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Biblical Interpretation from the Church Fathers to the Reformation (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Karlfried FroehlichThe history of biblical interpretation has attracted considerable attention in recent decades. This is particularly true in the field of medieval exegesis where much effort has been spent on making primary materials available and advancing their interpretation. One area of research in which even the most basic questions are still under debate is the phenomenon of the biblical Glossa Ordinaria, the standard Bible commentary used by Christian theologians from the twelfth century to the Reformation. Part I of the present collection unites the author's major contributions to Glossa studies - its origin, its false ascription to Walahfrid Strabo, its use among the preachers of the thirteenth and fourteenth century and the Reformers, both Catholic and Protestant, of the sixteenth. A central concern here is the fascinating history of the printed Gloss which began with the Strasbourg edition of 1480/81. Part II concentrates on the image of two central New Testament figures, the Apostles Peter and Paul, in biblical exegesis. The studies illuminate the pivotal role in the history of the church played by certain shifts in the understanding of Petrine texts, and trace conflicting tendencies in the interpretation of Paul down to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Three of the thirteen essays have not been published before.
Numerals and Arithmetic in the Middle Ages (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Charles BurnettThis volume, the third by Charles Burnett in the Variorum series, brings together articles on the different numeral forms used in the Middle Ages, and their use in mathematical and other contexts. Some pieces study the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals into Western Europe, documenting, in more detail than anywhere else, the different forms in which they are found, before they acquired the standard shapes with which we are familiar today. Others deal with experiments with other forms of numeration within Latin script: e.g., using the first nine Roman numerals as symbols with place value, abbreviating the Roman numerals, and using the Latin letters as numerals. The author discusses how different types of numerals are used for different purposes, and the application of numerals to the abacus, and to calculation with pen and ink. The studies include the critical edition of several Latin texts.
Emergent Elites and Byzantium in the Balkans and East-Central Europe (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Jonathan ShepardAccording to Byzantium's leaders, their imperial order anchored in Constantinople was the centre of excellence - spiritual, moral, material and aesthetic. They rewarded individuals willing to join, and favoured outside groupings prepared to cooperate militarily or politically. Interactions with outsiders varied over place and time, complicated by the sometimes differing priorities of Byzantine churchmen and monks on or beyond Byzantium's borders. These studies consider the dynamics of such interactions, notably the interrelationship between the Bulgarians and their Byzantine neighbour. The Bulgarians' reaction to Byzantium ranged from 'contrarianism' to the systematic adaptation of Byzantine religious orthodoxy, ideals of rulership and normative values after Khan Boris' acceptance of eastern Christianity. For their part, Byzantine rulers were readier to do business with their Bulgarian counterparts than official pronouncements let on, occasionally even adopting aspects of Bulgarian political culture. Byzantium's interrelationship with other ruling elites was less intensive, but the process of Christianisation and the need to format this in readily comprehensible terms could make even distant potentates look to the template of effective Christian sole rulership which Byzantium's rulers embodied. Hungarian and Rus leaders were of abiding geopolitical interest to imperial statecraft, and the studies here show how during the generations around 1000 Byzantine political imagery resonated throughout the region.
The History of Banking I, 1650-1850 Vol I (Routledge Historical Resources)
by Forrest H CapieThis edition brings together the most important English language tracts and pamphlets and other material on the origins and development of private banking, joint stock banking, central banking and other important related questions.
Innocent III: Studies on Papal Authority and Pastoral Care (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Brenda BoltonPope Innocent III has long been seen as a central figure in the history of the medieval papacy. The Imperial struggle, on which attention has most often focused, is not, however, Brenda Bolton’s direct concern in these articles; she has rather sought to uncover the spiritual motivation of Innocent’s mission as pope. The first item, newly written for this volume, brings out the importance to Innocent of the physical context of Rome - as the City of the Faith. The following studies look at his exercise of papal authority: first, as Bishop of Rome, to establish a position from which to implement reform; then in relation to secular powers and, in particular, to the establishment of the Cistercian Order. The second section turns to the theme of pastoral care, showing Innocent’s concern for the needy and, more generally, emphasizing his generous response to those accused of heresy - his aim being to include, not exclude, and to channel popular enthusiasms to the benefit of the Church and Rome.
