The Renaissance dialogue is the first full-length study of the use of the dialogue form in Italy from the early sixteenth century until Galileo. Drawing on a wide range of literary, philosophical and scientific sources, it examines the characteristics which determined the genre's unrivalled popularity in the period as a vehicle for polemic, debate, technical exposition and comic drama. Particular attention is paid to reception and to the place that the dialogue occupied within the evolving cultural economy of the Italian courts.

More than simply an account of the development of an individual literary genre, however, The Renaissance dialogue is a contribution to the broader social and cultural history of the period. As representations of conversation, miniature dramas of persuasion, the dialogues of the Italian Renaissance constitute an extraordinarily rich - and largely untapped - source of information about the ideals and practice of communication in the early modern age. The Renaissance dialogue draws on this evidence to trace a history of cultural dialogue, charting the effect of factors such as the cultural policies of the Counter-Reformation, the realignment of social and intellectual practice which came with the consolidation of absolutist rule throughout Italy, and the gradual internalization of the psychological norms of a typographic culture.