Decorum, Obscenity, and Literary Authority in the Letters of Poggio Bracciolini and Panormita
By Nathan M Kish
Panormita’s Hermaphroditus (1425), a slim collection of 81 classically inspired epigrams, is rife with graphic depictions of sex, caustic abuse, and the Latin equivalent of four-letter words. Although initially greeted with praise by other humanists, a few years after publication the work was widely castigated for its lascivious language and content and Panormita found himself under heavy attack.
"A Single, Easily Managed Household": Antiquity and the Peloponnese in Late Byzantium
By Eric Wesley Driscoll
This paper argues that an increasing clarity of vision about the geographical unity of the Peloponnese is evident in several key texts from Late Byzantium, and that this increasing clarity is not simply a reflection of changing political conditions but attended a more intensely felt reception of ancient texts dealing with Sparta. Antiquity plays a crucial role in constructing a relationship between Hellenic ethnicity and territory, a relationship theorized in tandem with increasingly solid Byzantine control of the fragmented political landscape of the Peloponnese.
Progymnasmatic Ekphrasis at the Latin School of Arezzo and Vasari’s “Memory Images”
By Jesús Muñoz Morcillo
In the present paper, I focus on Giorgio Vasari's rhetorical formation at the Latin School of Arezzo in order to explain, which ekphrasis understanding was passed down at the beginning of the 16th century and how this progýmnasma may have coined the language of early art history.