Publisher's description:
This multi-authored volume, by an authoritative team of international scholars, examines the transmission of Ciceronian rhetoric in medieval and early Renaissance Europe, concentrating on the fortunes, in particular, of the two dominant classical rhetorical textbooks of the time, Cicero’s early De inventione, and the contemporary ‘pseudo-Ciceronian’ Rhetorica ad Herennium. The volume is unprecedented in range and depth as a presentation of the place of classical rhetoric in medieval culture, and will serve to revise views of a period seen until recently as largely indifferent to the values of ‘eloquence’. The main body of the volume is composed of a series of ground-breaking studies of the relationship between Ciceronian rhetoric and a wide range of intellectual traditions and cultural practices, including dialectic, law, conduct theory, memory, poetics and practical composition teaching, preaching, ars dictaminis, and political oratory. Also included are important contextualizing essays on the commentary tradition of the Ciceronian juvenilia, on the textual history and manuscript transmission of Cicero’s rhetorical works, and on the Latin and vernacular traditions of Ciceronian rhetoric in Italy. The volume concludes with an annotated appendix of illustrative texts containing extracts from the commentary tradition on Ciceronian rhetoric, most of which have not been previously available in print.

Table of contents:
List of Contributors
Abbreviations
Preface
PART ONE: ORIGINS, DEFINITIONS, NATURE, AND DIFFUSION
1. The Medieval and Early Renaissance Study of Cicero’s De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium: Commentaries and Contexts, John O. Ward
Appendix: Catena Glosses on the De inventione of Cicero and the Pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium from the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
2. Reading Between the Lines: The Textual History and Manuscript Transmission of Cicero’s Rhetorical Works, Ruth Taylor-Briggs
3. Ciceronian Rhetoric in Late Medieval Italy: The Latin and Vernacular Traditions, Virginia Cox
Appendix: Ciceronian Rhetoric in the Vernacular in Italy, 1260–1500
PART TWO: INFLUENCES AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS: CONTEXTS FOR THE UTILIZATION OF THE CICERONIAN RHETORICAL JUVENILIA AND THEIR COMMENTARY TRADITION
4. Ciceronian Rhetoric and Ethics: The Conduct Literature and ‘Speaking Well’, Mark D. Johnston
5. Ciceronian Rhetoric and Dialectic, Karin Margareta Fredborg
6. Ciceronian Rhetoric and the Law, Hanns Hohmann
7. Rhetorical memoria in Commentary and Practice, Mary Carruthers
8. The Ciceronian Rhetorical Tradition and Medieval Literary Theory, Rita Copeland
9. Latin Composition Textbooks and Ad Herennium Glossing: The Missing Link?, Martin Camargo
Appendix 1. Ancient and Medieval Rhetorical Texts Discussed
Appendix 2. ‘Rhetorical Colors’ Treated in the Works Discussed
Appendix 3. Treatments of a Sample Figure (repetitio) Compared
Appendix 4. Ancient Rhetorics Cited or Quoted in Tria sunt Ch. 12 (Worcester Cathedral, Chapter Library MS Q.79, fols 143v–50r)
10. Poetics, Narration, and Imitation: Rhetoric as ars aplicabilis, Päivi Mehtonen
11. Medieval Thematic Preaching: A Ciceronian Second Coming, Margaret Jennings
12. The Rhetorical Juvenilia of Cicero and the artes dictaminis, Gian Carlo Alessio
13. Communication, Consensus, and Conflict: Rhetorical Precepts, the ars concionandi, and Social Ordering in Late Medieval Italy, Stephen J. Milner
Appendix: Examples of zibaldoni Containing Sample Orations and Other Rhetorically Related Material
Appendix: The Commentaries in Action, Virginia Cox and John O. Ward
Appendix 1. The Preface to Victorinus’ De inventione Commentary
Appendix 2. The Preface to the Ad Herennium Gloss by Alanus (of Lille?) from MS London B.L. Harley 6324
Appendix 3. The Preface to the Ad Herennium Commentary by Guarino da Verona
Appendix 4. The Doctrine of insinuatio, or ‘the indirect opening’
Appendix 5. The tertium genus narrationis
Appendix 6. Attitudes towards Antiquity: The Gloss on the Lucius Saturninus Episode (Ad Herennium 1.12.21, the legal status of definition)
Appendix 7. Attitudes towards Antiquity: the color demonstratio (elocutio)
Bibliography of Primary Sources Cited
Bibliography of Secondary Works and Editions
Index of Manuscripts
Index of Persons and Titles
General Index.