| Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Sixteenth-Century Italy Subjects: Giovio Paolo 1483–1552; Historians -- Italy -- Biography; Biographers -- Italy -- Biography; Bishops -- Italy -- Biography; Catholic Church -- Italy -- Bishops -- Biography; Italy -- History -- 1492–1559 -- Historiography; Best-known for his sweeping narrative Histories of His Own Times and for his portrait museum on Lake Como, the Italian bishop and historian Paolo Giovio (1486-1552) had contact with many of the protagonists of the great events he so vividly described--the wars of France, Germany, and Spain, and the sack of Rome. He used the information he gleaned from his contacts to carry on an extensive correspondence that became a kind of proto-journalism. With his interests in history, literature, geography, exploration, medicine, and the arts, this man reflects almost the entire spectrum of High Renaissance civilization. In a biography surveying both Giovio's life and his works, T. C. Price Zimmermann examines the historian as a figure formed by fifteenth-century humanism who was caught in the changing temper of the Counter Reformation. T. C. Price Zimmermann is Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Davidson College. |