Johann Georg Jacobi (1740-1814) is a significant representative of the German Enlightenment in its various spheres of experience, and range of aesthetic, political and religious options. This bibliography presents for the first time Jacobi s work and extensive literary estate. A register of more than 2000 letters brings to light not only Jacobi s numerous acquaintances and intense exchange of letters, but also the international network of the Enlightenment in Germany s southwest."

In the second half of the 18th century, the aesthetics of sensibility was the motivation for organized opposition to the 'cold' rationalism bound up with the name of Johann Christoph Gottsched. With recourse both to ancient and humanistic concepts of love, friendship, and sensibility and to medical and anthropological theorems on sensualism, there developed after 1740 a body of writings that have traditionally been designated as representing a 'culture of sensibility' referred to in German as Empfindsamkeit. In 14 studies, the contributors to this collection investigate the concepts behind the phenomenon of 'feeling-oriented' sociability, discuss examples from different literary genres, and engage with the contemporary reception accorded to the culture of sensibility.

The volume assembles 36 articles deriving from an international transdisciplinary colloquium organized at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in 2004 to mark the 700th anniversary of the birth of Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). It is the first-ever attempt to provide a comprehensive overview of the immense impact Petrarca and his works have had on literature, art, and music in Germany from neo-Latin humanism to contemporary poetry.

This collective volume documents the German reception of the last novella of Boccaccio's Decameron. It is about Griselda, a poor daughter of a peasant, whom the Marquis Gualtieri marries and subsequently repudiates and humiliates in an inhumane way. Finally, after being subjected to numerous trials which she endures patiently, she is reinstated as wife and marchioness. The book explores the German reception of the Griselda figuration as gender paradigm from the Middle Ages up to the Modern Age in a European context.