Books by Francesco Borghesi
This work presents the first edition of the letters by the humanist philosopher Giovanni Pico del... more This work presents the first edition of the letters by the humanist philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494). While the text has its origins in the selection of letters edited by his nephew Giovan Francesco Pico della Mirandola and printed in Bologna in 1496, this new
critical edition is based on a thorough survey and analysis of the manuscript as well as the printed tradition. It comprises therefore the most rigorous and philologically accurate version of the letters of one of the most renowned Italian humanists to date.
Edited Books by Francesco Borghesi
La biblioteca di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Tra bilanci e prospettive di ricerca, Marietti1820, 2024
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's (1463-1494) deep passion for books is revealed by the size of his... more Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's (1463-1494) deep passion for books is revealed by the size of his library – the largest owned by a humanist at the end of the 15th century – and by the contents and reading marks left on the books he read, both his own and those of others. Pico spent his vast fortune collecting works from every branch of human knowledge, from Greek and Latin classics to scholasticism, from the works of Plato and Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes, to multiple versions of the Bible, as well as copies of the Talmud and the Koran. This book provides fresh research on Pico's library, long considered lost, on the basis of scenarios opened up by recent studies. The papers by Saverio Campanini, Daniele Conti, Amos Edelheit, Sebastiano Gentile, Daniela Gionta, Fabrizio Lelli, Paola Megna, Giovanna Murano and Agata Pincelli frame the subject by illuminating unexplored areas, ranging from scholastic to Arab-Jewish sources, from Sinesian presences in Pico's library collection to the Vatican inventory of the his books.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man. A New Translation and Commentary, ed. with M. Papio and M. Riva, Cambridge University Press, 2012
This is a new translation of and commentary on Pico della Mirandola's most famous work, the Orati... more This is a new translation of and commentary on Pico della Mirandola's most famous work, the Oration on the Dignity of Man. It is the first English edition to provide readers with substantial notes on the text, essays that address the work's historical, philosophical, and theological context, and a survey of its reception. Often called the “Manifesto of the Renaissance,” this brief but complex text was originally composed in 1486 as the inaugural speech for an assembly of intellectuals, which could have produced one of the most exhaustive metaphysical, theological, and psychological debates in history, had Pope Innocent VIII not forbidden it. This edition of the Oration reflects the spirit of the original text in bringing together experts in different fields. Not unlike the debate Pico optimistically anticipated, the resulting work is superior to the sum of its parts.
Edited Special Issues of Journals by Francesco Borghesi
Translating the East: Theories and Practices in Europe, China and Tibet between the Sixteenth- and the Nineteenth-Century, ed. with Y. Lü, Intellectual History Review, 34/3, 2024
The essays collected in this special issue address a common concern related to the translatabilit... more The essays collected in this special issue address a common concern related to the translatability of cultures and, in particular, the translatability of Chinese culture into the European culture. In so doing, they aim to shed new light in two different but related areas of research: the history of Sino-European intellectual encounters and the philological analysis of Jesuit translations.
Peace and Concord from Plato to Lessing, ed. with A. Benjamin, Theoria. A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 159, 2019
This special issue arose from a workshop on “Peace and Concord from Plato to Lessing”, organised ... more This special issue arose from a workshop on “Peace and Concord from Plato to Lessing”, organised by the editors and which took place at the University of Sydney on 18 and 19 September 2017. Central to the work of both the editors is the relationship between the concepts of ‘concord’, ‘peace’ and ‘dignity’ within a setting created by a concern with the development of a philological anthropology.
The purpose of the volume is to explore the concepts of ‘peace’ and ‘concord’ – and thus the complex nature of their relation – in a number of key case-studies selected from the history of European thought.
Although the papers published in this special issue are not methodologically the same, they all belong to the domains of intellectual history and of philosophy, and attempt a dialogue between the two as the context of this research demands an approach in which philosophy does not exclude history, and history recognises that it is already informed philosophically.
From Ancient Theology to Civil Religion, Intellectual History Review, 29/1, 2019
Recent scholarship on the “radical Enlightenment” has emphasized the theologico-political strateg... more Recent scholarship on the “radical Enlightenment” has emphasized the theologico-political strategies adopted by this philosophical movement to bring about a conception of the state that is “neutral” or “tolerant” in relation to religious (and perhaps also non-religious) world views. However, while one of the important concepts employed in this strategy revolves around the idea of a “civil religion”, the prehistory of this civil or political conception of religion remains less well explored. This special issue aims to bridge this gap by exploring the connections between the Renaissance idea of “ancient theology” and the Enlightenment idea of “civil religion”.
This special issue joins the celebrations related to the five-hundredth anniversary of The Pr... more This special issue joins the celebrations related to the five-hundredth anniversary of The Prince's completion by adding four new papers written by scholars, who, although all very established in their respective fields and countries, are, for different reasons, not as well known to the English-speaking world of Machiavelli studies as they might be.
