The Portable Renaissance Reader

A textbook for an Italian Renaissance course. It is a group of essays from renaissance personalities. Some of them I found very interesting and on point for the subject to be discussed in class.

This book was ordered for my son for a college class he was in last year, but I have since taken it and added it to my collection and I've enjoyed picking it up now and then and reading selections. It's not something you need to read all at once, but you could place in your kitchen for when you are waiting for water to boil and you need something to occupy yourself...or when you are waiting for a phone call, and you have time to kill...all those moments when a long book won't do, but a selection from this textbook will satisfy.

There are an amazing number of pieces that are included in "The Portable Renaissance Reader." These works include letters from Boccaccio and Pope Pius II to Petrarch's poetry. Other writings, such as, "Self-Protrait of a Universal Man" by Leon Battista Alberti provides a thoughtful look into the notion of what defines a "Renaissance Man." Within its impressive volume, however, with the exception of St. Teresa of Avila, there lacks women writers of the period; yet the book not only covers a broad amount of material by Renaissance men, but there is also a biographical list of authors and a chronological table that is an asset for researchers who would like to go into further depth on the subject. Perhaps, an accurate summarization of this book is that it provides much information into what is still called "portable."