The Renaissance in Rome

by Charles L. Stinger

..". comprehensive, readable, beautifully documented... I cannot imagine a library or a person seriously interested in Renaissance Rome without it." --Manuscripta

"Brilliant synthesis. A must." --Bibliotheque L'Humanisme et Renaissance

..". no book in English or otherwise covers the breadth of Renaissance Rome as this one does. It will be definitive for a long time." --Church History

..". attractively presented... stimulating... " --Renaissance Studies

"In lively prose... the author paints a complex multilayered image of compelling vividness." --History of European Ideas

A distinctively Roman Renaissance starting in the middle of the fifteenth century is the subject of Charles Stinger's celebrated study. Cultural history at its best, The Renaissance in Rome will inform both Renaissance and Reformation scholars, as well as general readers fascinated and affected by the Eternal City.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

480 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1985

Reviews

[Arjen Taselaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book on the Renaissance in Rome is already somewhat older (it dates from 1985) and it has a somewhat old-fashioned feel. But to me it now seems indispensible in understanding the Renaissance city with its unsurpassed works by Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo and its impressive cityscapes in the Vatican and on the Capitol Hill. The book’s main focus is on humanist thinking in the 1443-1527 period which inevitably centred on the Papacy. After the popes returned to Rome from Avignon, the city was improved greatly and the Papacy strengthened. Humanists thought legitimized papal authority by linking it to both early Christianity and the Roman Empire of the early Caesars, in philosophy, theology, political thinking and the visual arts. This resulted in the splendid works of art and architecture that reached their zenith during the pontificates of Julius II and Leo X. But presenting the High Renaissance Papacy as a renewed Roman Empire was of course an act of huge self-delusion and the city of Rome paid a heavy price for papal hubris with the Sack of Rome in 1527 and the ‘loss’ to Catholicism of large parts of Northern Europe to the Reformation. If a book of the same scope were written now, I think it would be rather different and more critical, but Stinger’s empathy greatly helps in understanding Renaissance Rome’s beauty as well as its folly.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stinger's account of the Renaissance in Rome is scholarly but readable. He explains how the imperial and ecclesiastical centrality of Rome became the dominant renaissance theme in Rome from the return of the Papacy until the sack of Rome by Spanish soldiers. I learned a great deal about the Rome which Machiavelli criticized, and which produced Raphael and Machiavelli's greatest works. Stinger is even-handed in presenting authentic cultural greatness in the midst of a corruption that drove Luther away from the Church.

[Victoria]

I do not understand how this book is so boring. And yet! I just can't get through it.