Languages and Cross-Cultural Exchanges in Renaissance Italy

Although much work has been done in the field of Renaissance Studies, at present there is no book which offers a comparative overview of the linguistic interaction between Renaissance Italy and the wider world. The present volume is intended to fill this void, representing the first-ever collection of essays that deal with multiple types of language contact and cross-cultural exchanges in and with respect to Renaissance Italy (1300‒1600). We bring diverse disciplinary perspectives together: literary scholars, historians, and linguists with different regional expertise; we argue for multilingualism and language contact as products of a period of dynamic change which cannot be fully grasped through a single framework. The contributions present a variety of case-studies by often cross-fertilising their approaches with other disciplinary lenses. This book aims to provide a comprehensive picture of a truly global Renaissance Italy where languages, textual traditions, and systems of knowledge from different geographical areas either combined or clashed. It takes a fresh approach to the history of late medieval and early modern Italy by focusing on East/West linguistic and cultural encounters, transmission of ideas and texts, multilingualism in literature (various genres and various forms of multilingualism), translation practices, reception/adaptation of new knowledge, transculturalism and literary exchanges, and the relationship between languages and language varieties.