A Local Habitation and a Name: Imagining Histories in the Italian Renaissance

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Exploring the interplay between reality and imagination, this work delves into the literary contributions of key Italian authors from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, including Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Ariosto, and Tasso. Albert Ascoli analyzes how these texts reflect and shape historical narratives while also examining their roles in critiquing and redefining history. The book raises essential questions about the relationship between formal literary analysis and the historicist approach, highlighting the complexities of literary interpretation within historical contexts.