The Republic of Letters

A provocative exploration of intellectual exchange across four centuries of European history by the author of When the World Spoke French In this fascinating study, preeminent historian Marc Fumaroli reveals how an imagined “republic” of ideas & interchange fostered the Italian Renaissance, the Enlightenment, & the French Revolution. He follows exchanges among Petrarch, Erasmus, Descartes, Montaigne, & others from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, through revolutions in culture & society.

Via revealing portraits & analysis, Fumaroli traces intellectual currents engaged with the core question of how to live a moral life—and argues that these men of letters provide an example of the exchange of knowledge and ideas that is worthy of emulation in our own time. Combining scholarship, wit, & reverence, this thought-provoking volume represents the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship.

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Lara Vergnaud has translated over a dozen books from the French. She received a PEN/Heim Translation Grant for her translation of France, story of a childhood, by Zahia Rahmani, which was released by Yale University Press in 2016. She is the recipient of the 2019 French Voices Grand Prize & was a finalist for the 2019 Best Translated Book Award. Her forthcoming translations include works by Mohamed Leftah & Franck Bouysse.

Her work has been featured in The Paris Review, Literary Hub, & the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. Lara was born in Tunisia & grew up in the United States.