Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library and Renaissance Culture

Yale University Press, 1993 4to (31 cm), XXVI, 325 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket (small tear top of dj, blind collector's stamp on front free end-paper). Anthony Grafton invites us to examine Renaissance Rome as a whole, and in particular, to view its literature in light of the city's institutions. In a series of fascinating episodes, he takes us into the Vatican Library and other collections of the city, focusing on the ever-growing Renaissance dialogue between the Christian and pagan worlds, and exploring the connections between the literary life of the city and the spiritual and political upheavals of the time. Along the way, he sheds new light on such figures as Gregory the Great, Cicero, and the Medici family, and many more. With the author's trademark erudition and wit, Rome Reborn offers a breathtaking tour of Renaissance Rome and its literary culture, vividly depicting the city in all its facets--political, religious, social, and cultural--and showing us the ways in which a deep knowledge of its ancient history and culture shaped the Renaissance worldview.