The articles gathered in this special issue intend to look at different ways words and visual ima... more The articles gathered in this special issue intend to look at different ways words and visual images can interlace and communicate within a variety of contexts and formats. At the same time, their purpose is to encourage reflection on the similarities and differences of the encounter between words and images in different cultures and throughout time. It is not the purpose of the articles, then, to enquire about the dichotomy ‘East/West,’ but rather to look at how ‘word and image’ as ‘East and West’ indicate multiple regions of social, political, cultural, literary and semiotic differences and similarities that are crucial to us and which we must continually study, reinvent and renegotiate.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Francesco Borghesi
This paper tackles a relatively understudied topic in Erasmus scholarship - his poetry - and, spe... more This paper tackles a relatively understudied topic in Erasmus scholarship - his poetry - and, specifically, analyses a poem he wrote in 1506 on old age, known as "Carmen alpestre" or "Carmen de senectute".
This paper looks at the way in which the author came to meet Stephen Gaukroger and, over a period... more This paper looks at the way in which the author came to meet Stephen Gaukroger and, over a period of thirteen years, developed a friendship, which left a long-lasting mark on him. Such mark has not been left on a human level only (a level that is not discussed), but it has developed on a decisive intellectual influence on the author despite their somewhat differing scholarly inclinations.
This article looks at the tradition of medieval and renaissance theatre studies in Australia and ... more This article looks at the tradition of medieval and renaissance theatre studies in Australia and analyses the research carried out in this field by Nerida Newbigin.
This paper introduces two connected research projects funded by the Australian Research Governmen... more This paper introduces two connected research projects funded by the Australian Research Government and by the Italian Ministry of University, respectively titled “Transforming the East: Jesuit Translations of the Confucian Classics” and “Images of China from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment".
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's (1463-1494) deep passion for books is revealed by the size of his... more Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's (1463-1494) deep passion for books is revealed by the size of his library – the largest owned by a humanist at the end of the 15th century – and by the contents and reading marks left on the books he read, both his own and those of others. Pico spent his vast fortune collecting works from every branch of human knowledge, from Greek and Latin classics to scholasticism, from the works of Plato and Aristotle, Avicenna and Averroes, to multiple versions of the Bible, as well as copies of the Talmud and the Koran. This introduction provides an overview of a book including nine new papers on Pico's library, long considered lost.
The essays collected in this special issue address a common concern related to the translatabilit... more The essays collected in this special issue address a common concern related to the translatability of cultures and, in particular, the translatability of Chinese culture into the European culture. In so doing, they aim to shed new light in two different but related areas of research: the history of Sino-European intellectual encounters and the philological analysis of Jesuit translations.
The growing influence of China and Chinese culture in recent decades has given new impetus to the study of the origins of Sino-Western exchange in the early modern period. The main protagonists of Europe’s first intellectual encounters with late Ming and early Qing China were Jesuit missionaries, who sought to convert China to Catholicism by adapting the cultural and intellectual traditions of Confucianism to Christianity. Their accommodation – the attempt to adapt one culture to another – was based on a secularised interpretation of Confucianism as a political and ethical philosophy devoid of superstition.
Research on the Jesuit China mission is still dominated by mission history and the Chinese Rites ... more Research on the Jesuit China mission is still dominated by mission history and the Chinese Rites Controversy, 4 while cultural and intellectual historians continue to concentrate on European images of China and the apparent shift from 'Sinophilia' to 'Sinophobia'. 5 The 'slump of the Chinese stock' in European intellectual history, first
This essay introduces the collection of articles contained in this special issue, explaining thei... more This essay introduces the collection of articles contained in this special issue, explaining their necessity and contextualizing them within the historiographical debates around "ancient theology" and "civil religion". It does so by referring to well-known influential figures in Renaissance and Enlightenment studies such as Daniel , as well as to more recent studies such as that by Dmitri Levitin. It further provides a brief overview of each contribution and places the special issue within the disciplinary context of global and comparative intellectual history.
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Books by Francesco Borghesi
critical edition is based on a thorough survey and analysis of the manuscript as well as the printed tradition. It comprises therefore the most rigorous and philologically accurate version of the letters of one of the most renowned Italian humanists to date.
Edited Books by Francesco Borghesi
Edited Special Issues of Journals by Francesco Borghesi
The purpose of the volume is to explore the concepts of ‘peace’ and ‘concord’ – and thus the complex nature of their relation – in a number of key case-studies selected from the history of European thought.
Although the papers published in this special issue are not methodologically the same, they all belong to the domains of intellectual history and of philosophy, and attempt a dialogue between the two as the context of this research demands an approach in which philosophy does not exclude history, and history recognises that it is already informed philosophically.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Francesco Borghesi
The growing influence of China and Chinese culture in recent decades has given new impetus to the study of the origins of Sino-Western exchange in the early modern period. The main protagonists of Europe’s first intellectual encounters with late Ming and early Qing China were Jesuit missionaries, who sought to convert China to Catholicism by adapting the cultural and intellectual traditions of Confucianism to Christianity. Their accommodation – the attempt to adapt one culture to another – was based on a secularised interpretation of Confucianism as a political and ethical philosophy devoid of superstition.