him on his new appointment. Although she again pays tribute to his full panoply of Roman virtues—his gravitas, prudentia, magnanimitas, iustitia (gravity, prudence, magnanimity, justice)—what she now emphasizes is the forty-three-year-old cleric's severity and his extraordinary and, she implies, the joyless diligence in his studies. The second oration, in praise of Saint Jerome, explicitly addresses the citizens of Verona and is clearly a public oration delivered in Verona in 1453 shortly after Barbaro took office. In the first third of the oration, she stresses two qualities of her own—obedience and humility—as her motivation in accepting Barbaro's charge. She lauds the exceptional virtue of “true humility, which is obedient not to its own but another's will.”Less

Homoerotic Desire and Same-Sex Bonding: Challenges to Heterosexual Partnership?

Joan Lord Hall

in Sexual Desire and Romantic Love in Shakespeare: 'Rich in Will'

Chapter 7 discusses how far homoerotic same-sex relationships and close friendships (male and female) challenge heterosexual norms of romance. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which explore bisexual passion, ... More

Chapter 7 discusses how far homoerotic same-sex relationships and close friendships (male and female) challenge heterosexual norms of romance. Shakespeare’s Sonnets, which explore bisexual passion, privilege love for the ‘fair youth’ above lust for the ‘dark’ mistress. In Shakespeare’s theatre the transvestite convention of a boy actor playing a girl (who then pretends to be a boy) generates same-sex desire, as when Orsino in Twelfth Night is attracted to Viola dressed as Cesario. The chapter also shows how extreme devotion to a close male friend, the case with Antonio in The Merchant of Venice and Antonio in Twelfth Night, excludes these characters from the comic resolution of marriage. Meanwhile male friendship partly trumps heterosexual romantic attachment in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Two Noble Kinsmen, whereas strong bonds between females (Celia for Rosalind in As You Like It) only temporarily disrupt the progress toward traditional marriage.Less

Italy 1390–1480

Peter Mack

in A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620

This chapter discusses Italian authors and their contributions to the development of renaissance rhetoric. These include Antonio Loschi (1369–1441), Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444), Gasparino Barzizza ... More

This chapter discusses Italian authors and their contributions to the development of renaissance rhetoric. These include Antonio Loschi (1369–1441), Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444), Gasparino Barzizza (1360–1430), Guarino da Verona (1374–1460), George Trapezuntius (1395–1472), and Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457). Italian rhetorical works of the fifteenth century introduced a close critical reading of Cicero's orations to understand his tactics and his methods of achieving his aims. They also fostered an attempt to teach boys to achieve an acceptable classicism of expression, leading at a more advanced level to the ability to handle the full resources of the Latin language in an elegant way. They were a way of bringing the gains of Greek rhetoric over into Latin. They created a new understanding of the relationship between rhetoric and dialectic. Finally, they allowed for the taking advantage of the textual discoveries, especially Quintilian.Less