The Portable Renaissance Reader

The book is held together by tape! Not in good condition as described. Waste of money, I will be lucky if it holds together long enough to read.

This book covers the landscape from about 1400 to 1600, focusing on the following major groups of writings:*Man*Nature*GodWith excepts from Galileo, Kepler, Erasmus, Pius II, Teresa of Avila, Luther, Di Vinci and many other lesser known writers of the age The writings provide a glimpse (and little more) into the politics and philosophies of the times. Few of the writings, with the exception of some of the poetry, is complete, or even complete enough to dig in to in any depth. For instance, the excerpt from Cervantes Don Quixote is only 4 pages or so long.Having noted that limitation, the anthology is interesting enough, and will point the reader to other authors and works to dig deeper. The account of the election of Pius II alone is worth picking up a used copy of this book. An interesting anthology that provides a flavor of the age to the reader.

Probably only of interest to three groups of people:1: Historians2: Writers3: NerdsIt will give you a good idea of how much language has shifted in the last couple centuries. You'll also get a feel for how the individual writers whose letters are included wrote and thought. My only serious complaint is a lack of explanatory text around each document like a short summary of 100 or less words and maybe a topic index.

This book was ordered for my son for a college class he was in last year, but I have since taken it and added it to my collection and I've enjoyed picking it up now and then and reading selections. It's not something you need to read all at once, but you could place in your kitchen for when you are waiting for water to boil and you need something to occupy yourself...or when you are waiting for a phone call, and you have time to kill...all those moments when a long book won't do, but a selection from this textbook will satisfy.

All these "Readers" are absolutely wonderful, intensely interesting, and terrific for training apprentice historians. Now Amazon asked a lot of questions about the author and content -- pure silliness on their part. It is an anthology of original Renaissance documents.

A textbook for an Italian Renaissance course. It is a group of essays from renaissance personalities. Some of them I found very interesting and on point for the subject to be discussed in class.

The stories from the renaissance are full of color and drama and this book contains it all. A wonderful assortment of various authors from the time period! Highly recommend even if this isnt your thing. Never hurts to broaden your reading and experiences!

This book was great for my Italian history and film class. The professors really knew a lot about the topic and it was clear that they had learned a lot of the information from this book

Took a while to arrive, but it was worth it. The quality of the book and the writing is very good. The content is equally rich and insightful.

very beauty

quick, easy, cheap.

good