Description
A classic of Italian literature! The chief merit of this work lies in its scope: it directly assays the personal value system of the Florentine bourgeois class, which did so much to foster the development of art, literature, and science. It displays a variety of high styles—high rhetoric, systematic moral exposition, novelistic portrayal of character—in the typical Renaissance framework of the dialogue. The treatise, in its entirety, shows a Florentine paterfamilias and two uncles instructing some submissive nephews in the ethics of private life. Money and reputation are its primary themes. Book III, the most dramatic, far-ranging, and down-to-earth of the four books, does not present a single bourgeois outlook but, as a dialogue, expresses conflicting points of view, enabling students to relive social and moral conflicts that troubled early capitalist society.
Table of Contents
“This is a wonderful primary source, very accessible and germane for students today.” — Eric Dursteler, Brigham Young University
“A very useful and concise introduction to some of the social attitudes of Renaissance.” — Christine Kooi, Louisiana State University
“Students particularly enjoyed the General Prologue and became involved in classroom debates about the image of women presented in the book.” — Joseph F. Patrouch, Florida International University
“This is an excellent translation of an original source, with an introduction by one of the leading scholars working on the Renaissance family.” — Larissa Taylor, Colby College
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