Dinner Pieces, Volume 1: 97 (The I Tatti Renaissance Library) - Hardcover

Alberti; Leon Battista

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674295749 ISBN 13: 9780674295742

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2024

Synopsis

An innovative collection of comedic stories by the original “Renaissance man.”<br /><br />Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) was among the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance. His extraordinary range of abilities as a writer, architect, art theorist, and scientist made him the original model for the many-sided “Renaissance man.”<br /><br />A collection of stories meant to be read while dining and drinking, the Dinner Pieces, or Intercenales, are one of Alberti’s most innovative and experimental works, mixing literary genres and styles of prose composition adapted from both Greek and Latin models. They cover a wide range of topics, from moral philosophy, politics, and religion to the arts, money-making, love and friendship, and the study of the humanities. The Dinner Pieces offer satiric commentary on the cultural illusions and moral myths of Alberti’s day. They cut through the absurdity of human existence with the blade of wit and laughter and constitute an important monument in the history of comic writing.<br /><br />This English translation by David Marsh is based on the authoritative Latin text of Roberto Cardini, accompanied by ample notes.

About this title

About the Author

Roberto Cardini is Director of the Centro di Studi sul Classicismo.<br /><br />David Marsh is Professor of Italian at Rutgers University and an expert on the Italian Renaissance. He has published broadly on Renaissance humanism and the classical tradition and has translated seminal texts by important early-modern authors including Petrarch, Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Vico.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674295749
• ISBN 13: 9780674295742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 400