Studies in Early Medieval Latin Glossaries (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Wallace Martin Lindsay Michael LapidgeGlossaries are one of the most important sources for our knowledge of early medieval schools, for they provide an accurate records of what texts were studied and how they were understood. But they are also very difficult to access: countless glossaries lie unpublished in manuscript, the relations between them are unknown, and their origins are obscure. The most important contribution to solving these problems was made by Wallace Martin Lindsay (1858-1937), one of the greatest classical scholars ever produced in the British Isles, who in a pioneering series of articles identified the principal glossaries and clarified their relationships; he subsequently oversaw their publication in Glossaria Latina. So comprehensive was Lindsay's work that the subject virtually stood still for half a century; but recent advances in paleography and Insular Latin studies have drawn scholarly attention to glossaries once again. Any future work on glossaries must be based on Lindsay's pioneering articles; to facilitate such work, these articles have been provided with comprehensive indices of the Latin lemmata and sources of the glossaries, together with an account of recent work on medieval glossaries.
Mercantilist Theory and Practice Vol 4: The History of British Mercantilism
by Lars Magnusson'England is a nation of shopkeepers'. Long before Napolean disdainfully paraphrased Adam Smith, British commerce had become a motor for economic growth and increased state power. This four-volume facsimile edition brings together a range of rare seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents about the mercantile system.
Astrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe: Theories and Approaches (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Paola ZambelliAstrology and Magic from the Medieval Latin and Islamic World to Renaissance Europe brings together ten of Paola Zambelli's papers on the subject, four of which are published in English for the first time. The papers in Part I of this volume deal with theories: the ideas of astrology and magic held by Renaissance thinkers; astrologers' ideas on universal history and its cycles; i.e. catastrophes and rebirths, theories; and myths regarding the spontaneous generation of man himself. Part II focuses on the role of astrologers in Renaissance society. As political counsellors, courtiers, and academics, their ideas were diffused and appreciated in both popular and high culture. Part III looks at the Great Conjunction of 1524 and on the long and extended debate surrounding it, which would not have been possible prior to Gutenberg, since astrologers printed numberless booklets (full of religious and political innuendo) predicting the catastrophe - flood, as well as earthquake or fire - foreseen for February 1524 (which, in the event, proved to be a month of extraordinary mild weather). Part IV reprints some review-articles of twentieth century scholars whose writing has contributed to our understanding of the historical problems concerning magic and other connected debates.
ICT-Driven Economic and Financial Development: Analyses of European Countries
by Ewa Lechman Adam MarszkICT-Driven Economic and Financial Development: Analyses of European Countries demonstrates the effects of ICT diffusion on economic, social and financial development by examining their impact on the structure and dynamics of national economies. It provides the insight into shifts observed in labour markets, international trade activities productivity factors, education and use of innovative financial products. It combines empirical analyses and data sources stretching back to 1990 make it an important contribution to understanding the effects of ICT diffusion on economic and financial development. The book answers questions such as how will national and regional economies react to upcoming ICT developments and growing usage, and what is the magnitude of impact of new information and communication technologies on various aspects of social and economic life. - Demonstrates the process fo ICT spread across European countries - Analyzes the value of ICTs from both economic and social perspective - Examines structural changes in financial markets caused by ICTs implementation
Recherches sur l'histoire de la France Médiéval: Des Mérovingiens aux Premiers Capétiens (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Robert-Henri BautierThis selection of articles by Robert-Henri Bautier deals with the political and institutional history of France between the 6th and 12th centuries, and is above all concerned with the changing extent of the rulers' power from the rise of the Carolingians onwards. A subsequent volume will focus on the Capetians, while a further pair of volumes deal with economic history. The first studies here examine two general topics: the emergence of Paris as the undisputed capital of France, and the ceremony of Royal coronation and consecration. The following articles, on Carolingian France, reconsider the significance of the battle of Roncevaux and the importance of the region of Neustria, then study the decomposition of the Carolingian empire in Southern France and Catalonia. The last group is concerned with various aspects of the re-expansion of central power under the early Capetian kings and, finally, with the evolution of one of the