Plato in the Italian Renaissance, a seminal book-length treatment of Renaissance Platonism, is a study of the dramatic revival of interest in the Platonic dialogues in Italy in the fifteenth century. Through a richly contextual study of the translations and commentaries on Plato, James Hankins seeks to show how the interpretation of Plato was molded by the expectations of fifteenth-century readers, by the need to protect Plato against his critics, and the broader hermeneutical assumptions and practices of the period.

The second volume includes 20 appendices which treat of the dates, character, and sources of the translations and commentaries discussed in the first volume. It also contains a catalogue raisonée of texts illustrative of Plato in the Quattrocento, comprising new critical editions of 59 texts, thirty-eight of them hitherto unpublished. The volume ends with a complete catalog of manuscripts and printed editions of Renaissance Latin translations of Plato, an incipitarium, and full indexes. A single-volume edition was published in 1994.