Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Contributors -- 1 Introduction: Rethinking Work Ethics -- Weber and the Work Ethic -- The Problem of Sources -- The Meaning of Work -- Interpreting Discourses of Work -- Religion and Work Ethics -- Ideology -- Social Legitimation and Critique -- Political Economy -- Discipline -- 2 The Work Ethic in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Its Origins -- From Ambivalence to Accommodation -- The Work Ethic in Fourteenth-Century Florence: The Silence of the Sources -- The Work Ethic of Fifteenth-Century Merchant Humanists -- Conclusions -- 3 Preaching About Manual/Artisanal Labour: A New Focus and Ambivalent Messages (1200-1500) -- A New Focus on Work -- A Proprium for Every Human Being -- The Redemptive Value of Work -- The Perils of Manual Labour -- An Ambivalent Message: The Role of Intention -- 4 Industry, Utility, and the Distribution of Wealth in Quattrocento Humanist Thought -- The Industrious City -- Profit and the Common Good -- Wealth and Virtue -- Matteo Palmieri and the vita civile -- Education, industria, and Virtue -- Utilità and Property -- Civil Justice and Fiscality -- Conclusion -- 5 Work, Morality, and Discipline in Sixteenth-Century Geneva -- Calvin and Work -- The Work of Moral Discipline -- Efforts to Reform Clothing and Appearance -- Conclusion -- 6 Critical Responses to the Humanist Work Ethic: The Image of the Pedant -- Style Over Substance: Erasmus Against Purism -- Quantity Over Quality: Montaigne Against Useless Knowledge -- Criticism from Outside: The Caricature of the Pedant -- Deflating |