Humanist Comedies

The five comedies included in this volume present a characteristic sampling of comic form as it was interpreted by some of the most important Latin humanists of the Quattrocento. Pier Paolo Vergerio’sPaulus, Philodoxeos fabula by Leon Battista Alberti, Philogenia et Epiphebus by Ugolino Pisani,Chrysis by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II), and Tommaso Medio’sEpirota span nearly the entire period and are a valuable gauge of its changing literary tastes, tastes nourished by the ancient comic drama of Plautus and Terence.