Skip to main content
Apply Give
Menu

Giuseppe Falvo

headshot gfalvo

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Program Director and Associate Professor, Romance Languages, Italian

(301) 405-4031

4106 Jiménez Hall
Get Directions

Research Expertise

Italian
Renaissance

Joseph D. Falvo received his Ph.D. in Italian from the Johns Hopkins University in 1986 with a specialization in the Italian Renaissance. He has published numerous articles on Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Della Casa and a book on Baldesar Castiglione entitled The Economy of Human Relations. Castiglione's "Libro del Cortegiano" (Peter Lang, 1992). He recently contributed with entries on humanist writers to the six volume Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (1999) published by Charles Scribner's Sons in association with the Renaissance Society of America. He is currently working on a second book entitled Tradition and Innovation in Courtesy Literature: Education and Politics in Early Modern Italy, and on another project dealing with the study of ceremony and ritual in Boccaccio's Decameron. He has been a participant at many conferences and colloquia, delivering papers on various aspects of Italian literature and culture, including the Italian cinema. He is recipient of several honors, including an award from the Folger Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Publications

The Art of Human Composition in Giovanni Pontano's De principe liber

A comparative study of Leon Battista Alberti's Della pittura and Giovanni Pontano's De principe liber.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Giuseppe Falvo
Dates:
This article on Neapolitan humanism in fifteenth century Italy examines the notion of majesty as it is described in rhetorical terms by Giovanni Pontano in his De principe liber. It shows the important role that humanist education played in the Kingdom of Naples in the construction and articulation of the public image of the prince, illustrating the close link between rhetoric and morality, and between ideal models of human conduct and the realistic world of politics.

Read More about The Art of Human Composition in Giovanni Pontano's De principe liber

Ethics and Politics in Medicean Florence: from the De principe to the De optimo cive of Bartolomeo Sacchi.

A comparative study of Bartolomeo Sacchi's De principe (1471) and the De optimo cive (1474) in light of lesser known treatises on the virtue of magnificentia.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Giuseppe Falvo
Dates:
Through a comparative study of Bartolomeo Sacchi's De principe (1471), De optimo cive (1474), and an in-depth analysis of lesser-known treatises on the virtue of magnificentia, this article shows that in Florence, as in other Italian cities where humanists played a vital role in the production of propaganda for the regime, humanism served as an effective instrument for the Medici to consolidate their power.

The Economy of Human Relations: Castiglione's Libro del Cortegiano

This book offers a modern critical approach to the study of Baldesar Castiglione's Libro del Cortegiano.

School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Author/Lead: Giuseppe Falvo
Dates:
The Economy of Human Relations: Castiglione's Libro del Cortegiano
Thoroughly based on a close reading of the primary sources (including the often neglected early versions of the treatise), this book challenges the traditional notion of Il Cortegiano as an abstract work of art. Through a careful analysis of the structural changes and thematic developments that occur in the treatise, this book shows that the primary object of Il Libro del Cortegiano is to describe the ways in which despotism exerts its power and influence within the court under the veil of figurative language.