Renaissance Quarterly
Style Sheet
(Revised January, 2004)
ARTICLES
1. INITIAL MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
Three paper copies of the manuscript and the abstract (100 words or less)
are required. Please do not send an electronic copy at this point. On a
separate sheet, include: author’s name, email address, home and institutional
addresses, and phone and fax numbers. The author’s name should
not appear on the title page or elsewhere in the manuscript/abstract to
ensure blind readings from referees.
Referees expect to read manuscripts that conform to the RQ Style Sheet. Manuscripts should be DOUBLE SPACED, including abstract, text, quotations, endnotes (NOT footnotes), and bibliography. A bibliography of printed sources is required. For initial submission, photocopies of illustrations rather than original photos are preferable.
2. SUBMISSION OF ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPTS
The Articles Editor will contact authors of accepted manuscripts about
content, format, and style issues. After completing revisions, the author
sends the RSA office (rsa@rsa.org) one paper copy and one electronic copy
to serve as the basis for copyediting. Authors lacking email may send a
paper copy and an IBM compatible high-density 1.44mb diskette. The
diskette should be labeled with the author’s name, article title, and the
word processing program/version. The RSA office uses Microsoft Word
but accepts other programs. On the paper copy, the author’s name should
appear on a separate line after the title, with the author’s institutional
affiliation or geographic location placed at the end of the text. Illustrations
are submitted with the revised manuscript; they should be unmounted
glossy prints. Copies of the publishing permissions as well as captions are
required. Samples of caption format are in 3.F below.
3. STYLE
RQ uses The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), 15th or newest edition, with
modifications as noted. Spelling should be American. As an aid to reader
comprehension, provide life dates for historical figures and publication
dates for works discussed.
A. NUMBERS AND DATES
The numbers one through ninety-nine are spelled out in the text, except in
dates, page numbers, and parts of books: “one chapter deals with” and “chapter 1 deals with.” Roman numerals should be converted to Arabic,
except for introductory materials, legal citations, personal titles, or original
page numbers. Inclusive page numbers are written as follows: 66–67; 100–
09; 115–508.
Dates are written European style: 1 January 1400. Numbers that identify centuries are spelled out. A century name is hyphenated when used as an adjective (sixteenth-century art). Italian century names are capitalized (Quattrocento). Inclusive dates are written as follows: 1560–74.
B. ITALICS
Italics are used for foreign words/phrases not directly quoted and for English
words when they are discussed as words. Italics are NOT used for
foreign place names (Mont St. Michel), foreign proper names (Franc¸ois), or
direct quotations from foreign languages.
C. QUOTATIONS IN GENERAL
Long quotations: More than ten typed lines of prose or three lines of verse
are set off in a block and double spaced. As needed, briefly cite within
parentheses the source, the page, or line numbers quoted.
Have men beheld the Graces dance,
Or seen the upper orbs to move?
So did these turn, return, advance,
Drawn back by doubt, put on by love.
(265–68)
Short quotations “are placed between quotation marks in the text” (Source, page). Lines of poetry also need slashes (/) between lines and double slashes (//) between stanzas.
Ellipsis points: use within the body of a quote to indicate omission (. . . or . . . . if the omission includes a period). Avoid beginning and closing ellipses.
D. QUOTATIONS FROM FOREIGN LANGUAGES
A word or short passage is immediately followed by a translation in parentheses
the first time it appears; for example, coram papa (in the presence
of the pope), or “fare quattro fichi” (to make four figs). Do not italicize or
place quotation marks around the translation. Longer passages are translated
in the text and the original given in the notes. Very long passages will
be converted to appendices. In the notes, quotations in non-Roman alphabets
should not be transliterated. Latin abbreviations and contractions
should be spelled out and modern conventions followed for u/v, w/vv, etc.
Use modern punctuation and capitalize proper names.
E. CITATIONS
Acknowledgments are indicated by an asterisk after the article’s title. Doublespaced
numbered endnotes should start in the text. As an alternative to
endnotes, short in-text citations may be used (Jones, 27; Jones, 1969, 27;
or Jones, 1969b, 27, as needed).
Examples of endnotes:
1. King, 98–144.
2. Ibid., 79. (same publication cited immediately above, different page)
3. R. L. Stevenson, 81. (more than one Stevenson in the bibliography)
4. Kristeller, 2:73. (a multi-volume work)
5. Kristeller, 1952, 37. (more than one work by the author cited in the article)
6. Monfasani, 1980a, 51. (more than one work published the same year)
To clarify a complex work, explain its divisions the first time it is cited. For works divided into sections, separate the elements by periods. For example, 3.3.12–24 could indicate act 3, scene 3, lines 12–24; or book 3, canto 3, lines 12–24. A multivolume work needs a colon; for example, 1:2.7, 101– 02, could indicate volume 1, book 2, chapter 7, pages 101–02. Both “verso” and “recto” are used when printed works and manuscripts are so numbered; for example: 18v; 18r–v; 18r–19v; or, fol. 18v, etc.
