Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langjährigem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Schutzumschlag berieben, mit Randläsuren und kleinen Einrissen, Einband leicht angeschmutzt, Seiten leicht angegilbt / dust jacket rubbed, with marginal tears and small tears, cover slightly soiled, pages slightly yellowed. - It has been customary to think of the period between the Renaissance and the Risorgimento in Italy as a long cultural hibernation. The few names that have survivedsuch as Galileo, Piranesi, Vivaldiare seldom considered in the context of a particular time or place. On the whole, little is known of the Italian contemporaries of Newton, Locke, and Voltaire. In this book, Eric W. Cochrane examines the culture of the Age of Enlightenment in Tuscany where the Renaissance once shone most brilliantly. He describes a small world of big ideas, in which hundreds of scholars, landowners, priests, and politicians worked together in literary and scientific academies to bring the new concepts of science, art, and social justice to their fellow citizens. The study is based on newly discovered records of some thirty-five academies founded in Florence and other Tuscan cities, from the late seventeenth century to the outbreak of the French Revolution. They were the expression of a new vitality in Tuscan culture. By founding libraries, laboratories, and museums, and by publishing their proceedings, these academies made available to a large public the learning that had once been the privilege of the few. Fully conscious and proud of their own great cultural heritage, the Tuscan academicians at the same time willingly looked abroad for new ideas; for they felt themselves linked to the rest of Europe in the exciting task of building a new golden age. By putting into practice the principles of Enlightenment in their own small country, they laid the foundations for a unified Italy in the following century. / CONTENTS Preface CHAPTER I From the Cinquecento to the Settecento CHAPTER II Tradition, Enlightemment, and Co-operation . CHAPTER III Poetry, Piety, and Play CHAPTER IV Nature, Science, and the Cosmos CHAPTER V Antiquities, Archeology, and History CHAPTER VI Economics and Politics Index.