Paolo Beni

This is the first detailed life of the Italian humanist Paolo Beni (1553-c.1625), who in his lifetime was famous as a literary critic, linguist, and theologian. Dr Diffley's study is based on a wealth of unpublished material, and includes the most comprehensive bibliography of Beni's writings hitherto available. It has two aims: first to provide a fully documented account of Beni's life, which sheds light on many hitherto unknown episodes, and secondly to reassess Beni's major contributions to the study of Tasso, the Italian language, poetics, rhetoric, and history. In putting Beni back into his historical context, Dr Diffley calls into question many widespread assumptions about the so-called transition between Renaissance and Baroque in Italy. The book is intended for students of Italian literature, of the Renaissance and Baroque periods and of critical theory throughout the ages.