Fifteen classic essays illuminate a broad cross-section of the intellectual history of the Renaissance.

The Journal of the History of Ideashas, over the years, published many important articles on the Renaissance; this selection provides a significant index of American scholarship in the field in the first twenty-five years of the journal's publication.
Apart from the quality of the papers, the main criterion of selection has been their diversity. The editors aimed to present a broad cross-section of the intellectual history of the Renaissance, and have on the whole preferred comprehensive rather than monographic studies. The so-called problem of the Renaissance is represented by FERGUSON; the historical thought of the period by WEISINGER, BARON, and REYNOLDS; its social, moral and religious thought by ADAMS, RICE and TRINKAUS; humanism by GRAY; philsophy and science by CASSIRER, RANDALL and BOUWSMA; literature by TUVE; the visual artsby SCHAPIRO; and music by LOWINSKY. First published 1968.