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The Renaissance Society of America has been the leading organization in the Americas since 1954 for the interdisciplinary study of the period 1300-1650 in Western history.

The Renaissance Text Series makes available editions and translations of Renaissance Latin, Greek, and Hebrew texts, bibliographical tools, and special purpose volumes. RSA members may purchase volumes at a 20 percent discount.

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New Titles

Volume 20

The Poetic Works of Helius Eobanus Hessus, Volume 2: Journeyman Years, 1509-1514
Edited, translated, and annotated by Harry Vredeveld (Ohio State University)
Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540) was the most celebrated poet of the German Renaissance and Reformation. Mutianus Rufus hailed him as “a modern Pindar.” Reuchlin crowned him “the king” of poets. To Erasmus he was a Beatus Rhenanus, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, and Hutten all rolled into one: a “Christian Ovid.” His star blazed resplendent for as long as Latin was read as a living language. Besides a brilliant style and a humanist’s learning he brought to his work an uncommonly wide range of themes, a warm and engaging tone, and a refreshing boldness in pioneering new genres on German soil. This second volume includes A Nuptial Encomium for the Godlike Sigismund King of Poland, Letters of Christian Heroines, and two impromptus or Sylvae, "Prussia" and "Love". All of these are presented in a critical edition, with idiomatic translations and informative introductions and notes.
2008 / 704 pages / 978-0-86698-381-5 / MR 333 / $95, £67

Volume 19

Early Renaissance Invective and the Controversies of Antonio da Rho
Edited, translated, and annotated by David Rutherford (Central Michigan University)
The Milanese Franciscan Antonio da Rho (1395-1447) has mostly left his mark as a humanist, even though he received the traditional Franciscan theological training and consistently styled himself a theologian. Rho found classical invective to be his best defense in his controversies and was among the first of the humanists to use it extensively in his Apology against a certain Archdeacon (1427/28) and his Philippic against Antonio Panormita (1431/32). In his Philippic he defended himself against Antonio Panormita, the author of the Hermaphrodite, who began composing invective poetry that ridiculed Rho with obscene insults. This controversy with Panormita also involved Rho with the broader issue of the utility of the poets and poetry that frequently engaged the early humanists. In his attempt to discredit and vilify Panormita personally and professionally, Rho resorted to any piece of gossip. He exploited allegations about sexual taboos, played to Lombard xenophobia, and even denounced Panormita as a heretic. In reading these texts, the reader has to grapple with things that are profoundly complex. Rho compounds the complexity through the use of the genre of rhetorical invective and by his recourse to its standard themes and topics.
2005 / 359 pages / ISBN-10: 0-86698-345-7, ISBN-13: 978-0-86698-345-7 / MR 301 / $48, £37

Volume 18

The Poetic Works of Helius Eobanus Hessus, Volume 1: Student Years at Erfurt, 1504-1509
Edited, translated, and annotated by Harry Vredeveld (Ohio State University)
Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540) was the most celebrated poet of the German Renaissance and Reformation. Mutianus Rufus hailed him as “a modern Pindar.” Reuchlin crowned him “the king” of poets. To Erasmus he was a Beatus Rhenanus, Melanchthon, Reuchlin, and Hutten all rolled into one: a “Christian Ovid.” His star blazed resplendent for as long as Latin was read as a living language. Besides a brilliant style and a humanist’s learning he brought to his work an uncommonly wide range of themes, a warm and engaging tone, and a refreshing boldness in pioneering new genres on German soil. In this first volume of his Poetic Works he bursts onto the scene with two lively narrative poems about student life at Erfurt (1506). These are followed by an exuberant praise of the university (1507), a prosimetric satire on a student’s passion for a prostitute (1508), and a cycle of eclogues that celebrate his friends and ideals, alternately laud and decry conditions at Erfurt, and trace the poet’s inner growth from callow youth to maturity (1509). Subsequent volumes will include his famed Letters of Christian Heroines, Luther Elegies, On Keeping in Good Health, Idylls, On the Tumults of these Times, Epicedia, Nuremberg Glorified, and the nine books of impromptus or Sylvae - all of them presented in a critical edition, with idiomatic translations and informative introductions and notes.
2004 / 640 pages / 86698-257-4 / MR 215 / $75, £60

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Volume 17

Platina: On Right Pleasure and Good Health: A Critical Edition and Translation of De honesta voluptate et valetudine
edited by Mary Ella Milham

". . . the work is important enough to deserve a modern edition, and Platina has found a patient, capable editor. . . . This will remain the definitive edition." -- Neo-Latin News

"Milham has opened for us an important window on the culture of Quattrocento Italy and Renaissance Rome." -- Sixteenth Century Journal

" ...the official cookbook of the Italian Renaissance, with extensive notes ..., including all the in-group jokes Platina included for his fellow humanist scholars." -- Los Angeles Times

1998 / 528 pages / 86698-208-6 / MR168 / OUT OF PRINT

Volume 16

Bartolomeo Scala: Humanistic and Political Writings
edited by Alison Brown

"...exciting new source material for students of Florentine elite society, political philosophy, and literature ... provides access to crucial humanist texts." -- Sixteenth Century Journal

"The documents chronicle the rise to power of a remarkable man. . . . the material edited here, virtually all of Scala's extant writings . . . merits study." -- Neo-Latin News

1997 / 608 pages / illus. / 86698-199-3 / MR159 / $60, £53

Volume 15

Robert Burton, Philosophaster
edited and translated by Connie McQuillen

". . . provides a perceptive apparatus, the Latin text, and a fast-paced translation." -- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900

A topical satire on seventeenth-century education.

1993 / 240 pages / 86698-123-3 / MR103 / $25, £22 $13, £12