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Illuminates a spectrum of themes in the history of biblical interpretation. This work explores topics including Jewish exegesis and problems of Old Testament interpretation and the relationship between the Bible and social, political, and institutional history.

The controversy generated in Italy by the writings of Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso during the sixteenth century was the a historically important debate on what constitutes modern literature. This book re-examines these two poet-thinkers, the debate they inspired, and the reasons why that debate remains relevant.

"There is no comparable English study of al-Ghazali's place in Islamic theology. The book illustrates that al-Ghazali could be an especially attractive figure for comparative studies of how Latin and Arabic medieval authors approach the problem of the relations between philosophy and theology, faith and reason."--Deborah Black, Pontifical Institute/Center for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

Historians know a great deal about how English thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the "documentable" past, but relatively little about how they perceived times stretching back beyond history. Arthur B. Ferguson shows in this elegant essay that prehistory had great meaning in Renaissance England. Commentators of various sorts—from poets to antiquaries—looked to the most distant past for the vanishing point that would perfect their historical perspective and orient them in an age of increasing change. In this pursuit they had often to let imagination serve the purposes of interpretation. Though largely speculative, their efforts reveal much about the intellectual life of Renaissance England.Since the Bible left little room for speculation on prehistory—in fact no room at all for the concept itself—Utter Antiquity concentrates on myth and legend outside of the biblical context and on those who conjured prehistory out of these sources. A subtle conflict between belief and skepticism emerges from these pages, as Ferguson reveals how some Renaissance writers struggled with ancient explanations that flouted reason and experience, while others sidestepped such doubts by relating prehistory to man's social evolution. By isolating and analyzing topics such as skepticism, rationalism, and poetic history, Ferguson illuminates the development of historical consciousness in early modern England. His accessible and eloquent study contributes significantly to an understanding of the Renaissance mind and intellectual history in general.

Presents the biography of Silvestro Mazzolini da Prierio, little-known, yet eminent, sixteenth-century ecclesiastic, as well as an account of his wide-ranging literary works. This study is useful for scholars of church history and the history of theology, as well as a range of specialists interested in the Renaissance and the Reformation.

The controversy generated in Italy by the writings of Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tasso during the sixteenth century was a historically important debate on what constitutes modern literature. This book re-examines these two poet-thinkers, the debate they inspired, and the reasons why that debate remains relevant.

Explores the Renaissance movement known as humanism that spread from Italy eventually to all of Western Europe, transforming early modern culture in ways that are still being debated.

At the centre of Petrarch's vision, announcing a new way of seeing the world, was the individual, a sense of the self. This self seemed to be fragmented in Petrarch's work, divided among the worlds of philosophy, faith, and love of the classics, politics, art, and religion. This book shows how these fragmentary explorations relate to each other.