"[T]he renown of Dante and Petrarch was firmly rooted in their superior art of verse-making. This state of affairs was confirmed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Aldo Manuzio ...

broadly speaking from the time of Petrarch to the age of Lorenzo de' Medici. The two centuries surveyed here embrace a period which begins with the embryonic 'medieval' humanism of Dante Alighieri and ...