The invention of Giorgione's much-interpreted painting known as The Tempest can be explained with reference to the De rerum natura of Lucretius. Lucretius provides the essential connection between the main elements of the painting: a male 'wanderer,' a lightning bolt, broken columns, a naked, nursing female, and a landscape rendered according to momentary, fleeting appearances. The invention of the painting also responds to the way Lucretius was read around 1500, to the specific interests of the poet's Renaissance readers and imitators, and to forms of self-cultivation associated with the ownership of a studiolo.

This study examines the impact of the 1512 Medici restoration on the antiphonaries and graduals of the Florentine cathedral. Seven choirhooks are recognizably Medicean in their artistic and, in one significant case, in their liturgical and musical content. Whether through depictions of the family's most distinguished members — notably Lorenzo il Magnifico and Pope Leo X — or the detailed representations of contemporary events in which the Medici were the protagonists, or whether through the creation of a new Office for Florentine bishop-saint Zenobius, these lavish manuscripts reflect the themes of control and propaganda central to the years of the Medici restoration.

The article examines the narrative conclusion of the Georgics, in which the nymph Cyrene distills from Proteus' tale of Orpheus and Eurydice a set of practical instructions for her son to carry out. It argues that the tendency to minimize or ignore Cyrene's crucial role at the end of the poem is inseparable from Virgil's attempt to inspect the mechanics of instruction. Renaissance editors, commentators, and illustrators grappled uneasily with Virgil's attempt to make gender and placement integral components of Cyrene's pedagogy, and with the notion that successful instruction would culminate in a scene in which the teacher might still need to be present.

Montaigne's claim to be free from obligations to individual persons or the state in general is based on a corresponding assertion of self ownership. He claims a property in himself which includes the right to determine the nature of his employment. His stated preference is to limit any counterclaims upon his propriety, to invest his time and abilities exclusively in himself. Despite this preference, however, he describes his own career in public service and its terms. He agrees that the property he has in himself can be leased to the use of his prince, but he insists that this use not offend his judgment or preempt his will. He distinguishes his service from political servitude, which entails a forfeiting of the powers of judgment and will. His language describing how and for whom he works borrows terms from the market denoting ownership, possession, debt, obligation, and benefit.