Answering these questions enables you to relate material from the text to your own personal experiences.
Copy Petrarch’s “Letter to Lapo” by hand. What problems do you see as implicit to a manuscript culture? How was the Renaissance changed by the advent of the printing press?
Write a Petrarchan sonnet.
Make a case for or against Machiavelli’s contention that if a ruler “succeeds in establishing and maintaining his authority, the means will always be judged honorable and approved by every one.”
Write a dialogue on the dignity of man among Pico, Alberti, Machiavelli, Marinella and Castiglione.
What does the phrase “Renaissance man/woman” mean to you? To whom might the phrase apply today? Is this a state or condition to which you personally aspire? Why or why not?
Outline an outline for your own treatise on the defects of women or of man, or both.
