Peter Mack obituary

My friend, colleague and mentor Peter Mack, who has died aged 68 after a car crash in France, was a major force in the academic world. Widely known as the foremost scholar of Renaissance rhetoric – the art of persuasive argument, spoken and written – Peter was resourceful enough to combine erudite scholarship with canny and dedicated leadership. When he accepted the directorship of the Warburg Institute he helped it secure a court judgment against the University of London that recognised the Warburg’s autonomy and secured its financial security, while it remained part of the university.

Born in Oxford, Peter was the oldest of four children of Hilary (nee Gardner), a nurse, and David Mack, a surveyor. His parents separated when he was 10, and he did much to look after his siblings, Carolyn, Brian and Katie. From St Lawrence college, Ramsgate, he went on to St Peter’s College, Oxford, where he gained a degree in English, and the Warburg Institute, where he completed his PhD on Rudolph Agricola and Renaissance rhetoric.

He spent his entire career at the University of Warwick (1979-2018), teaching a wide range of courses in comparative literature, apart from his secondment at the Warburg (2010-14), a role he undertook out of loyalty and desire to see justice done, qualities that were evident throughout his distinguished career.

Peter wrote a series of major studies of rhetoric and dialectic, showing how systems of education throughout Europe fostered a common culture that generated the extraordinary achievements of Renaissance writing. In his most significant works, Elizabethan Rhetoric (2003) and the comprehensive A History of Renaissance Rhetoric (2011), he was able to demonstrate the importance of rhetorical manuals, works that determined the superstructure of European thought from the 15th to the late 17th century.

He enjoyed a late writing renaissance when he was able to leave behind the burdens of his many offices and commitments, producing a pithy guide to rhetoric that demonstrated its significance in modern as well as earlier writing; and Reading Old Books: Writing With Traditions (2019), which reminded readers in the digital age of the importance of literary history.

In 1980 he married Vicki Behm, and they had four children, Johanna, William, Emily, and Rosy, and four grandchildren. Retirement was very good for him, and he was able to spend more time with his family, often at the house they had in Maiolati Sponini in the Marche region of Italy. He was never idle, and added to his impressive stock of languages, as well as producing a series of self-published pamphlets of miscellaneous essays, a guide to Italy and reflections on Russian literature that he distributed to his friends, all of which would benefit a wider readership.

He is survived by Vicki, their children and grandchildren, and his two sisters and brother.