Roberto Weiss (1906–1969)

This is a lecture on the very early beginnings of Italian renaissance humanism. Weiss focuses on figures in Venice, Padua, and other northern Italian cities, and Naples, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, between Dante and Petrarch. He does not talk about Petrarch. The style is learned and good-humored. He goes city by city and comments on several humanists or groups in each, most of whom are somewhat obscure, but he shows how and why they were important and paints a surprisingly lively picture of the dawn of the renaissance. Well worth seeking out.… (mere)