New Literary History · 1978 · 26 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesClassicsHistoryInterpersonal RelationshipsRenaissance LiteratureRoman HistoryAncient CivilizationsAncient RomeAncient Social HistoryClassical AntiquityLate AntiquityRoman GreeceMichel De Montaigne
FRIENDSHIP WAS PART Of the ancient heritage which the Renaissance humanists attempted to reclaim for themselves and for their age. They did not deny that friendship in some form had always existed, but they attributed to the Greeks and Romans a peculiarly exalted form of this relationship, rare in any age and all but unknown to modernity. In concluding his tale of Tito and Gisippo in the Tenth Day of the Decameron, Boccaccio (or his storyteller Filomena) laments its disappearance: