Cristoforo Landino
His Works and Thought
Series:- Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts, Volume: 21
In
Cristoforo Landino: His Works and Thought Bruce McNair examines the writings, lectures and orations of Landino (1424-98), Renaissance Florence’s famous teacher of poetry and rhetoric. McNair studies Landino’s lecture notes, public orations, poetry, philosophical works and most popular commentaries to show how Landino’s allegorical interpretations of Virgil and Dante grew in complexity as he studied philosophy and theology and how he understood Dante’s Commedia as completing and surpassing Virgil’s Aeneid. McNair also shows how Landino draws upon a wide range of thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Aquinas, Ficino, Argyropoulos and Bessarion, and how he incorporates his increasing knowledge of Plato into a scholastic framework and is better considered as a Dantean than a Neoplatonist.
Biographical Note
Bruce G. McNair, Ph.D. (1991) in History, Duke University, is Associate Professor of History at Campbell University. He has published on Cristoforo Landino, Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great and Martin Luther.
Review Quotes
''Cristoforo Landino (1424-1498), the subject of this book, is a Florentine humanist whose importance has been recognized for several generations but not fully explored. [...] Now that individual issues have been researched, what has been needed is a more synthetic effort that incorporates what has been learned into a broader discussion of the development of Landino’s thought. This is precisely what McNair’s book is designed to provide. [...] All in all this is a solid contribution to Neo-Latin studies, one that fills a noticeable gap in scholarship and that will serve as the ‘go to’ source on its subject for years to come''.
Craig Kallendorf, in Neo-Latin News , 67 (2019).
Craig Kallendorf, in Neo-Latin News , 67 (2019).
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
1 Landino and his Works
2 The Xandra
1 Main Themes
2 Furor
3 Earthly Love—Heavenly Love
4 Civis poeta
5 Conclusion
3 Three Studio Courses of the 1450s and 1460s
1 Landino’s Praefatio in Tusculanis Ciceronis (1458)
2 Landino’s Prolusione to His Course on Petrarch’s Canzoniere (1467)
3 Landino’s Praefatio in Virgilio and 1462–63 Lectures on the Aeneid Books I–VII
4 Landino’s De anima
1 The Date of the Dialogue
2 Summary of the Dialogue
3 Terminology Used in the De anima
4 The Mind
5 The Virtues
6 The Appetite and Will
7 Aristotle, Albert, and Argyropoulos
8 Plato, Bessarion, and Albert
9 Conclusion
5 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books I and II
1 Title and Overview
2 Otium and negotium
3 Landino and Thomas Aquinas
4 Whether otium or negotium is Superior
5 Thomas, Ficino, and the Will
6 The Highest Good
7 Conclusion
6 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books III and IV
1 Terminology
2 The Powers of the Rational Soul
3 The Reason, the Appetite, and Divine Illumination
4 Poetry
5 Virtue
6 The Virtues and Modes of Life
7 Conclusion
7 The 1488 Virgil Commentary
1 Overview
2 Comparing the Commentary with His Lectures
3 Poetry and Interpretation
4 The Aeneid Books VII–XII
8 The Commentary on Dante’s Comedy
1 The Homer-Virgil-Dante Line of Epic Poets
2 Influence of Ancient and Christian Thinkers
3 Modes of Life
4 The Powers of the Soul
5 Virtue
6 Divine Grace and Divine Illumination
7 Conclusion
9 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
1 Landino and his Works
2 The Xandra
1 Main Themes
2 Furor
3 Earthly Love—Heavenly Love
4 Civis poeta
5 Conclusion
3 Three Studio Courses of the 1450s and 1460s
1 Landino’s Praefatio in Tusculanis Ciceronis (1458)
2 Landino’s Prolusione to His Course on Petrarch’s Canzoniere (1467)
3 Landino’s Praefatio in Virgilio and 1462–63 Lectures on the Aeneid Books I–VII
4 Landino’s De anima
1 The Date of the Dialogue
2 Summary of the Dialogue
3 Terminology Used in the De anima
4 The Mind
5 The Virtues
6 The Appetite and Will
7 Aristotle, Albert, and Argyropoulos
8 Plato, Bessarion, and Albert
9 Conclusion
5 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books I and II
1 Title and Overview
2 Otium and negotium
3 Landino and Thomas Aquinas
4 Whether otium or negotium is Superior
5 Thomas, Ficino, and the Will
6 The Highest Good
7 Conclusion
6 The Disputationes Camaldulenses Books III and IV
1 Terminology
2 The Powers of the Rational Soul
3 The Reason, the Appetite, and Divine Illumination
4 Poetry
5 Virtue
6 The Virtues and Modes of Life
7 Conclusion
7 The 1488 Virgil Commentary
1 Overview
2 Comparing the Commentary with His Lectures
3 Poetry and Interpretation
4 The Aeneid Books VII–XII
8 The Commentary on Dante’s Comedy
1 The Homer-Virgil-Dante Line of Epic Poets
2 Influence of Ancient and Christian Thinkers
3 Modes of Life
4 The Powers of the Soul
5 Virtue
6 Divine Grace and Divine Illumination
7 Conclusion
9 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Readership
All interested in the history of the Italian Renaissance, especially 15th-century Florence, the history of the interpretation of Dante and Virgil, and in Renaissance philosophy, Platonism and scholasticism.