Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, the rise of international trade, the growth of towns and cities, and the politics of diplomacy all helped to foster productive and far-reaching connections and cultural interactionsbetween Britain and Italy; equally, the flourishing of Italian humanism from the late fourteenth century onwards had a major impact on intellectual life in Britain.

The aim of this book is to illustrate the continuity andthe variety of these exchanges during the period. Each chapter focuses on a specific area (book collection, historiography, banking, commerce, literary production), highlighting the significance of the productive interchange ofpeople and ideas across diverse cultural communities; it is the lived experience of individuals, substantiated by written evidence, that shapes the book’s collective understanding of how two European cultures interacted with eachother so fruitfully.

MICHELE CAMPOPIANO is Senior Lecturer in Medieval Latin Literature at the University of York; HELEN FULTON is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Bristol.

Contributors: Helen Bradley, Margaret Bridges, Michele Campopiano, Carolyn Collette, Victoria Flood, Helen Fulton, Bart Lambert, Ignazio del Punta