Acentral issue of Quattrocento cultural history is the reevaluation of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio by Florentine humanists. Yet whereas humanists could finally endorse the accomplishments of Dante and Petrarch, the third of the "three crowns," Boccaccio, seems to have presented a stumbling block to those concerned with affirming the continuity of humanistic studies with Trecento culture. Boccaccio's volgare works suffer from a comparison with Dante's linguistic and poetic achievement, while the Latin compendia of Boccaccio reveal none of the historical erudition of his mentor Petrarch.

The subject of this study is William Tyndale's 1530 translation of the Pentateuch. The historical and literary importance of Tyndale's Bible translation has been well established. In an England moving towards the Reformation he gave the greatest impulse to the use of the vernacular, and he laid the foundation for the "Biblical style" of the 1611 Authorized Version. What remains in dispute is the degree of Tyndale's independence: how far did he rely on his own resources, and how far was he dependent upon his predecessors, in particular Jerome's Vulgate, Luther's German Bible, the Latin translation of Pagninus, and the earlier English translation, the Wyclif Bible?

The name Gian Vincenzo Pinelli is hardly known today, even among specialists in the Italian Renaissance. This was not always so. Four hundred years ago every Italian intellectual and most non- Italian intellectuals would have responded to the name Pinelli with enthusiasm and appreciation, since he possessed one of the best, perhaps the best private library in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century. He not only collected books and manuscripts, he also put them at the disposal of serious readers. Moreover, he personally encouraged scholars in every imaginable field. Pinelli and his library deserve to be better known.