fundamental organs of medieval municipal government, the échevinage. Cette sélection d’articles par Robert-Henri Bautier traite de l’histoire politique et institutionnelle française entre le VIe et le XIIe siècle, et s’intéresse avant tout à l’éntendue territoriale changeante du pouvoir monarchique dès le début de la dynastie carolingienne. Un volume subséquent se concentre sur les Capétiens et deux autres ont pour thème l’histoire économique. Les premières études inclues dans le présent recueil examinent deux sujets d’ordre général: l’avènement de Paris en tant que capitale incontestable de la France et le développement de la cérémonie du couronnement et de la consécration royale. Les études suivantes considèrent à nouveau la signification de la bataille de Roncevaux et l’importance de la région de Neustrie. L’auteur passe ensuite à l’analyse de la désagrégation de l’empire carolingien dans le Midi de la France et en Catalogne. Le dernier groupe d’études concerne divers aspects de la ré
Pietro Aretino: Subverting the System in Renaissance Italy (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Raymond B. WaddingtonThe essays gathered together in this volume follow the career of the sixteenth-century courtier-poet Pietro Aretino. Part One introduces the author during the 1520s in Rome with his remarkable first comedy, La Cortigiana. With Aretino’s move to Venice (1527), he found a congenial life-long home in which he could flourish. Yet the transition from courtier poet to poligrafo, vernacular writer for the popular press, was slow and difficult before he adopted a new career model derived from Erasmus; even then, he contemplated abandoning Italy for the Ottoman Empire. Part Two examines his work as a satirist in the mid-thirties with the Ragionamenti, the dialogues that branded him a pornographer when the satiric targets lost their immediacy. He augmented the satiric writings by creating the visual persona of a satirist in various media - woodcut author portraits in books, engravings, and particularly portrait medals. The complementary, verbal-visual relationship is the subject of this pairing. Aretino’s religious writings have not been taken seriously until quite recently. The two essays presented here trace Aretino’s associations with Erasmians, spirituali, heretics, and apostates, arguing that his own convictions were sincere, suggesting that he became a Nicodemite during the gathering Counter-Reformation repression of the 1540s. The concluding essays consider two examples of Aretino’s continuing influence in different media, visual arts and literature: on the brilliant, eccentric artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and on a great English comedy, Ben Jonson’s Volpone.
Mercantilist Theory and Practice Vol 1: The History of British Mercantilism
by Lars Magnusson'England is a nation of shopkeepers'. Long before Napolean disdainfully paraphrased Adam Smith, British commerce had become a motor for economic growth and increased state power. This four-volume facsimile edition brings together a range of rare seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents about the mercantile system.
Magic, Memory and Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Stephen ClucasThis collection of Stephen Clucas's articles addresses the complex interactions between religion, natural philosophy and magic in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. The essays on the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee show that the angelic conversations of John Dee owed a significant debt to medieval magical traditions and how Dee's attempts to communicate with spirits were used to serve specific religious agendas in the mid-seventeenth century. The essays devoted to Giordano Bruno offer a reappraisal of the magical orientation of the Italian philosopher's mnemotechnical and Lullist writings of the 1580s and 90s and show his influence on early seventeenth-century English understandings of memory and intellection. Next come three studies on the atomistic or corpuscularian natural philosophy of the Northumberland and Cavendish circles, arguing that there was a distinct English corpuscularian tradition prior to the Gassendian influence in the 1640s and 50s. Finally, two essays on the seventeenth-century Intelligencer Samuel Hartlib and his correspondents shows how religion alchemy and natural philosophy interacted during the 'Puritan Revolution'.
Numerals and Arithmetic in the Middle Ages (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Charles BurnettThis volume, the third by Charles Burnett in the Variorum series, brings together articles on the different numeral forms used in the Middle Ages, and their use in mathematical and other contexts. Some pieces study the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals into Western Europe, documenting, in more detail than anywhere else, the different forms in which they are found, before they acquired the standard shapes with which we are familiar today. Others deal with experiments with other forms of numeration within Latin script: e.g., using the first nine Roman numerals as symbols with place value, abbreviating the Roman numerals, and using the Latin letters as numerals. The author discusses how different types of numerals are used for different purposes, and the application of numerals to the abacus, and to calculation with pen and ink. The studies include the critical edition of several Latin texts.
