HoP 358 - Of Two Minds - Pomponazzi and Nifo on the Intellect
October 25th, 2020
Pietro Pomponazzi and Agostino Nifo debate the immortality of the soul and the cogency of Averroes’ theory of intellect.
HoP 357 - David Lines on Aristotle’s Ethics in the Renaissance
October 11th, 2020
An interview with David Lines on the role of Aristotle in Renaissance ethics.
HoP 356 - I’d Like to Thank the Lyceum - Aristotle in Renaissance Italy
September 27th, 2020
Aristotle’s works are edited, printed, and translated, leading to new assessments of his thought among both humanists and scholastics.
HoP 355 - Town and Gown - Italian Universities
September 13th, 2020
The blurry line dividing humanism and scholastic university culture in the Italian Renaissance.
HoP 354 - Greed is Good - Economics in the Italian Renaissance
July 26th, 2020
Leon Battista Alberti, Benedetto Cotrugli, and Poggio Bracciolini grapple with the moral and conceptual problems raised by the prospect of people getting filthy rich.
HoP 353 - The Good Place - Utopias in the Italian Renaissance
July 12th, 2020
Tommaso Campanella’s “The City of the Sun” and other utopian works of the Italian Renaissance describe perfect cities as an ideal for real life politics.
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 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 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.
