Introduction and origins -- Diffusion and reception of Classical rhetoric -- Italy 1390-1480 -- Rudolph Agricola -- Erasmus -- Northern Europe 1519-1545 : the age of Melanchthon -- Northern Europe 1545-1580 : Ramus and company -- Southern Europe in the sixteenth century -- New syntheses 1600-1620 : Keckermann, Vossius, and Caussin -- Manuals of tropes and figures -- Letter-writing manuals -- Preaching manuals and legal dialectics -- Vernacular rhetorics -- Conclusion : Renaissance rhetoric.

This is the first comprehensive History of Renaissance Rhetoric. Rhetoric, a training in writing and delivering speeches, was a fundamental part of renaissance culture and education. It is concerned with a wide range of issues, connected with style, argument, self-presentation, the arousal of emotion, voice and gesture. More than 3,500 works on rhetoric were published in a total of over 15,000 editions between 1460 and 1700. The renaissance was a great age of innovation in rhetorical theory. This book shows how renaissance scholars recovered and circulated classical rhetoric texts, how they absorbed new doctrines from Greek rhetoric, and how they adapted classical rhetorical teaching to fit modern conditions. It traces the development of specialised manuals in letter-writing, sermon composition and style, alongside accounts of the major Latin treatises in the field by Lorenzo Valla, George Trapezuntius, Rudolph Agricola, Erasmus, Philip Melanchthon, Johann Sturm, Juan Luis Vives, Peter Ramus, Cyprien Soarez, Justus Lipsius, Gerard Vossius and many others.

Índice.

Bibliogr.: p. 319-328.

Describes the most important individual contributions to the development of Renaissance rhetoric and analyzes the new ideas which Renaissance thinkers contributed to rhetorical theory.