Pensare per contrari. Disincanto e utopia nel Rinascimento

The aim of this volume is to present a new image of the Renaissance focused on the interaction between utopia and disenchantment that characterises the most significant authors of the Renaissance period, from Machiavelli to Giordano Bruno and Paolo Sarpi (to whom is devoted a study centred in the first place on his Pensieri medico-morali). From the various essays of the volume clearly emerges the inadequacy of both the interpretation of the Renaissance which emphasises the concepts of ‘balance’ and ‘harmony’, and the interpretations, mainly developed in the XX century, which read the most significant authors and the most salient episodes of the Renaissance in light of the so-called ‘Civic Humanism’. On the contrary, the specific feature of the Renaissance age is a dramatic and even tragic vision of life, which nevertheless does not result into a self-retreat but gives rise to great myths and utopias within the realms of politics, philosophy and the arts.