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The phrase Germania illustrata is the title of a publishing project (never realized) of the German humanist K. Celtis; had it been realized, it would have been the earliest humanist presentation of the geography and history of Germany. But as a plan that Celtis pursued from 1495 until his death in 1508 and worked on at length within the circle of German humanists, the Germania illustrata documents his sustained interest in discussions of the German nation, which pioneered a specifically humanistic nationalism (Nation, nationalism) [1. 251–379].The primary sources for the …

1. The first national geography The Latin  Italia illustrata (“Italy illumined [by fame]”), written from 1448 by Flavio Biondo, papal secretary and clerk of the apostolic chancellery, and published unfinished in 1453, was the first Humanist description of Italy, indeed of any European country, and a model of national self-definition that resonated across Europe. Abandoning the universal perspective of the medieval geographies and world chronicles, and hence also their salvific implications, but going fa…

1. Definition and basicsIn the broad sense, for example in the phrase  editio princeps (“first edition”), the term  edition applies to any printed work; in literary usage, it denotes an edition of a manuscript or printed text based on philological criteria, claiming to reproduce it as authentically as possible, that is, in conformity with the author’s intent. Depending on the era of the work being edited, realization of this claim must confront a variety of limits. While the modern editor of works written since t…

1. DefinitionThe term “dialogue literature” denotes a literary genre the defining characteristic of which is alternating speech involving at least two real or fictional characters. It is distinguished from “dialogue” as a structural element in other text types like the novel in that it is composed entirely in direct speech, with the exception of any framework story. It differs from drama in the lack of a fully worked-out plot, although the boundary here is somewhat fluid. Dialogues during which p…