Abbreviate as follows: chap. for chapter; bk. for book; pt. for part; vol.for volume; n., nn., for note, notes. Do not use: idem, op. cit., loc. cit., cf.,f., and ff.; instead, supply pages or other information as needed.
F. CAPTIONS
Examples of caption format:
FIGURE 1. Facade of convent church of Santa Maria delle Vergini in Venice. Venice, Biblioteca del Museo Correr, cod. Correr 317, fol. 10r.
FIGURE 2. Title page of first edition of Pietro Pomponazzi, Tractatus de immortalitate animae. Bologna, 1516. Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, University of Pennsylvania.
FIGURE 3. Girolami Tower, Florence, twelfth century. Alinari/Art Resource, New York.
FIGURE 4. Sandro Botticelli. Mystic Nativity, 1501. London, The National Gallery.
G. BIBLIOGRAPHY
The bibliography includes all printed works and manuscripts cited in the
article organized alphabetically in a single list. Authors making substantial
use of manuscripts may list them separately; see, for example, Carlson, RQ
55:3, 901–03. While archival records are not normally included in a bibliography,
the first note in the text to an archival document can list
frequently cited repositories, series, and their abbreviations. In addition to
the examples below, authors should consult CMS, chapter 17. RQ differs in
omitting the names of publishers, except when authors prefer to include
them for early imprints.
List multiple works by an author chronologically. The second and subsequent works begin with a line five spaces long followed by a period. Clarify identical American place names by using US postal style for states: Durham, NC or NH. Clarify identical European/American place names: Cambridge (England, no identifying location) but Cambridge, MA, for the US city. Give foreign place names in English: Venice, not Venezia. List no more than two places of publication.
Examples of bibliographic entries:
Basic author entry; note that the second author’s name is not inverted.
McMillin, Scott, and Sally-Beth Maclean. The Queen’s Men and Their Plays. Cambridge and New York, 1998.
Basic title entry; note that Ed. (or Trans. or Comp.) follows a period,
begins with a capital.Acts of the Privy Council. 1890–1907. Ed. J. R. Dasent. 32 vols. London, 1890–1907.
Basic editor entry: note that the editors’ contribution is substantial.
De Bujanda, J. M. et al., eds. Index de l’inquisition espagnole 1551, 1554, 1559. In Index des libres interdits, 6. Geneva, 1984.
Multi-author work with editor, often a collection of related articles; note
that entry is by title.Preachers of the Italian Ghetto. Ed. David B. Ruderman. Berkeley, 1992.
A single selection from an edited book.
Owens, Jesse Ann. “Was there a Renaissance in Music?” In Language and Images of Renaissance Italy, ed. Alison Brown, 111–26. Oxford, 1995.
Multiple selections from an edited book. The edited book gets its own
entry; each selection’s author, title, and pagination is given in full, but the
monographic information is brief. The examples are presented alphabetically,
as they would appear in a bibliography.Davis, Robert C. “The Geography of Gender in the Renaissance.” In Gender and Society (1998), 19–38.
Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy. Ed. Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis. London and New York, 1998.
Kuehn, Thomas. “Person and Gender in the Laws.” In Gender and
Society (1998), 87–106.Edition/series. Include series information only when it is important.
Shakespeare, William. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Ed. Giorgio
Melchiori. The Arden Shakespeare, 3rd ser. Walton-on-Thames, 2000.Reprint/facsimile.
Tomasini, Jacopo Filippo. Gymnasium Patavinum. 1654. Reprint, Sala Bolognese, 1986.
Multi-volume work.
Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. Trans. James L. Schaaf. 3 vols. Philadelphia (vol. 1) and Minneapolis (vols. 2, 3), 1985–93.
Journal article.
Steinberg, Leo. “Leonardo’s Last Supper.” Art Quarterly 36 (1973):
297–410.
Garin, Eugenio. “Dante nel Rinascimento.” Rinascimento n.s., 7 (1967): 3–28.Book review.
Prescott, Anne Lake. Rev. of Vulgar Rabelais by Carol Clark and Rabelais in Glasgow, ed. James A. Coleman and Christine M. Schollen- Jimack. Renaissance Quarterly 39 (1986): 552–55.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Review essays should follow the rules for articles.
REVIEWS
In general, reviewers should follow the style guide for articles. At the top of
the review, the reviewer should type the bibliographical information doublespaced
as follows:
William Shakespeare. The Merry Wives of Windsor. Ed. David Crane.
The New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1997. xi + 163 pp. + 2 col. pls. $39.95 (cl),
$10.95 (pbk). ISBN: 0–521–22155–2 (cl), 0–521–29370–7 (pbk).
Italics are preferable to underlining.
Quotations within the text from the book under review should be followed by a page number in parentheses: “The history of the text” (132). References to other works should be made by parenthetical citations: “The history of the text” (Thomas Writer, The Book Cited [1997]). RQ does not print footnotes to reviews.
At the end of the review, the reviewer’s name and institution should appear as follows:
Joan Doe
University of Nowhere
For instructions on submission, see 2. Submission of accepted manuscripts above. Send only electronic, not paper, texts.


