Standing at the Crossroads. Writings on Doubt in Renaissance Italy

This book explores for the first time the several descriptions of, and reflections on doubt in vernacular literary sources dating from the late fifteenth century until approximately the 1550s. It investigates the surge of discourses on, and descriptions of doubt in works in the vernacular targeting large readerships, mostly through the medium of print. Standing at the Crossroads argues that early modern doubt was a privileged tool to explore, act on, and make sense of a tumultuous cultural and social reality in which extraordinary events – the loss of political freedom, the wars of Italy, the encounter with previously unknown civilizations, the religious divide – shook all traditionally held beliefs. Under these circumstances, I suggest, doubt became a cultural object in itself and the fulcrum of a series of cultural strategies which varied in accordance with different contexts.