The author’s research aims to present a comprehensive and contextualizing history of cryptography based on the rich source material of early modern Hungary.Cryptography will be contextualized in a wide range of social strata, integrated into the larger intellectual milieu of secrecy.This article surveys the most important source types of research in the field of diplomacy, private...
De rerum textura: Lucretius, Fracastoro, and the Sense of Touch
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This article explores the substantive influence that Lucretius’s poem De rerum natura had on Girolamo Fracastoro’s (1478–1553) theory of contagion.Perhaps the first early modern intellectual to systematically adopt Lucretius’s experiential epistemology, Fracastoro was also one of the very few who picked up on Lucretius’s insistency on the crucial importance of tactility.Tactus...
Anti-Machiavellianism and Roman Civil Religion in the Princely Literature of Sixteenth-Century ...
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This article uses a diachronic lens to examine the way in which humanistic attitudes towards classical civil religion, particularly Roman religion, changed over the course of the sixteenth century.Using princely tracts from across sixteenth-century Europe, the study argues that Reformation disputes and Machiavelli’s enthusiasm for “false” Roman religion pushed anti-Machiavellians to classify...
Politics, Monuments, and Venice’s Reclamation of Padua during the Cambrai War
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During the War of the League of Cambrai (1509–16), Venice’s extensive mainland empire came under attack.The conflict led Venetians of all social strata to debate the value—and future—of their Stato da terra.Although many came to favor its renunciation, a small group of powerful nobles exerted their influence to pursue its recovery.This article proposes that these patricians promoted their...