edited by Marco Faini and Maria Elena Severini
Wolfenbütteler Abhandlungen zur Renaissanceforschung Bd. 32
2016. 192 S. mit 27 s/w-Abb.
ISBN: 978-3-447-10489-0
Preis: € 58,-
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This volume collects the papers presented at the conference „Books for Captains and Captains in books. Italo-German Conference on the training and image of the military leader during the Renaissance, held at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel from 24th to 25th February, 2014. The essays explore at length why and how the captain became the subject of a series of new discourses. The present volume therefore proves an extensive insight into an understudied, if not neglected, subject. It investigates the rise of the captain in early modern Europe through a wide variety of sources: treatises, poems, books of precepts, translations from the classics, and visual sources. While the focus of this collection is mainly on Italy, the articles here collected stress the relevance of cultural transfer to and from Germany, while taking into account also other countries, such as France, Poland and Spain. The interdisciplinary approach allows the successful reconstruction of the figure of the captain, in order to understand the reasons of its rise, and to explain its multifarious representations. This collection of studies also enables us to investigate some of the most crucial historiographical questions concerning early modern Europe (i.e. the role of the Counter Reformation or the issue of social mobility) from new perspectives. „Books for Captains and Captains in Books will certainly pave the way for future research into this fascinating and complex topic.