The year 2008 marked the fifth centenary of the birth of Alessandro Piccolomini, a scholar and polymath who, more than almost anyone else, is said to embody the ideal Renaissance man. A brilliant and protean intellectual, he thrived within the structure of the Italian Renaissance academies, representing the best that his age had to offer.The volume published by the University of Sorbonne Paris 3, edited by Marie-Françoise Piéjus, Michel Plaisance, and Matthew Residori, consists of sixteen essays addressing Piccolomini's various competencies, from mathematics to astronomy, from drama to linguistics. As the editors point out, Piccolomini's intellectual stature is such that "tous les spécialistes de la Renaissance ont subi la séduction à un moment ou à un autre" (9). The book is divided in a number of sections, addressing, among other topics, the relationship between Piccolomini and Siena, his contact with Padua, his vision of women, his theatrical pieces, as well as language, astronomy, mathematics, and his studies of the classics.The book begins with an analysis of the relationship Piccolomini had with the two cities in which he lived (Siena and Padua) and their respective academies: the famous Intronati and the more turbulent Infiammati.The remarkable essay by Franco Tomasi analyzes the influence of the Sienese literary milieu on Piccolomini. That investigation prompts Tomasi to discuss Sienese cultural life in the first decades of the century and the experience of the Intronati. In this essay, Piccolomini's varied cultural background comes to the fore. In the first phases of his erudite intellectual project, he pursues interests that he will fully develop later, such as love-inspired lyric poetry and the vulgarization of the classics.In the second essay of the volume, Salvatore Lo Re deals with Piccolomini's relationship between the University of Padua, an Aristotelian stronghold, and the academy of the Infiammati. The author mostly concentrates on Piccolomini's