Receptions of Hellenism in Early Modern Europe: 15th–17th Centuries, edited by Natasha Constantinidou and Han Lamers, is a diverse collection. The reach of this volume is wide, and these essays highlight the human voices behind cultural, religious, and political attitudes toward Hellenism. The period that these essays cover was a time of cultural change for much of Europe. The volume skews toward the beginning of the period and has a wide geographical reach. It covers a variety of countries, including Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Scandinavia, the Baltic states, and Turkey, but generally it centers on Constantinople, Italy, France, and Germany. Despite the range and breadth of this volume, the essays contextualize each point in history, enabling the reader to establish general cultural ideas about the period and place. This approach ensures that the volume is not a restrictive and narrowly focused handbook, but a stimulus for further study of this multifaceted phenomenon. The volume is organized into three sections (which are subdivided further), charting ideas of Hellenism through their application in early modern Europe. This arrangement helps the reader to ascertain and understand important ideas of printing, reading, and teaching Greek; how ideas of Greek identity are formed; and how they manifest in culture and religion.

“Access and Dissemination” has one subsection, “Learning, Teaching, and Printing Greek.” These essays span the late fifteenth century to the 1560s and focus on Venice, France, Belgium, and Germany. They showcase examples of personal histories, giving voice to the people who made and consumed these texts. This is the largest subsection in the volume, and it provides a comprehensive overview on this aspect of Hellenism. The first half deals with bibliographic history. Paola Tomè describes the importance of the Aldine Appendix, furthering the knowledge of Greek language, while Luigi-Alberto Sanchi discusses Greek texts used in France, an invaluable starting point for further study. The second half of the section emphasizes personal connections with the printed material. Malika Bastin-Hammou, Raf Van Rooy, and Antony Ellis give an insight into the process of teaching and learning Greek. Ellis's images of Jacques Bongars's student notes on Herodotus are particularly engaging.

“Migration, Exchange, and Identity” has two subsections, the largest part of the volume, where the emphasis shifts from book history to visual culture. Personal viewpoints from the period are emphasized in the essays, and the wide scope of the section is supported by excellent contextualization throughout.

Within “Cultural Encounters and Exchanges between ‘Greek East’ and ‘Latin West,’” the material spans a broad period from the late fourteenth century to the early seventeenth century and moves between Germany, Italy, and Constantinople. Constantinople is at the forefront of many of these essays, and Aslıhan Akışık-Karakullukçu begins the section with her discussion of religion and the point where Greek and Latin Christianity met in Constantinople. Michele Bacci builds on this essay, examining the dialogue between Venetian and Byzantine iconography, and the form of Hellenic icons. This is an important religious context where cultural interchange took place regularly. Peter Bell, using a computer algorithm, decodes the way in which Byzantine scholars were visually represented. The algorithm detects degrees of Greek or Latinate features in the portraits, indicative of ideas about the scholars at the time. Finally, Federica Ciccolella charts the use of Anacreontics by Maximos Margounios in Germany. Although sometimes overlooked, when translated into Latin by Conrad Ritterhausen, these poems opened up a new avenue of Hellenism for German audiences.

The second subsection, “Perspectives on Greek Migrants in the West,” spans the mid-fourteenth century to the early seventeenth. Personal stories of migration are linked together, creating a sense of a migrant community through texts, actions, and family ties. Niketas Siniossoglou writes about the Greek influence on Michael Marullus Tarchaniota's poetry, looking back toward a nostalgic homeland. It is an essay of various contexts about Tarchaniota and his writing, and is a starting point for further investigation. Calliope Dourou focuses on Nikolaos Loukanes's 1526 Iliad and how his work created Trojans in the image of contemporary Turks through a Greek lens. Lastly Niccolò Fattori describes how migrant Greeks formed communities in Italy. He describes how professional-class Greeks formed networks due to shared skillsets and geographies, and how these networks endured through generations.

The first subsection of “Appropriations and Use: Cultural & Religious,” “History, Archaeology, and Antiquarianism” is based in the sixteenth century and focuses on imagery from Italy. Each essay describes how the early modern authors situated their work in the context of an established mode of Hellenic reception. William Stenhouse discusses Greek inscriptions, their forgeries, and their appreciation in the period, which shows the appetite for Greek culture in a variety of guises. Michail Chatzidakis uses Pirro Ligorio's work to illuminate attitudes to Hellenic texts and images. Ligorio made reconstructions of ancient works based on Greek and Roman sources, which are usefully illustrated. The last essay, by Maria Luisa Napolitano, describes Hubertus Goltzius's use of coinage in Greek Sicily, the subject of his sole work on the subject, Sicilia et Magna Graecia, where Napolitano reconciles Goltzius's Hellenism with humanist Italy's interest in “Romanness.”

The final subsection, “Humanist Greek and the Reformation,” centers on Germany and the Nordic and Baltic states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Stefan Weise looks to Georg Lizel's Greek poetry to illuminate the use of Greek in wider European contexts. Weise's appendix of works related to Lizel is very useful and succinctly provides more information on this German author. Janika Päll concludes the subsection by extending the scope for receptions of Hellenism through the Nordic and Baltic countries, with a focus on Sweden. She examines teaching practices and the use of Greek in contexts such as universities or in occasional poetry. This insight into Hellenism in often overlooked countries such as Latvia and Sweden is much welcomed.

Receptions of Hellenism in Early Modern Europe: 15th–17th Centuries is an engaging and wide-ranging volume for both historians and classicists, detailing with a diverse range of Greek receptions in this important period.