This book presents the works of a famous specialist in the culture of the Italian Renaissance, written mainly in the 70s and scattered across various hard-to-find publications. The collected works reveal the author's thoughtful plan: through the fate of specific ideas and people, the author seeks to come to the development of a new general concept of the Italian Renaissance as a historically unique type of culture. CONTENTS: From the author 7 Notes on the boundaries of the Renaissance 18I. Humanists, the style of living (style of thinking) about the determination of the renaissance “humanism” 45, how the humanists became humanists in the Middle Ages 56 times it is difficult to distinguish the group status of humanists 58 -a formal community 61 “Labor in leisure” 63 Association of the personality: Pico Della Mirandola 68 “Community classes literature" 69Five conditions of Lorenzo Valla 72Social prestige of humanistic education 73What was required for success 75Artists 79Social attitudes 85New concept of human dignity and humanistic individualism 88Education of the soul 92One of Machiavelli's letters 96Landino on the benefits of humanists for society 98Sages and laymen 100Social and cultural meaning bilingualism 104CHAPTER 2 Two realities"Greed to literature" 110Perception of time 112Universal human meaning of humanistic knowledge 116Natural and cultural 119"Serious game" 123Ritual of humanistic communication 126Life situation as a text 130The nature of humanistic correspondence 133Scientific friendship 135"Stylization" or "mythologization" of life 139C? Sora Poliziano and Bartolomeo della Scala 142 Novella Sacchetti 145From myth to culture 147Poggio Bracciolini in Baden 148CHAPTER 3 DialogueThe art of argument 151The structure of the genre as an expression of worldview 154Historical excursion: L. Olypki about the dialogues of the 15th century 157"Different mindsets" 159Self-refutation of Niccoli in the work of Leonardo Bruni "To Peter Histrius" 161"About greed" Poggio Bracciolini 164 "Camaldulan Conversations" Cristoforo Landino 168 Discord in Vergerio's statements 170 Epistolary dispute between Pico della Mirandola and Ermolao Barbaro 173 "On pleasure" by Lorenzo Valla 178 "On the advantages of the Roman Curia" by Lapo da Castiglionchio 182 Contradictions of the humanistic style of thinking 186G humanism and dialogical tradition 189From Dante's Limbo to "The School of Athens" by Raphael 192II. REVIVAL AND RELIGIONHumanists and the Church 211Changes in the religiosity of the Polish elite 216The nature of ridicule of religion in the short stories of Franco Sacchetti 221Were Pomponazzi and Callimachus “atheists” 224Dialogue of Christianity and antiquity in the Renaissance consciousness 228Early humanists and religion 231Philological criticism of Lorenzo Valla 239Humanistic image of heaven 243Bembo and treatises on love of the 16th century 2 48The theory of love in Neoplatonism Ficino 254Ficino about the “natural religion" 258Confessional^ Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 261Concluding remarks 264III. THE PROBLEM OF THE IDEALMarsilio Ficino on the world and God 269In blessed Arcadia 291The origins of the tragic in the High Renaissance 317IV. ON THE SOCIAL riftMachiavelli 345Renaissance and utopia 363Campanella's paradox 385Notes 401