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347 books match the query 'Early works to 1800' and 4 start with g

cover of Galateo: Or, The Rules of Polite Behavior

Galateo

Or, The Rules of Polite Behavior

Giovanni Della Casa

University of Chicago Press, 2013

“Since it is the case that you are now just beginning that journey that I have for the most part as you see completed, that is, the one through mortal life, and loving you so very much as I do, I have proposed to myself—as one who has been many places—to show you those places in life where, walking through them, I fear you could easily either fall or take the wrong direction.”

So begins Galateo, a treatise on polite behavior written by Giovanni Della Casa (1503–56) for the benefit of his nephew, a young Florentine destined for greatness.
           
In the voice of a cranky yet genial old uncle, Della Casa offers the distillation of what he has learned over a lifetime of public service as diplomat and papal nuncio. As relevant today as it was in Renaissance Italy, Galateo deals with subjects as varied as dress codes, charming conversation and off-color jokes, eating habits and hairstyles, and literary language. In its time, Galateo circulated as widely as Machiavelli’s Prince and Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. Mirroring what Machiavelli did for promoting political behavior, and what Castiglione did for behavior at court, Della Casa here creates a picture of the refined man caught in a world in which embarrassment and vulgarity prevail. Less a treatise promoting courtly values or a manual of savoir faire, it is rather a meditation on conformity and the law, on perfection and rules, but also an exasperated—often theatrical—reaction to the diverse ways in which people make fools of themselves in everyday social situations.
           
With renewed interest in etiquette and polite behavior growing both inside and outside the academy, the time is right for a new, definitive edition of this book. More than a mere etiquette book, this restored edition will be entertaining (and even useful) for anyone making their way in modern civilized and polite society, and a subtle gift for the rude neighbor, the thoughtless dinner guest, or the friend or relative in need of a refresher on proper behavior.
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cover of Gallus Dressler's Praecepta musicae poeticae

Gallus Dressler's Praecepta musicae poeticae

Gallus Dressler, New Critical Text, Translation, Annotations, and Indices by Robert Forgács

University of Illinois Press, 2007

Now available for the first time in English translation, this new edition of Gallus Dressler's Praecepta musicae poeticae corrects and expands upon earlier editions of one of the most important sixteenth-century treatments of musical theory and rhetoric. Robert Forgács’ detailed study of the Latin text reveals significant and original insights into the invention of fugues and the composition of opening, middle, and concluding sections. Forgács introduces the reader to Dressler's life and work and the design and sources of Praecepta musicae poeticae, places the treatise more fully in its humanist environment, presents additional classical sources for the text, and relates it to the work of Dressler’s contemporary music theorists. Copious annotations and indexes of words, names, and subjects place the treatise within the broader context of German theoretical discussion, the teaching and practice of music in the sixteenth century, and the musical life of the Lutheran Church.

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cover of General History of Peru: Book 1

General History of Peru

Book 1

Martín de Murúa

University Press of Colorado, 2024

Mercedarian friar Martín de Murúa’s General History of Peru (Historia General del Piru, 1616) is one of the most significant Spanish chronicles of Inca history and Peru’s early colonial period yet to be published in English. Written over several decades and approved by King Philip III for publication, Murúa’s magnificent manuscript disappeared from public view for nearly 350 years until its publication in 1964. Here, translators Brian S. Bauer, Eliana Gamarra C., and Andrea Gonzales Lombardi present the first English translation of Book 1 of Murúa’s comprehensive three-part work.
 
Book 1 covers both the history of the Inca Empire and the first forty years of the Spanish occupation, up to and including the fall of Vilcabamba in 1572. While the J. Paul Getty Museum produced a digital facsimile of Murúa’s full Historia in 2008, it remained underused and, until now, untranslated. This translation revitalizes the momentous early volume with an introduction offering a window into Murúa’s life and the writing of his Historia, and extensive footnotes that provide the scholarly context of Murúa’s work.
 
This edition of The General History of Peru: Book 1 provides long-awaited access to Murúa’s contribution to Indigenous Andean history and early colonial Peru. The book is valuable for English-speaking students and scholars of pre-Hispanic Andean history, especially those interested in the ancient Andean world and colonial Peru’s literary production.
 
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cover of Globalizing Chocolate and Tobacco: Medical Exchange in the Early Modern World

Globalizing Chocolate and Tobacco

Medical Exchange in the Early Modern World

Susan G. Polansky

Bucknell University Press, 2026

This groundbreaking volume explores two early and opposing Spanish medical perspectives on chocolate and other New World substances. In the early 1600s, doctors Bartolomé Marradón and Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma returned from travels to the Americas with starkly different views: Marradón cautioned against tobacco and offered only limited approval of chocolate, while Colmenero vigorously defended chocolate’s health benefits. Their writings, translated and circulated across Europe, helped transform chocolate from a medicinal drink into a global commodity. Featuring the first bilingual edition of Marradón’s Dialogue (1618)—in full Spanish and English—and a new bilingual presentation of Colmenero’s influential Curious Treatise (1631), this book provides rare insight into early modern medical thought, cultural exchange, and the globalization of taste. Essential for readers of food history, early modern medicine, and transatlantic interchange, it uniquely reveals how debates over health, culture, and commerce brewed in a cup of chocolate.

Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.

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