Humanist Comedies

“Expertly edited and set into context by Gary Grund… Grund’s edition nicely shows how Renaissance comedy mixed ancient motifs with Christian lessons, and offers fascinating information on the rapid development of comic performance in the Renaissance from pantomimes carried out by characters, while a single narrator read all the lines, to full-blown performances on stages, acted out before scenery painted in the new one-point perspective.”—Anthony T. Grafton, The New York Review of Books

“[Grund] has produced fine translations in idiomatic English that are accurate, enjoyable, and tasteful (it is easier to offend against taste in translating comedy than most other genres). His annotations are brief, to the point, and genuinely useful. Altogether, he has done an admirably workmanlike job.”—Dana Sutton, Classical Bulletin

“Here are five plays from fifteenth-century Italy, all in Latin, translated into lucid English by Gary Grund… As is typical for the I Tatti Renaissance Library, the book is beautifully produced. Readers interested in the Renaissance, the reception of Roman comedy, or the development of humanist Latin will find these plays fascinating.”—Anne Mahoney, New England Classical Journal