Jill Kraye

An excellent essay collection relating to the post-Aldus lives of the Aldine press and its publications. Highly recommended to anyone with even a remote interest in early printing, book collecting, or the book trades.

This collection contains seventeen English translations of philosophical texts from the Renaissance. Most of them are fairly short excerpts from larger works. The texts supposedly represent Renaissance political philosophy, but this is a strained categorization. Some of them are pure theology, others give simple "advice to the prince" on conduct and morals, while some just praise the city of Venice and its government. Only one of the texts kindled any philosophical inspiration in me. This show more was Guicciardini's "How the Popular Government Should be Reformed", where he specifies political roles in the city of Florence for the population's general council, the elected representatives and the princely "Gonfalonier" office. The so-called philosophy of the other writings is quite insignificant. show less