JOHNSON CITY (Sept. 30, 2020) – Dr. Brian Maxson, a professor of history at East Tennessee State University, has published an article in the internationally respected journal, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo.
Published in Rome, Bullettino features peer-reviewed work on medieval and Renaissance Italy from leading scholars from around the world.
Maxson’s article, “The Letters of Giannozzo Manetti,” constructs the first-ever synthetic treatment of the 45 surviving Italian and Latin letters written to or from Manetti, who was one of the most important intellectuals and statesmen in the early Italian Renaissance.
The article also published, for the first time, editions of four previously unknown Latin letters. Prior to this article, the letters had existed only in individual handwritten copies from the mid-1400s.
In addition, Maxson’s article offers methodological innovations for the study of Renaissance Latin texts while adding new depth to the biography of a historically significant figure.
A small grant from ETSU’s Research Development Committee supported some of Maxson’s research for this project in the libraries and archives of Florence, Italy, as well as at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, also located in Florence.