Gregorio Comanini. The Figino, or On the Purpose of Painting: Art Theory in the Late Renaissance. Eds. Giancarlo Maiorino and Ann Doyle-Anderson. (Toronto Italian Studies.) Buffalo and Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. xxii + 158 pp. index, bibl. $50 (cl), $21.95 (pbk). ISBN: 0-8020-3574-4 (cl), 0-8020-8446-X (pbk).

2003 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 773-774
Author(s):  
Louis Alexander Waldman
Keyword(s):  
Art Theory ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Italian Studies ◽  
Late Renaissance

Richard Mackenney, Venice as the Polity of Mercy: Guilds, Confraternities, and the Social Order, c. 1250–c. 1650. Toronto Italian Studies. Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2019, xiii, 471.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 551-552
Author(s):  
Thomas Willard
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Legal Scholar ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Italian Studies ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Town ◽  
The University

Shakespeare is well known to have set two of his plays in and around Venice: The Merchant of Venice (1596) and The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1603). The first is often remembered for its famous speech about “the quality of mercy,” delivered by the female lead Portia in the disguise of a legal scholar from the university town of Padua. The speech helps to spare the life of her new husband’s friend and financial backer against the claims of the Jewish moneylender Shylock. The play has raised questions for Shakespearean scholars about the choice of Venice as an open city where merchants of all nations and faiths would meet on the Rialto while the city’s Senate, composed of leading merchants, worked hard to keep it open to all and especially profitable for its merchants. Those who would like to learn more about the city’s development as a center of trade can learn much from Richard Mackenney’s new book.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document