HoP 352 - The Teacher of Our Actions - Renaissance Historiography
June 28th, 2020
Bruni, Poggio, Machiavelli, and Guicciardini explore political ideas and historical method in works on Roman and Italian history.
HoP 351 - Quentin Skinner on Machiavelli
June 14th, 2020
Leading Machiavelli scholar Quentin Skinner joins Peter to discuss morality, history, and religion in the Prince and the Discourses.
HoP 350 - The Sentence - Machiavelli on Republicanism
May 31st, 2020
Peter celebrates reaching 350 episodes by explaining a single sentence in Machiavelli's "Discourses."
HoP 349 - No More Mr Nice Guy - Machiavelli
May 17th, 2020
Machiavelli’s seminal work of political advice, "The Prince," tells the ruler how to be strong like a lion and cunning like a fox.
HoP 348 - The Sweet Restraints of Liberty - Republicanism and Civic Humanism
May 3rd, 2020
Did “civic humanism” really make republicanism a newly dominant political theory in the Italian Renaissance?
HoP 347 - Bonfire of the Vanities - Savonarola
April 19th, 2020
The prophetic preacher Girolamo Savonarola attacks pagan philosophy and puts forward his own political ideas, before coming to an untimely end.
HoP 346 - Cecilia Muratori on Animals in the Renaissance
April 5th, 2020
An interview with Cecilia Muratori, an expert on the surprisingly modern ideas about non-human animals that emerged in the Renaissance.
HoP 345 - What a Piece of Work is Man - Manetti and Pico on Human Nature
March 22nd, 2020
Pico della Mirandola and Giannozzo Manetti praise humans as the centerpiece of the created world. But what about the other animals?
HoP 344 - The Count of Concord - Pico della Mirandola
March 8th, 2020
Pico della Mirandola argues for the harmony of the ancient authorities, draws on Jewish mysticism, and questions the value of humanist rhetoric.
HoP 343 - As Far as East from West - Jewish Philosophy in Renaissance Italy
February 23rd, 2020
Jewish philosophers in Renaissance Italy, focusing on Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love, the Averroism of Elijah del Medigo, and Italian Kabbalah.
HoP 342 - Denis Robichaud on Plato in the Renaissance
February 9th, 2020
An interview with Denis Robichaud on how, and why, Plato was read in the Italian Renaissance.
HoP 341 - True Romance - Theories of Love
January 26th, 2020
Ficino describes a “Platonic” love purified of sexuality, prompting a debate carried on by Pico della Mirandola, Pietro Bembo, and Tullia d’Aragona.
HoP 340 - Footnotes to Plato - Marsilio Ficino
January 12th, 2020
Marsilio Ficino’s revival of Platonism, with a focus on his proofs for the soul’s immortality in his magnum opus, the Platonic Theology.
HoP 339 - I’d Like to Thank the Academy - Florentine Platonism
December 29th, 2019
The blossoming of Renaissance Platonism under the Medici, who supported the scholarship of Poliziano, Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola.
HoP 338 - All About Eve - the Defense of Women
December 15th, 2019
Refutation of misogyny in Moderate Fonte and Lucrezia Marinella.
HoP 337 - More Rare Than the Phoenix - Italian Women Humanists
December 1st, 2019
Cassandra Fedele, Isotta Nogarola, and Laura Cereta seek fame and glory through eloquence and learning.
HoP 336 - We Built This City - Christine de Pizan
November 17th, 2019
Christine de Pizan's political philosophy, epistemology, and the refutation of misogyny in her "City of Ladies".
HoP 335 - Sabrina Ebbersmeyer on Emotions in Renaissance Philosophy
November 3rd, 2019
An interview with Sabrina Ebbersmeyer about the relation of emotion to reason and the body, and panpsychism, in the Renaissance.
HoP 334 - Chance Encounters - Reviving Hellenistic philosophy
October 20th, 2019
The rediscovery of Epicurus, Lucretius, and Sextus Empiricus spreads challenging ideas about chance, atomism, and skepticism.
HoP 333 - Difficult to Be Good - Humanist Ethics
October 6th, 2019
Humanists from Bruni and Valla to Pontano and Castiglione ask whether ancient ethical teachings can still help us learn how to live.
