New Sense of the Past

by Angelo Mazzocco

During his lifetime the historian and antiquarian Biondo Flavio (1392-1463) struggled to obtain recognition as a major contributor to the humanistic movement of the fifteenth century. Throughout the Renaissance, fellow Italian scholars far too often condemned rather than endorsed his scholarly works. His troublesome career and mixed reputation among his peers stand in stark contrast with the highly innovative character of his learning, which proved to be ground-breaking for the further development of various strands of historical and antiquarian research in the Early Modern Age. The authors...