This volume collects seventeen of the most distinguished essays to have been published on Renaissance topics in the last thirty years. The subjects of these essays include the definition of humanism, the Renaissance conception of modernity, the relation of painting to the liberal arts, the writing of history in the Renaissance, the role of music in the development of experimental science, and the development of a new Renaissance language of statecraft. Petrarch, Valla, Alberti, Accolti, Machiavelli, Steuco, Cardano, Baudoin, Montaigne and Campanella are among the authors who are here interpreted in significant ways. All of the essays were originally published in the Journal of the History of Ideas, a journal with a long tradition ofpublishing important interdisciplinary essays in the field of Renaissance studies. Contributors: ROBERT BLACK, MARCIA L. COLISH, STILLMAN DRAKE, MARTIN FLEISHER, VITO R. GIUSTINIANI, SARAH STEVER GRAVELLE, ROBERT HARIMAN, JOHN M. HEADLEY, DONALD R. KELLEY, JOHN B. MONFASANI, MARK PHILLIPS, ZACHARY S. SCHIFFMAN, CHARLES B. SCHMITT, JERROLD SEIGAL, NANCY G. SIRAISI, RICHARD WASWO and CARROLL W. WESTFALL.