Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters

by Constance M. Furey

• ISBN13: 9780521849876
• ISBN10: 052184987X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Though the paradigm of modernist progression has been challenged on many fronts, Erasmus and other sixteenth-century figures are still commonly viewed as people who led the transition from a religious Middle Ages to a more godless modern era. Erasmus, Contarini and the Religious Republic of Letters complicates this transition by analysing a unique realm of spiritualised scholarship that cannot fit easily into any conventional intellectual chronology. By analysing the lives, work, and correspondence of Erasmus, Thomas More, Margaret More Roper, Reginald Pole, Gasparo Contarini, and Vittoria Colonna, this book demonstrates how these Catholic men and women of letters created a distinctive kind of religious community rooted in friendship and spiritualised scholarship. By spanning the too frequently respected gap between humanist reformers in northern and southern Europe, the book uncovers a widespread, if previously less visible, network that exhibited concerns we still grapple with today.

Table of Contents

Note on Texts	ix
Abbreviations	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(13)
A New Kind of Religious Life	14	(41)
Creating an Alternative Community	55	(31)
The Spiritual Quest	86	(32)
Necessary Relationships	118	(28)
Defining the Ideal	146	(20)
Epilogue	166	(5)
Notes	171	(54)
Bibliography	225	(22)
Index	247