Heinrich Bebel (1472/73–1518), humanist poet and academic at the south-west German University of Tübingen, compiled his three books of facetiae (final authorized edition appearing in 1514). This first complete translation in English of Bebel’s many jokes and funny anecdotes will provide readers with a window into a Northern European culture of Renaissance laughter that is learned and yet celebrates the popular.

The chronicle of Bindino da Travale (1356–1418) gathers his extensive knowledge of fifteenth-century Italy and combines it with his self-reflective comments and vivid imagination to produce a highly idiosyncratic and lively account of his times.

Giovan Maria Cecchi (1518–87) was the most prolific and versatile dramatist in all of sixteenth-century Italy. The five plays in this collection are representative of the variety of religious theatre he composed for performance by youths in confraternities.

Sforza Pallavicino’s play Martyr Hermenegild (1644) is a masterpiece of seventeenth-century Jesuit hagiographical drama.

The two documents translated in this volume provide a detailed snapshot into the Ottoman Empire and its relations with Venice at a time of transition for both of these Mediterranean powers.

Johannes Brenz (1499-1570) was the most important champion of the Lutheran Reformation in Southern Germany. The documents in this volume provide an excellent basis for tracing the development, both theoretical and practical, of the Lutheran territorial church during the early Reformation.

By the beginning of the 1530s, the governments of many German territories that had abolished Catholicism and established the Reformation had begun to impose strict uniformity of doctrine and worship on their subjects. In some communities, individuals who felt threatened by the impending orthodoxy raised their voices in protest. The texts in this volume record one such protest and the responses that it evoked.

These three treatises (which are translated here for the first time into English) established the terms of reference for one of the most important debates of the Reformation.

Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464) was a theologian, philosopher, Canon lawyer, and Church reformer. Cusanus dedicates his philosophical writings to the exploration of the limits of the mind in its pursuit of absolute truth.

Courtesy books have a special relationship to the age that produces them. By attempting to codify manners, styles, ideals and values of a society, they reveal the principles and presuppositions that shape and animate their world. Galateo does this brilliantly.