Book excerpt: As the transition between the Middle Ages and modern times, the Renaissance is perhaps the most distinguished age since that of Classic Greece. Moreover, the consciousness of our time was largely formed by those who were given freedom to express themselves by the rebirth of the arts and sciences of the Renaissance. The Renaissance Reader allows the men and women of that turbulent time of change to speak in their own voices--sane and insane, brilliant and mundane, inspired and possessed, oblivious and decisive. Organized chronologically and covering the fourteenth through the seventieth centuries, the book provides readers with the literary and artist; social, religious, and political; and scientific and philosophic texts that shaped Renaissance thinking from the death of Dante in 1321 to the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare in 1616. Selections include such familiar texts as Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, Baldassare Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, and Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. The book also contains works by many less familiar writers, including such prominent Renaissance women as Christine de Pizan, Isabella d'Este, and Catherine Zell. With the inclusion of the works of such brilliant artists as Giotto, de Vinci, Durer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Brueghel, and others, The Renaissance Reader brings the age to life with all its vibrance and excitement.