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The Renaissance Battle for Rome: Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry

Online ISBN:
9780191989124
Print ISBN:
9780198878902
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Renaissance Battle for Rome: Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry

Susanna de Beer
Susanna de Beer
Director of Ancient Studies and Classical Receptions at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome and Senior Lecturer in (Renaissance) Latin Literature at Leiden University
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Published online:
18 January 2024
Published in print:
31 January 2024
Online ISBN:
9780191989124
Print ISBN:
9780198878902
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The Renaissance Battle for Rome examines the rhetorical battle fought simultaneously between a wide variety of parties (individuals, groups, authorities) seeking prestige or legitimacy through the legacy of ancient Rome—a battle over the question of whose claims to this legacy were most legitimate. Distinguishing four domains—power, morality, cityscape, and literature—in which ancient Rome represented a particularly powerful example, this book traces the contours of this rhetorical battle across Renaissance Europe, based on a broad selection of humanist Latin poetry. It shows how humanist poets negotiated different claims on behalf of others and themselves in their work, acting both as “spin doctors” and “new Romans,” while also undermining competing claims to this same idealized past. By so doing this book not only offers a new understanding of several aspects of the Renaissance that are usually considered separately, but ultimately it allows us to understand Renaissance culture as a constant negotiation between appropriating and contesting the idea and ideal of “Rome.”

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