Another Review of How to Think Like Shakespeare

The Renaissance was fond of manuals, literally books that could be held easily in the hand. Newstok’s book is a manual in the very best sense of the word. It is intelligent, perceptive, readable, useful. - Matthew Stewart for @ubookman https://t.co/eLC0OSs3wz pic.twitter.com/KGuvPZ2qHa

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) January 8, 2021

John Colet

John Colet, Catholic Humanist (essay by Thomas Banks) https://t.co/HPMgDPteAk

— ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) August 29, 2020

Imaginative Conservative

Colet’s life and learning represent Catholic humanism at its finest. He advocated for such reforms in education as the soundest minds of his day also desired, and gave real impetus to the study of the Greek language, which was then seen by certain more cautious authorities as too powerful an intoxicant. He knew the value of learning and—unlike more than a few intellectuals—he knew also the limits of its advantages. So much we find in one of his surviving letters to Erasmus, in which he writes, “Of books and learning there is no end; but there is nothing better in this short life than to live purely and holily, to strive daily after perfection and enlightenment, as these books teach us; but that can only be done by a tender love and imitation of Jesus Christ.”

Would it be unfair to criticize the Christian humanists for failing to appreciate Greek theology on its own terms and as a proper inheritance from Hellenism, and instead of focusing too much on the pagan Greeks (and Latins)?

The Beauty and the Terror

"The Beauty and the Terror is a grand scholarly accomplishment, one which can and, I hope, will find a large reading public." - @ClaytonTrutor for @ubookman https://t.co/zaR39Lj9id pic.twitter.com/14fRJF66Aq

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) August 17, 2020

OUP: The Beauty and the Terror by Catherine Fletcher

Her website.

Academic Fantasy Continue During Collapse

Conservatives interested in education reform ought to study the Italian Renaissance, which saw independent schools dedicated to the study of humane letters spring up independent of the calcified institutions of the medieval university, which only feinted at liberal education 1/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

Reminds me of Hankins' book.

...classical schools. Do not narrow your focus or specialize but study the human things--including Greek and Latin-- and pass them on. When this republic crumbles, which could happen anytime, there will be many centers of power, and many opportunities for the truly educated 5/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

And then there is the nod to modern egalitarian sensibilities.

But more likely the collapse of American imperium will magnify, not diminish, the opportunity for men and women of true learning to be more fully human in the classical sense, to participate in the life of the city, to rule and be ruled in turn. A mere six centuries separates 7/8

— John Peterson (@thejohnpeterson) June 21, 2020

Virtue Politics

HUP: Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy by James Hankins

Liberal democracy’s difficulties are always with us. But a reasonably just regime seems more prudent than claims for a non-partisan regime of truly virtuous rulers. https://t.co/9pStu0e77G

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) May 12, 2020

When James Hankins’ humanists promote virtue and humanist learning as solutions for tyranny they are being naïve. https://t.co/VCVTThNfyb

— Richard Reinsch (@Reinsch84) May 12, 2020

The Complicated Politics of Virtue by Mark Blitz

Mark Blitz is probably a Straussian. Still, it doesn't seem like the book is that helpful and one should probably read the primary sources themselves instead. As for a book detailing the influence these Renaissance thinkers had on actual statesmen... what book covers that?

The Abbeville Institute: Is Pluralism Enough? by Walt Garlington

Includes a contrast between Latin and Byzantine Christianity; some of the genealogy is doubtful but some of it (e.g. Latin monoculture) may be more correct than not.

Another Caravaggio Found?

Fr. Z: ‘Behind the door was a painting that the owners did not know about.’

The Guardian