Polizzotto, Lorenzo

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Office—European Languages & Studies, M203, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy., Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia; fax: 61-8-6488-1182. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic. University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia, professor of Italian studies and head of the Italian Section of the Department of European Languages and Studies. Australian Academy of the Humanities, fellow.

MEMBER:

Renaissance Society of America, Society for Renaissance Studies, Society for Confraternity Studies.

WRITINGS:

The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494-1545, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1994.

Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427-1785, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Catherine Kovesi, and author of introduction) Memorie Di Casa Valori, Nerbini (Florence, Italy), 2007.

Editorial board member for Rivista di Ascetica e Mistica. Advisory board member for Memorie Domenicane.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lorenzo Polizzotto is a professor of Italian studies at the University of Western Australia in Crawley, located near Perth, Australia. He also serves as the university's head of the Italian section of the department of European languages and studies. His research interests include Italian Renaissance literature and history, modern Italian literature and history, and the religious history of Florence. With the funding from an Australian Research Grant, Polizzotto researched a project entitled "Family, Politics, and Society: The Valori Household and Florence, 1380-1650."

Polizzotto published his first book, The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494-1545, in 1994. The account looks into the audience and followers of the sixteenth-century Florentine Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola, credited as being responsible for the advent of the Reformation, and the traditions his supporters, known as the Piagnoni, developed as he was rising to the peak of his career and in the years following his death. Savonarola was deemed a tyrant and was considered ignorant by the local authorities, but that did not stop his influence on religious beliefs in Florence and the spread of those beliefs throughout Europe. Savonarola's writings challenged existing scholarship and religious prescriptions and was widely associated with book burnings, destruction of artwork deemed immoral, and anti-Renaissance preaching. After his death, the local authorities underestimated the convictions of the Piagnoni, which ultimately led to revolution by radical militant elements against the Medici family and others in power.

Dermot Fenlon, writing in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, described the work as a "brilliant and meticulously researched work," summarizing that "Polizzotto explores Savonarola's audience, and the traditions developed by his adherents, the Piagnoni, during the years of his ascendancy, and in the ensuing half century. The result is a book which makes a signal contribution to the history of the Italian sixteenth century." Fenlon recalled a number of writers that the author covers in the account, including Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, Paolo Orlandini, and Girolamo Benivieni, but commented that "Polizzotto's main concern is not with these writers, whom he calls the ‘intellectual luminaries’ of the Piagnone movement. It is with those whom he calls the radicals, who, following the death of Savonarola, and more especially after 1512, with the return to power of the Medici, looked for vengeance and a reformation of life independent of ecclesiastical and civil hierarchies."

Polizzotto followed this account with Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427-1785 in 2004. The account looks into the confraternity of young men in Florence called the Purification. Covering its existence from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, Polizzotto shows its religious activities and financial dealings throughout Florence's changing political environments and artistic styles. The book aims to look at the group as an institution.

Blake R. Beattie, writing in the Historian, noted that this "invaluable" book provides "an exhaustively thorough institutional analysis." Beattie concluded: "Institutional historians of any stripe … will find much of use in this masterful, well-written study—a study that speaks not only to a particular institution's history over time, but to the history of the society of which that institution was so integral a part." Konrad Eisenbichler, reviewing the book in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, claimed that the book marks a "milestone in research" on "the history of Florence" and beyond, to early modern European history, youth, lay religion, and education. Eisenbichler called Children of the Promise a "meticulously researched study, firmly grounded in archival research and a wide range of readings." Eisenbichler pointed out, though, that "my only two regrets are that the volume does not contain a bibliography of archival sources used, nor does the bibliography of printed sources indicate the publishers of the books its lists—but these are minor criticisms to what is, otherwise, a splendid milestone in scholarship on Florentine lay religious associations." Roisin Cossar, writing in the Renaissance Quarterly, remarked that "over the course of the narrative, the focus on the young members of the confraternity is lost amid detailed depictions of (adult) officials' decision-making and political intrigue." Cossar also pointed out that "this work deals with gender issues only briefly." Nevertheless, Cossar concluded that "Polizzotto's work makes a useful contribution to Florentine confraternity history, as it reminds us that confraternities were among the most flexible, wide-ranging institutions of the early modern period."

In 2007, Polizzotto wrote Memorie Di Casa Valori with Catherine Kovesi.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, October 1, 1996, review of The Elect Nation: The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494-1545, p. 1240; April 1, 2005, Brian Pullan, review of Children of the Promise: The Confraternity of the Purification and the Socialization of Youths in Florence, 1427-1785, p. 579.

Church History, December 1, 1997, David S. Peterson, review of The Elect Nation, p. 809.

European History Quarterly, October 1, 2006, Nicholas Terpstra, review of Children of the Promise, p. 643.

Historian, spring, 2006, Blake R. Beattie, review of Children of the Promise, p. 196.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, July 1, 1996, Dermot Fenlon, review of The Elect Nation, p. 570; July, 2006, Konrad Eisenbichler, review of Children of the Promise, p. 592.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, autumn, 2005, Gene A. Brucker, review of Children of the Promise, p. 266.

Journal of Modern History, December 1, 1996, Melissa Meriam Bullard, review of The Elect Nation, p. 1004.

Renaissance Quarterly, spring, 2005, Roisin Cossar, review of Children of the Promise, p. 188.

ONLINE

University of Western Australia, European Languages and Studies Department Web site,http://www.european.uwa.edu.au/ (April 22, 2008), author profile.