The Renaissance Reform of the Book and Britain: The English Quattrocento, by David Rundle

Extract

David Rundle’s book is an achievement on multiple levels. In the first place, its argument about what early English humanism entailed and meant is a novel one. Secondly, and as befits its Anglo-Italian subtitle and the cosmopolitan cast of characters that populate its pages, it is rich in provocative ideas about national identity and the cultural hybridity that existed on the Renaissance’s periphery. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it is a sterling demonstration of the value of palaeography for historical research, and, indeed, as a historical source itself. A vast enhancement of knowledge emerges from the study of so many ascenders and descenders, a tall final s here and a sharp-necked g there, and a new story of the circulation of people, books and cultures is told. Rundle is aware of the import of his work in this respect. Copious reproductions (16 colour plates and 54 figures) allow the reader to follow and share in his discoveries. On the scale exercised here, this is obviously the labour of years, a combination of painstaking work, connoisseurship and imagination, yet the result is never recherché. Those pre-modern historians who dismiss palaeography as an auxiliary science, useful (and worth teaching to students) only in so far as it allows them to read ‘their’ sources, should heed the lesson of this book.