La Pologne dans l'Eglise médiéval (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Jerzy KloczowskiThe establishment of Latin Christianity in Poland had a profound impact on its development, and this is the subject of the present volume. The articles range from surveys tracing the main phases of this evolution and the Church’s expansion between the 10th and the 16th centuries, to particular studies of parish organisation and the role of the monastic orders - above all the Mendicants, whose importance Professor Kloczowski considers has been much underestimated. In addition, he has also been concerned to relate developments in Poland to those in the neighbouring parts of east-central Europe, in Bohemia, Hungary and, later, in Lithuania, and to trace the ties linking the area with the West, and especially with Italy. La fondation de la chrétienté latine en Pologne a eu un impact profond sur son développement; ceci forme le sujet du présent volume. Les articles vont d’évaluations retraçant les principales phases de cette évolution et de l’expansion de l’Eglise entre le 10e et le 16e siècle, à des études spécifiques sur l’organisation paroissiale et le rôle des ordres monastiques - surtout les Mendiants, dont l’importance, selon le professeur Kloczowski, a été beaucoup trop sousestimée. Il s’est aussi attaché à établir les rapports entre les développements en Pologne et ceux dans les parties avoisinantes de l’Europe de l’Est centrale, en Bohème, en Hongrie et, plus tard, en Lithuanie. Il tente aussi de retracer les liens unissant cette région à l’Ouest et, plus particulièrement à l’Italie.
Women, Family and Society in Byzantium (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Angeliki E. LaiouAngeliki Laiou (1941-2008), one of the leading Byzantinists of her generation, broke new ground in the study of the social and economic history of the Byzantine Empire. Women, Family and Society in Byzantium, the first of three volumes to be published posthumously in the Variorum Collected Studies Series, brings together eight articles published between 1993 and 2009. Demonstrating Professor Laiou's characteristic attention to the relationship between ideology and social practice, the first five articles concern the status of women as evidenced through legal, narrative, hagiographical, and archival sources, while the final three investigate conceptions of law and justice, the vocabulary and typology of peasant rebellions, and the and the form and evolution of political agreements in Byzantine society.
Acquittals in the Spanish Inquisition
by Gunnar W. KnutsenThe Spanish Inquisition has become such a byword for injustice that many forget it was also a judicial system capable of acquittal. This study of more than 67,000 trials uncovers over 2,500 formal acquittals, more than 6,600 suspended trials, and nearly 2,100 with unknown or no recorded outcomes.The inquisitors were jurists who frequently held other judgeships before and after their tenure and used the same evidentiary rules as other Spanish courts. If every acquittal may be taken as an admission of error, the Spanish Inquisition admitted its errors thousands of times, occasionally even putting them on public display at the autos de fe. An acquittal can also be taken as a sign that the inquisitors did not wish to punish the innocent and that while they were quick to arrest and charge people on flimsy evidence, they were too conscientious to convict them without further proof. However, it is also clear that the Holy Office at times did bend, twist, or even break the law when it suited it in order to secure a conviction.This book is aimed at students, scholars, and general readers seeking a nuanced understanding of the Spanish Inquisition and its workings.
Acquittals in the Spanish Inquisition
by Gunnar W. KnutsenThe Spanish Inquisition has become such a byword for injustice that many forget it was also a judicial system capable of acquittal. This study of more than 67,000 trials uncovers over 2,500 formal acquittals, more than 6,600 suspended trials, and nearly 2,100 with unknown or no recorded outcomes.The inquisitors were jurists who frequently held other judgeships before and after their tenure and used the same evidentiary rules as other Spanish courts. If every acquittal may be taken as an admission of error, the Spanish Inquisition admitted its errors thousands of times, occasionally even putting them on public display at the autos de fe. An acquittal can also be taken as a sign that the inquisitors did not wish to punish the innocent and that while they were quick to arrest and charge people on flimsy evidence, they were too conscientious to convict them without further proof. However, it is also clear that the Holy Office at times did bend, twist, or even break the law when it suited it in order to secure a conviction.This book is aimed at students, scholars, and general readers seeking a nuanced understanding of the Spanish Inquisition and its workings.
Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus: Philosophy and Religion in Neoplatonism (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Andrew SmithThis selection of twenty-five essays by Andrew Smith is devoted to Neoplatonism and especially to Plotinus and Porphyry. It deals with Plotinus' development of the Platonic Forms, and includes a lengthy assessment of Porphyry's contribution to the Platonic tradition. The themes also embrace a number of issues that have become particularly prominent in the more recent growth of interest in these philosophers of late antiquity. For example, the importance of practical ethical activity is examined particularly in the case of Plotinus and it is argued from several perspectives that a theoretical basis for reconciling the life of contemplation with that of everyday living may be found in his metaphysics. This also involves his speculations on time and eternity as well as his observations about human consciousness. A closer examination of the role of religion, magic and myth in the life of the philosopher reveals a much richer and more nuanced appreciation of their importance than has been accorded them by an earlier generation of scholars. In particular the contribution of Iamblichus is recognised as a profound attempt to account for divine activity in the world and the first attempt to propose a solution to the problems involved in presenting metaphysics of religious ritual.
Leveraging WMI Scripting: Using Windows Management Instrumentation to Solve Windows Management Problems (HP Technologies)
by Alain LissoirLeveraging WMI Scripting is the second in a series of two books dedicated to WMI. Understanding WMI Scripting (ISBN 1-55558-266-4), Lissoir's first book, explained to Windows Administrators the various WMI scripting techniques and manageability capabilities of this new Windows Server 2003 platform. Illustrated with hundreds of scripts and detailed tables, the book explained the underlying technology and how WMI can be put to work. Lissoir focused not only on WMI programming aspects for developers but on how administrators can use what is available in Windows for their admin work. If you've had significant WMI experience, or have read Lissoir's first book, you are ready to apply your WMI knowledge to any technology that interfaces with WMI. Leveraging WMI Scripting continues the presentation of WMI begun in Understanding WMI Scripting. In this new volume, we dive deeper into WMI to understand the manageable entities of the Windows world. Lissoir offers a structured description of the most important WMI providers available from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows Server 2003 (including Windows 2000 and Windows XP). This covers the WMI management of the Windows Registry, Active Directory, SNMP, the Resultant Set Of Policies (RSOP), and the Volume Shadow Service to name a few. This discussion leverages the information on building real-world scripted management solutions presented in Lissoir's first book. Like the first volume, Leveraging WMI Scripting is based on an important concept: "learning by practice." Leveraging WMI Scripting addresses the most advanced topics so that you can exploit the features of various WMI interfaces to manage the components in a real-world environment. WMI is a critical topic under Windows Server 2003, so this book provides real added value to every Windows administrator.·Shows you how to extract data from applications, understand what's really happening on your servers, and get real work done ·Provides hundreds of usable scripts to use in everyday solutions for network performance and security·Offers practical and straightforward advice that any enterprise Windows administrator can learn from
Pietro Aretino: Subverting the System in Renaissance Italy (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Raymond B. WaddingtonThe essays gathered together in this volume follow the career of the sixteenth-century courtier-poet Pietro Aretino. Part One introduces the author during the 1520s in Rome with his remarkable first comedy, La Cortigiana. With Aretino’s move to Venice (1527), he found a congenial life-long home in which he could flourish. Yet the transition from courtier poet to poligrafo, vernacular writer for the popular press, was slow and difficult before he adopted a new career model derived from Erasmus; even then, he contemplated abandoning Italy for the Ottoman Empire. Part Two examines his work as a satirist in the mid-thirties with the Ragionamenti, the dialogues that branded him a pornographer when the satiric targets lost their immediacy. He augmented the satiric writings by creating the visual persona of a satirist in various media - woodcut author portraits in books, engravings, and particularly portrait medals. The complementary, verbal-visual relationship is the subject of this pairing. Aretino’s religious writings have not been taken seriously until quite recently. The two essays presented here trace Aretino’s associations with Erasmians, spirituali, heretics, and apostates, arguing that his own convictions were sincere, suggesting that he became a Nicodemite during the gathering Counter-Reformation repression of the 1540s. The concluding essays consider two examples of Aretino’s continuing influence in different media, visual arts and literature: on the brilliant, eccentric artist, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and on a great English comedy, Ben Jonson’s Volpone.
