The Renaissance Battle for Rome: Competing Claims to an Idealized Past in Humanist Latin Poetry

“The Renaissance Battle for Rome as a Renaissance sequel to Edwards’ seminal book. B. displays an impressive level of scholarship…The book is enhanced by nearly thirty illustrations, many of which are in colour. The book will be of interest to scholars of the Renaissance, and those interested in classical reception studies.” — Giles Gilbert, Classics for All

“Attractively illustrated and wearing its learning lightly, this book provides a ‘metaperspective’ on the poetical exploitationof images of Rome that will be of interest to all scholars of Renaissance Rome.” — Frances Muecke, Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies

“Superbly intriguing book.” — Cliff Cunningham, Sun News Austin

“..de Beer has succeeded in providing a very broad and satisfying overview of a phenomenon that was omnipresent in intellectual discourse in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.” — Florian Schaffenrath, Incontri

“The Renaissance Battle for Rome exhibits the author’s extensive knowledge both of humanist writings and of the classical texts that those writings exploit and adapt. De Beer’s conceptual framework of insider and outsider tactics in the battle for prestige and supremacy, and her skilled elucidation of how humanist ‘spin doctors’ manipulated the codes of Latin poetry to support their arguments, contribute a valuable new critical approach to the study of Renaissance humanism.” — Luke Roman, The Classical Review

“In sum, B.’s book sponsors a compellingly dynamic view of ‘Renaissance culture’ as a process of continuous ‘negotiation’ between different views of Roman antiquity in relation to pressing and often diverging interests. The volume is thus a valuable resource for scholars and readers interested in classical antiquity, the Renaissance and the ways in which the present can be informed by competing re-interpretations of the past.” — Bianca Facchini, Journal of Roman Studies

Susanna de Beer, Director of Ancient Studies and Classical Receptions at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome and Senior Lecturer in (Renaissance) Latin Literature at Leiden University

Susanna de Beer studied Classics at Leiden University and holds a PhD from the University of Amsterdam. She is Senior Lecturer in (Renaissance) Latin Literature and Early Modern Studies at Leiden University, with a specialization in Classical Reception Studies, Renaissance Humanism, and Digital Humanities. She is currently on detachment as Director of Ancient Studies and Classical Receptions at the Royal Netherlands Institute (KNIR) in Rome. In 2009 she co-edited The Neo-Latin Epigram: A Learned and Witty Genre and in 2013 she published The Poetics of Patronage: Poetry as Self-Advancement in Giannantonio Campano.