The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494). Nicolai RubinsteinRepublican Realism in Renaissance Florence: Francesco Guicciardini's "Discorso di Logrogno". Athanasios Moulakis
In another group of essays the author investigates Dubrovnik's relations with the Mediterranean world. In these essays, Ragusa's central interests — her commercial and political contacts, use of ports and rights of navigation vis-a-vis Venice — are broached, but there is also discussion of the Balkan hinterland, and of the Ottoman world. Here too, the material emerges from the treasure trove of the archives of Dubrovnik, and Venice, the latter being another favorite hunting ground of Professor Krekic. Last but not least, Krekic reports on that remarkable Latino-Slavic symbiosis, so characteristic of life in Dubrovnik and the Dalmation coast, especially during the late medieval period and the Renaissance. With all his expertise regarding the Balkan Peninsula — the author is a trained and published Byzantinist, a student of G. Ostrogorsky — Professor Krekic, whose forte is economic history, never claimed to be a literary scholar. Therefore, the only thread missing from this otherwise rich tapestry of Dalmatian life, is the discussion of its great vernacular literature, boasting such giants as Sisko Mencetic, Marin Drzic, or Marko Marulic, to whom merely a few lines are devoted in his closing essay. Variorum publications feature works which have appeared before. These are usually not updated, and often the volume lacks a continuous pagination. However, in this case, the index includes useful directions to facilitate the finding of people, places, and events. By gathering those related articles into a single volume, Krekic achieved his goal: he has provided his appreciative readers with a unified picture of a great civilization on the Adriatic coast. MARIANNA D . BIRNBAUM University of California, Los Angeles