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The practice and composition of music require patronage and institutional support, and they require it in a different fashion from that found in other forms of art. This collection of essays brings together the most recent and important contributions by leading scholars in the field to this crucial aspect of Renaissance musical culture. The articles approach the topic from a number of perspectives and consider the institutions and individuals engaged in supporting music; the systems of employment, benefices and sponsorship put in place to facilitate the support; and where, how and why music was sung and played. Taken together, these articles enable conclusions to be drawn about the interests of patrons and about the social and artistic status of musicians and composers within the courtly and urban context. - Publisher

Reprint of the original Latin text Tentamina semiologica, sive quaedam generalem theoriam signorum spectantia (1789), edited, translated and with an Introduction by Robert E. Innis The 33 sections of this classic text by Hoffbauer have a twofold focus: a descriptive inventory of signs, and a comparison of the expressive and cognitive powers of different sign systems. Using his sign typology as a point of departure, Hoffbauer inquires into the elements of matter and form both necessary and adequate to arrive at a definition of the sign. His purpose in doing so is to present his own version of a general sign theory after pointing out significant errors and weaknesses in the characteristicae universalis of Leibniz, Becher, Toennis, Kalmar, etc. Against the background of criticism of the contemporary deductive sign theories of Lambert, Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Daries, Wilkins, Kircher and others, Hoffbauer's general semiology gives shape to an outline of a deductive-hypothetical theory of signs. In this historical perspective, Hoffbauer's semiology is of outstanding importance and provides the opportunity to think through once again central and permanent problems of the general science of signs.

The Tractatus de origine et natura, iure et mutationibus monetarum of Nicholas Oresme, written in Latin in 1355-1356 and later translated in French by the author himself, might be seen as one of the most important works to read in perspective the late-medieval thought on the nature of money and the role of the sovereign and the political body of the community. This work, here offered in a newly revised Italian edition, built on some manuscripts preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France , appears from the onset as having a particularly marked political vocation, as it is addressed to the king of France Charles the Fifth, of whom Oresme was an advisor. The Norman magister has often been portrayed as a fervent supporter of a metallist view of the nature of money, as if its value were nothing more than the market value of the gold or silver it was made of, a perspective that might be characterised as one of private-law. However, a thorough reading of Oresme's monetary writings, that takes good stock of their historical contextualisation in the troubled monetary anarchy of the 1350s and of the interpretative links pointing to Aristotle's Politics and Ethics – known, translated and glossed by Oresme –, reveals a more complex analysis, that cannot be confined to the all-out defence of the intrinsic metallic stability of money. Rather, the proposed interpretation will qualify Oresme as a political advisor that perceives and appreciates the nature of money as a social institution, whose value and role is determined by those, the whole body of the political community, that are sovereign over money and resort to it in negotiations. In this political dimension of the government of the monetary institution emerges the structural role that Oresme attributes to the faith that must rest with those tasked with governing money: thus, the accent posed on the importance of preserving its value assumes a procedural dimension that aims at granting that the institution of money continues to fulfil its social metric role. ; Il Tractatus sulla moneta del filosofo e teologo Nicola Oresme, redatto in latino nel 1355-1356 e poi tradotto in francese dallo stesso autore, costituisce uno dei testi cardine della riflessione medievale sullo statuto della moneta e su chi ne sia sovrano. Quest'opera - di cui si propone una nuova e riveduta edizione italiana, impostata a partire da alcuni manoscritti conservati presso la Bibliothèque Nationale de France - testimonia sin dal suo avvio la sua forte valenza politica, avendo come primo interlocutore Carlo V il Saggio, il re di Francia di cui Oresme fu consigliere. Il magister normanno è stato spesso salutato quale fautore di una visione metallista della moneta, una merce tra le altre che vale tanto quanto l'oro o l'argento di cui è fatta, inserita in un'ottica schiettamente privatistica. Tuttavia, una lettura più attenta degli scritti monetari oresmiani, che metta in prospettiva sia il periodo storico in cui il testo fu redatto, caratterizzato da una diffusa anarchia monetaria, sia le relazioni che il Trattato stesso suggerisce rispetto ai passaggi aristotelici conosciuti e poi commentati dallo stesso Oresme, rivela un pensiero più complesso e più profondo. La cifra sintetica della sua riflessione monetaria non è infatti riducibile a una difesa ad oltranza dell'intrinseco metallico, ma si qualifica per lo spessore politico e teorico espresso dal consigliere regale che vede e apprezza della moneta il suo significato istituzionale. Il suo valore è stabilito da chi di quella moneta può dirsi sovrano e, al tempo stesso, fruitore: la comunità politica tutta. La dimensione eminentemente politica dell'istituzione-moneta emerge proprio da una rilettura complessiva del trattato. In esso il ruolo della fiducia nell'amministratore della divisa assume un'importanza strutturale incidendo sul valore della moneta e sulla necessità che esso venga tutelato e garantito attraverso precise garanzie procedurali sicché la moneta possa mantenere il suo fondamentale ruolo sociale: quello di misura.