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The century following Duke Humphrey's death has transmitted an image of "the Good Duke" that modern historiography may find misleading. Contemporary scholarship is interested in his role as the promoter of humanism in fifteenth-century England; yet, though in the course of his life there were acknowledgements of his patronage, the years immediately following his death saw his image undergo a metamorphosis. His role as a proto-humanist was quickly forgotten, while the political resonance of his death made later scholars overlook his unsuccessful career as a politician. Humphrey's death created a major sensation, and after the fall of the Lancasters it was quickly exploited for propaganda purposes by the York faction first, and by the Tudors afterwards. Humphrey haunts Elizabethan drama and Ovidian epistles, appears as an improbable Wycliffite in Foxe's "Acts" and as a wise man of the world in More's "Dialogue Concerning Heresies". The present article takes Duke Humphrey and his afterlives as a case study for the examination of the role of propaganda in literary/political biography.

A celebrated orator, historian, philosopher, and statesman, Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459) was one of the most remarkable figures of the Italian Renaissance. As contemporaries noted, his intellectual versatility--including an interest in architecture--linked him to Leon Battista Alberti, the renowned "universal man" of the Renaissance. Like Alberti, Manetti wrote in both Latin and Italian, and made new translations of canonical texts such as Aristotle, thus replacing the faulty medieval renderings that were the mainstay of Scholastic thought. A pious Christian, he translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin, thus challenging the centuries-old Vulgate; and he was the first scholar since Jerome to translate the Psalms from the original Hebrew. To forestall possible critics, he penned a treatise expounding his philological methods in translating scripture. Delivered over the course of nearly twenty years, his addresses to magistrates, commanders, princes, and popes furnish a vivid picture of Quattrocento politics and diplomacy. This authoritative biography, the first in any modern language, both describes chronologically the events of his extraordinary career, and analyzes his numerous and wide-ranging writings, which confirm Manetti's status as an exemplar of the spirit of the Italian Renaissance.--

Manetti's Latin treatise Adversus Iudaeos et Gentes (Against the Jews and Gentiles) offers a polemical defense of the Christian religion. This volume, which includes the first four books,surveys human history from the Creation to the life,teaching, and resurrection of Christ. Book I begins with the creation and fall of man in the Biblical account. There follows a long digression adversus gentes (the Gentiles, i.e., pagans), which reviews central points of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and religion, and censures the ancients for their senseless doctrines and bloody rites. Manetti then returns to the Jews, whose beliefs and practices are praised from Abraham to Moses. During their centuries of "true" piety, Manetti calls the chosen people "Hebrews." But from the time of the Exodus onwards, he censures them as "Jews" because they observe the absurd and cruel practices of Pentateuchal legislation, which he views as analogous to pagan rites. Manetti stresses several themes in Jewish history: the early development of the concept of righteousness, the Exodus, the Mosaic Law and its inadequacy--thus providing a "preparation for the Gospel" in Eusebius' sense. The next three books provide a synoptic biography of Jesus in three stages. Book II describes the life of Christ up to the raising of Lazarus; Book III relates his teaching, and Book IV offers an account of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection.--

Geistesgeschichtlich ist die große Vergangenheit des lateinischen Aristotelismus immer noch unbewältigt. Die vorliegende Teiledition eines Cursus philosophicus von 1653/55 [Ms. BU Salamanca 1351-52] dokumentiert den regen Schulbetrieb zu Lockes Zeit. Etwas 'metaphysische' zu betrachten, das hieß im Suarezismus, es gerade unter Bezug auf unser Denken zu betrachten: quoad nostros conceptus (Arriaga). In diesem erkenntnistheoretischen Sinn 'metaphysische' Abhandlungen sind hier zusammengestellt. Hauptfrage: Hat das Urteil schon diesseits des Wahrheitsbezugs einen eigenen Gegenstandsbezug? Die Psychologie des Urteils erscheint systematisch verknüpft mit der Ontologie des Irrealen (ens rationis ratiocinantis). Der Autor González de Santalla, sonst immer nur der Märtyrer der Gesinnungsethik, wird als Scholastiker vorgestellt. Die intellektuelle Biographie dieses Jesuiten konzentriert sich auf seine philosophiepolitische Aktivität: Ab 1687 war er der Chef jenes globalen Bildungskonzerns, der damals über sechshundert Schulen und Hochschulen unterhielt. Hundert Jahre später war diese Institution, die Societas Jesu, vom Erdboden verschwunden.Interessenten: Philosophen, Mediävisten, Romanisten, Theologen, Kulturhistoriker In order to trace Psychologism, particularly the 18th-century' perception theory of judgment' (G. Nuchelmans), a case is made for a fair appreciation of the Aristotelian school philosophy during Locke's life time. From a hitherto unknown Jesuit Cursus Philosophicus of 1653/55, a substantial portion of its disputations on Logic, Psychology and Metaphysics is edited. A remarkable refutation of Suárez's classical account of the beings of reason reveals the systematic connection between any theory of judgment and the ideas on how to make sense of the chimaeras. This time, González de Santalla, otherwise famous for his firm stand against ethical Probabilism, is presented as an epistemologist. His intellectual biography focuses on the schoolman and on a future Jesuit General's (1687-1703) educational policy, who tried to keep the standards of school philosophy.Readers: Scholars interested in mediaeval and modern philosophy, in the history of higher education, and hispanists.