The Structure of Being and the Search for the Good: Essays on Ancient and Early Medieval Platonism (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Dominic O'MearaThe essays in this book discuss a number of the central metaphysical and ethical themes that engaged the minds of Platonist philosophers during late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. One particular theme is that of the structure of reality, with the associated questions of the relations between soul and body and between intelligible and sensible reality, and the existence of mathematical objects. Other topics relate to evil and beauty, political life and its purpose, the philosophical search for the absolute Good, and how one can speak about this Absolute and have union with it. Going from Plato to Eriugena, the ways in which Platonist philosophers understood and developed these themes are analysed and compared.
Power, Administration and Finance in Mughal India (Variorum Collected Studies)
by John F. RichardsFrom the mid-16th to the early 18th centuries the Mughal empire was the dominant power in the Indian subcontinent. Contrary to what is sometimes suggested, John Richards argues that this centralised state was dynamic and skillfully run. The studies here consider its links with the wider early modern world, and focus on three related aspects of its history. The first concerns the nature of imperial authority, in terms both of the dynastic ideology created by Akbar and his successors, and the extent to which this authority could be enforced in the countryside. The second aspect is that of fiscal and monetary policy and administration: how did the Mughals collect, track and expend their vast revenues, and what effects did this have? Finally, the author asks why the system could not cope with the changes it had helped engender, and what were the weaknesses and pressures that led to the breakup of the empire in the first decades of the 18th century. De la moitié du 16e siècle au début du 18e, l’empire moghol était le pouvoir dominant du sous-continent indien. Contrairement à ce qui peut parfois être suggéré, John Richards soutient que cet état centralisé était dynamique et adroitement mené. Les études examinent ses liens avec le reste du monde moderne et se concentrent sur trois aspects de son histoire. Le premier concerne la nature de l’autorité impériale, en termes d’idéologie dynastique, telle qu’elle avait été créée par Akbar et ses successeurs et du point jusqu’auquel cette autorité pouvait être imposée dans les milieux ruraux. Le second aspect est celui de l’administration et de la politique fiscale et monétaire: comment les Moghols faisaient-ils pour collecter, retrouver et dépenser leurs vastes revenus et quel était l’effet d’une telle politique? Enfin, l’auteur cherche à savoir pourquoi ce système n’arrivait pas à faire face aux changements qu’il avait contribué à engendrer et quelles avaient été
Quantum Machine Learning: A Modern Approach
by S. Karthikeyan M. Akila D. Sumathi T. PoongodiThis book presents the research into and application of machine learning in quantum computation, known as quantum machine learning (QML). It presents a comparison of quantum machine learning, classical machine learning, and traditional programming, along with the usage of quantum computing, toward improving traditional machine learning algorithms through case studies.In summary, the book: Covers the core and fundamental aspects of statistics, quantum learning, and quantum machines. Discusses the basics of machine learning, regression, supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms, and artificial neural networks. Elaborates upon quantum machine learning models, quantum machine learning approaches and quantum classification, and boosting. Introduces quantum evaluation models, deep quantum learning, ensembles, and QBoost. Presents case studies to demonstrate the efficiency of quantum mechanics in industrial aspects. This reference text is primarily written for scholars and researchers working in the fields of computer science and engineering, information technology, electrical engineering, and electronics and communication engineering.
Philip Melanchthon, Speaker of the Reformation: Wittenberg's Other Reformer (Variorum Collected Studies)
by Timothy J. WengertThe studies in this volume illuminate the thought and life of Philip Melanchthon, one of the most neglected major figures in Reformation history and theology. Melanchthon was one of the most widely published and respected thinkers in his own day, who authored some of the sixteenth-century's most important books on Latin and Greek grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, and history, to say nothing of his theological output, which included the first overview of Protestant theology, the first Protestant commentaries on Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and John. He was also the chief drafter of the Augsburg Confession and wrote its defense, the Apology. These essays, written over the past twenty years, commemorate the 450th anniversary of Melanchthon's death in 2010. The articles provide a wide-ranging picture of Melanchthon's thought and life with topics including his view of free will, approaches to biblical interpretation, his perspective on the church fathers and world history, and comparisons to other important figures of the age, including Calvin, Luther and Erasmus.