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"Momus" is the most ambitious literary creation of Leon Battista Alberti, the famous humanist-scientist-artist and "universal man" of the Italian Renaissance. In this dark comedy, written around 1450, Alberti charts the lively fortunes of his anti-hero Momus, the unscrupulous and vitriolic god of criticism. Alberti deploys his singular erudition and wit to satirize subjects from court life and politics to philosophy and intellectuals, from grand architectural designs to human and divine folly. The possible contemporary resonance for Alberti's satire - read variously as a humanist roman-a-clef and as a veiled mockery of the mid-Quattrocento papacy - is among its most intriguing aspects. While his more famous books on architecture, painting and family have long been regarded as indispensable to a study of Renaissance culture, "Momus" has attracted increasing attention from scholars as a work anticipating the realism of Machiavelli and the satiric wit of Erasmus. This edition provides a Latin text, based on the two earliest manuscripts, both corrected by Alberti himself, and includes a full translation into English.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Liber I. De statu prisci orbis in religione, re politica, & litteris
• Liber II. Ciceronis princeps, sive, De statu principis et imperii
• Liber III. Ciceronis consul, senator, senatúsque Romanus, sive, De statu reip. & urbis imperantis orbi.

This collection of essays makes an important contribution to our knowledge of feudalism and finance in France and Spain. Divided into four sections, it covers the use rulers made of courts, parlements, and assemblies for ceremonial, political and fiscal purposes; the institutional formation of Catalonia; comparative studies of France, Catalonia and Aragon in the twelfth century; and monetary and fiscal policies of contemporary rulers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This collection of essays makes an important contribution to our knowledge of feudalism and finance in France and Spain. Divided into four sections, it covers the use rulers made of courts, parlements, and assemblies for ceremonial, political and fiscal purposes; the institutional formation of Catalonia; comparative studies of France, Catalonia and Aragon in the twelfth century; and monetary and fiscal policies of contemporary rulers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Aurelio Lippo Brandolini's "Republics and Kingdoms Compared" is the most fascinating and least-known work of humanist political theory before Machiavelli. A Socratic dialogue set in the court of King Mattias Corvinus of Hungary (ca. 1490), the work depicts a debate between the king himself and a Florentine merchant at his court on the relative merits of republics and kingdoms. In effect a searing critique of Florentine civic humanism, the work discusses such issues as free trade and the morality of commerce, the inequalities of wealth typical of republics, the nature of freedom and justice, the reasons for the rise and fall of empires, the causes of political corruption, and the conditions necessary for the flourishing of arts, letters, and culture generally. This is the first published critical edition and the first translation into any language.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)