The Thirteenth Recorded Manuscript Of The Cronaca Di Partenope

This volume offers the first critical edition of and thorough introduction to one of medieval Naples’ most notable expressions of local memory and identity and a foundational text in the subsequent development of Neapolitan historiography.

The fifteenth century, one of the most curious and confused periods in recorded history, witnessed amazing developments in the printing industry and in the production of books. The present volume surveys the history of the manufacture of books throughout the fifteenth century, whether written by hand or produced by the press, and points out that both methods faced very similar problems and found almost identical solutions for them. Actually, the fifteenth century itself saw no material difference between manuscripts and incunabula (fifteenth-century printings), and regarded the latter simply as codices produced by "a new method of artificial writing." Curt F. Bühler discusses the impact of the epoch-making invention on the scribes as well as the attitudes that the contemporary book-lovers adopted toward the products of the press. The author also studies the types of men who were attracted to the new industry and the nature of the books that they believed to be readily vendible. In addition, certain familiar beliefs regarding the history of the early presses are challenged, and possible solutions are presented for the problems are still imperfectly understood. To illustrate the text, beautiful reproductions of illuminated manuscript pages, printed pages, colophons, woodcut illustration, and early typefaces have been included. The author's discussion of the decoration in books is not so much a study in the fine arts but, rather, an analysis of the types of volumes which lent themselves to decoration, and the various forms of such work.

This volume traces the work of trecento historians of the Mezzogiorno, analyzing it through current methodological and theoretical frameworks. Questioning the current consensus, the book examines how the South as a cultural "other" began evolving over the fourteenth century, and reconsiders the nineteenth-century "Southern Question" concerning the Mezzogiorno’s history, culture and people and its lingering negative image in Europe and America. It also focuses on specific histories, authors and historiographical issues, and reviews how new understandings of the Mediterranean have begun to alter our perceptions of the South in a new global context and as the basis for new historical research.

"Bibliography of Italian studies in America" in each number, 1924-48.

An author and subject index to publications in fields of anthropology, archaeology and classical studies, economics, folklore, geography, history, language and literature, music, philosophy, political science, religion and theology, sociology and theatre arts.