James Hankins

The first full-length study of Francesco Patrizi, the greatest political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance prior to Machiavelli. Patrizi was a humanist whose virtue politics-a form of values-based political meritocracy-sought to reconcile the conflicting claims of liberty and equality in service of good governance. He wrote two major works, On Founding Republics (1471) and On Kingship and the Education of Kings (1483/84), both of which were hugely influential when printed in the sixteenth century, but later forgotten.

"Plato in the Italian Renaissance, the first book-length treatment of Renaissance Platonism in over fifty years, is a study of the dramatic revival of interest in the Platonic dialogues in Italy in the fifteenth century. Through a richly contextual study of the translations and commentaries on Plato, James Hankins seeks to show how the interpretation of Plato was molded by the expectations of fifteenth-century readers, by the need to protect Plato against his critics, and the broader hermeneutical assumptions and practices of the period.

The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, published in 2007, provides an introduction to a complex period of change in the subject matter and practice of philosophy. The philosophy of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries is often seen as transitional between the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages and modern philosophy, but the essays collected here, by a distinguished international team of contributors, call these assumptions into question, emphasizing both the continuity with scholastic philosophy and the role of Renaissance philosophy in the emergence of modernity. They explore the ways in which the science, religion and politics of the period reflect and are reflected in its philosophical life, and they emphasize the dynamism and pluralism of a period which saw both new perspectives and enduring contributions to the history of philosophy. This will be an invaluable guide for students of philosophy, intellectual historians, and all who are interested in Renaissance thought.