A. J. Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples under Alfonso the Magnanimous. The Making of a Modern State ( Oxford, 1976).
M. Mallett, The Borgias ( London, 1969), with opening chapters useful also for general background on the fifteenth-century papacy.
J. A. F. Thomson, Popes and Princes, 1417-1517 ( London, 1980), an overview of papal history of the fifteenth century from several angles.
W. L. Gundersheimer, Ferrara. The Style of a Renaissance Despotism ( Princeton, 1973), a good 'case-study'.
D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch, The Tuscans and their Families ( New Haven and London, 1985), an important social study of Florence and its territory based mainly on the tax assessment made in 1427, one of the great social documents of the late Middle Ages.
F. Fernandez-Armesto, Ferdinand and Isabella ( London, 1975), a good and readable biography.
H. V. Livermore, A New History of Portugal ( Cambridge, 1976), a basic introduction.
P. Chaunu, European Expansion from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries (trans. Amsterdam, 1978), fundamental for orientation among the sources and historiography of the explorations.
J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance ( London, 1963).
G. V. Scammell, The World Encompassed. The First European Maritime Empires c.800-1650 ( London, 1981), a useful comparative study over a long period; includes discussions of Genoa, Venice, Spain, and Portugal.
D. Hay, The Italian Renaissance in its Historical Background ( Cambridge, 1960), a good introduction to the context of the Renaissance.
P. O. Kristeller, Renaissance Thought ( 2 vols, New York, 1955, 1965), now classic essays, full of insights and valuable as an introduction.
P. Burke, Tradition and Innovation in Renaissance Italy ( London, 1972), a bold and provocative inquiry into the Renaissance and its origins.
E. Garin, Italian Humanism (trans. Oxford, 1965), an introduction to some of the themes that occupied the humanists.
G. A. Holmes, The Florentine Enlightenment, 1400-50 ( London, 1969), a full portrait of the Renaissance in its first main home.
P. Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past ( London, 1969), texts and commentary introducing ways in which humanism influenced the writing and perception of history.
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