Nathan Gilmour moderates a discussion with David Grubbs and Michial Farmer about the Italian Renaissance and the broad spectrum of intellectual and artistic activity that emerges from that period. On the way we focus on the strong continuities between the concrete continuities between this fascinating time and what people in that moment called "the Dark Ages," and that discussion takes us into the realms of sculpture and politics and philosophy as well as poetry. Among the authors, artists, and others discussed are Dante, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Castiglione, Pico de Mirandola, and the Medicis.