With the publication of La nouvelle culture (1480–1520), the long-anticipated second volume needed to complete Eva Kushner's four-tome comparatist history L’Époque de la Renaissance (1400–1600), readers now have full access to the most thorough, complete and up-to-date pan-European treatment of the spectrum of the human sciences as conceived in the premodern period we know as the Renaissance.
Initially undertaken in 1988, with the publication of the series’ first volume, L'avenèment de l'esprit nouveau (1400–1460), followed by the fourth and final chronological volume in 2000, Crises et essors nouveaux (1560–1610), and then the 2011 third volume, Maturations et mutations (1520–1560), this second volume truly is the culmination of three decades of research. That this volume would appear last in the series is understandable, as the four decades in question represent the period in which the renewed brand of humanism, heretofore practiced largely and most significantly in Italy, would begin to take root in the rest of Europe, in nations that were only beginning to reconsider the nature of their political systems. If the subsequent four decades would be, as the series suggests, the period of maturity and evolution, 1480–1520 would represent the cusp of a Europe moving from medieval ways of thinking into new conceptions of culture, belief, art, identity, communication, and civic life. A roundtable discussion at a recent MLA convention posed the rhetorical question, “The year 1500: Are we modern yet?” With cultural novelties and reconsiderations traced twenty years in both directions from this generic historical nodal point, La nouvelle culture (1480–1520) makes it abundantly clear that this certainly is the period of assaying new methods and becoming modern.
Remaining resolutely interdisciplinary and international in their approaches to epistemological inquiry in this period of discovery, the authors bring to the fore a number of domains that certain readers might be surprised to learn were examined and discussed across borders and linguistic traditions in this generative era. For example, over an opening trio of essays, Matteo Soranzo demonstrates the calling into question and transformation of Aristotelian ideals, Thomist theology, the scriptural canon, and the uses of sacred music—all over Europe and the New World. Indeed, the theories of Ficino, Pico, Leone Ebreo, and Agrippa are evoked across chapters as Europe is shown to become more open to Neoplatonism, cabala, the esoteric, and even the occult. A succeeding section examines political transformation, as Europe evolves from decentralized feudal states into national sovereign monarchies, and new states and civic mentalities are born. In later sections, novelties such as printed books, humanistic treatises, individualized literary and artistic pursuits, patronages and social organizations, reflections on the church and clericalism, festivities and rituals, new theories and their detractors, academies and quarrels, and much more, are examined in depth, straddling borders and confirming the widespread, pervasive zeitgeist that embraced newness, discovery, and calling into question the truisms of the past.
To underline the volume's unrelenting fidelity to the comparatist approach, allow me to refer to an essay germane to my own research, François Rouget's contribution “Le madrigal pétrarquisant: Mutations de la lyrique courtoise.” The author examines the development of Quattrocento lyricism from the royal courts to the Italian cultural hubs of Milan, Rome, Venice, Ferrara, and Naples, before tracing the Platonization of Petrarchism in the Cinquecento and its exportation to the French Grands Rhétoriqueurs, Spanish Canioneros, the courtly makers of England, and the Meistersingers of the burghs of the German states, ultimately passing by Croatia, Portugal, and Scotland en route.
Much like the quadrivium, the volume concludes with discussions of music and astronomy, as humankind seeks beyond itself, its civic sphere, and the known world to contemplate the stars, the seas, nature, magic, ideals of perfect harmony, and other concepts unconsidered that had previously been ignored or simply evaded scrutiny. Naturally, in addition to those mentioned above, names like Erasmus, Lefèvre, Leonardo, Luther, Machiavelli, More, Savonarola, and Valla figure prominently throughout the essays in this rich volume.
Astride two eras, with a Janus-like glance to the medieval past and a gaze oriented toward the new in the nascent Renaissance, La nouvelle culture (1480–1520) will stand as a valuable and enlightening reference for generations to come.
