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  • Roscoe and Italy: The Reception of Italian Renaissance History and Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries ed. by Stella Fletcher
  • Frances Muecke
Fletcher, Stella , ed., Roscoe and Italy: The Reception of Italian Renaissance History and Culture in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Farnham, Ashgate, 2012; hardback; pp. viii, 256; 17 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £65.00; ISBN 9781409404910.

William Roscoe (1753-1831) lived in interesting times, and in Liverpool, then described by a contemporary as 'a remote commercial town, where nothing is heard of but Guinea ships, slaves, blacks and merchandise' (p. 98). He and his immense contributions to the cultural life of his native city have never been forgotten (most recently, Arline Wilson, William Roscoe: Commerce and Culture (Liverpool University Press, 2008)). The aim of this volume, however, is 'to lift its subject out of his home town and onto the wider stage of the international republic of letters' (p. 20).

At its heart are Roscoe's two Medici biographies, The Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, Called the Magnificent (1796) and The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth (1805). It was the first of these that made Roscoe's name at home and abroad. In Britain, it was frequently reissued until 1895 and it was translated into French, Italian, German, and Greek. In readily available digital versions, they and their treasures of documentary evidence (see p. 47) are probably more familiar now than in the period when, at least in Australia, they had become Rare Books. Not negligible achievements in their own time and place (Roscoe never went to Italy), as history both have been thoroughly superseded. But, unlike The Life of Lorenzo, The Life of Leo has not yet been replaced. Information about the various editions is to be found in footnotes, especially in Cecil H. Clough's 'William Roscoe and his Lorenzo de' Medici'. A consolidated bibliography of these at the end of the book would have been a boon.

After a valuable and substantial Introduction on Roscoe's life and works in context by the editor, Stella Fletcher, the volume is divided into four parts: 'Roscoe and the Revival of the Arts', 'Roscoe as Biographer', 'The Roscoe Circle and Italy', and 'Wider Dissemination' (consisting of M. M. Bullard's interesting 'Roscoe's Renaissance in America'). Readers of this journal will probably be most engaged by what this volume has to tell us about the genesis, the intellectual context, the sources and their procurement, the approach, and the impact of the biographies (especially in Clough; John E. Law, 'William Roscoe and Lorenzo de' Medici as Statesman'; D. S. Chambers, 'William Roscoe's Life of Leo X and Correspondence with Angelo Fabroni'; and Arline Wilson, 'William Clarke and the Roscoe Circle').

One theme that emerges strongly is the role in Roscoe's vision of the visual arts and literature, the 'sister-arts', as they were called (see especially Emanuele Pellegrini's contribution). Roscoe was influenced by Tiraboschi's Storia della letteratura italiana (1772-82) which gave him a model for an inclusive concept of culture. Pellegrini quotes Roscoe himself: 'The patronage [End Page 190] of the family of the Medici is almost contemporary with the commencement of the art [i.e., 'culture']' (p. 23). At the same time, from the 1750s onwards, there had been a rising flood of all kinds of books dealing with the visual arts. It was also the period of the rise of the Academies, the Royal Academy in London opening in 1769. In 1773, Roscoe was one of the youthful founders of the Liverpool Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Painting, and Design and in 1814 helped found the Liverpool Royal Institution. He was pioneering, but he was also a powerful expression of his time.

The collection presents Roscoe and his achievements from a variety of perspectives, but with a certain amount of repetition, contradiction, and lack of clarity. Take his 'invention' of the Renaissance. J. R. Hale in his classic England and the Italian Renaissance (1954), often mentioned by the contributors, drew a distinction between the use of the term in its 'art-historical sense' and as the established term for a temporarily defined period...

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