Religion & Ethics

Footnotes throughout, bibliography, xii & 119 pp, text typed single-sided on pages, maroon cloth (no d/w), covers a trifle marked, extremities a little rubbed, spine very slightly faded, otherwise in good condition, never published, 1950

28 x 20.4 cm, 910g, no ISBN

Donald Weinstein (1926-2015) was a leading historian of the Italian Renaissance. His book ‘Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance’, published in 1970, has been credited with changing the traditional approach to the study of fifteenth-century Florence through its re-evaluation of religion, politics and civic engagement in Renaissance culture.

This is a copy of the dissertation he submitted to earn his master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1950 before going on to receive his doctorate from the University of Iowa - see the description from the dissertation’s introduction below.

This is clearly a carbon copy of the original, since the original would have been submitted to the University. As far as we can establish, the dissertation itself was never published or incorporated into one of Dr. Weinstein’s books. However, the binding and the title on the spine are clearly professional rather than amateur, and this leads us to believe that this book may represent Dr. Weinstein’s own copy of his dissertation, which he had bound for his own library.