Res aut res publica The Evidence from Italian Renaissance Manuscripts and Their Owners 英文参考文献.docVIP

Religions 2012, 3, 210–227; doi:10.3390/rel3020210 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 /journal/religions Article Res aut res publica: The Evidence from Italian Renaissance Manuscripts and Their Owners John M. McManamon, S. J. History Department, Loyola University, Chicago, IL 60660, USA; E-Mail: jmcmana@ Received: 31 March 2012; in revised form: 10 April 2012 / Accepted: 11 April 2012 / Published: 11 April 2012 Abstract: This paper examines a key tension in Renaissance culture as reflected in the origin and provenance of manuscript books. Were Renaissance manuscripts the private property of individual owners or the common wealth of a lettered public? Even an officially public library could not escape that tension, whether through abuse of borrowing privileges or plundering of vulnerable holdings. Market forces encouraged theft, while impoverished scholars used their knowledge to supplement meager incomes. Alternatively, a sense of common wealth is reflected in an ex-libris indicating that a codex belonged to an individual ―and his friends.‖ Book collecting, finally, becomes a helpful clue in discerning to what a scholar is committed. Some Renaissance clergymen used culture as a way to promote their ecclesiastical careers, while others collected and shared manuscripts as a way to promote tolerance. Keywords: renaissance; manuscripts; humanism; libraries; private property; common wealth ―Some scholars ... may even decide to read the Iter Italicum, just as I have enjoyed reading catalogues and inventories of manuscripts.‖ 1 Paul Oskar Kristeller Over a period of years in the recent past, I did read Kristeller‘s Iter Italicum. I found the experience exciting in a way that Carlo Ginzburg might appreciate: the historian as detective who unearths clues and follows where they lead ([2], pp. 96–125). Along the way, one encounters a tension related to Renaissance manuscripts: should one treat t