Renaissance Culture in Context

Book excerpt: Scholarly traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have led us to assume that national traditions were defining in a way that they may not have been during the Renaissance, when Latin remained an international language. This collection interrogates the historical importance of national traditions, many of which depend upon geographical boundaries that took their shape only after the emergence of the nation state in the modern period. Each of the essays in this collection makes a distinctive contribution to a particular discipline and national culture. Taken together, they interrogate divisions between historiography and the fine arts, literature and the history of ideas as well as the boundaries between national traditions. The essays in this volume offer a compelling and persuasivejustification for an interdisdiplinary and international approach to the study of Renaissance culture.