In the footsteps of the ancients
Subtitle: the origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni
By: by Ronald G. Witt.
Series: Studies in medieval and Reformation thought,; v. 74
Publisher: Brill
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Leiden; Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 562
Subjects: Lovati, Lovato de, 1240 or 41-1309.; Bruni, Leonardo, 1369-1444.; Latin literature, Medieval and modern -- Italy -- History and criticism.; Latin literature, Medieval and modern -- France -- History and criticism.; Latin literature, Medieval and modern -- Classical influences.; Rhetoric, Ancient -- Study and teaching -- History -- To 1500.; Humanism in literature.; Humanists -- France.; Humanists -- Italy.; Italy -- Intellectual life -- 1268-1559.; France -- Intellectual life -- To 1500.
Description: "This monograph demonstrates why humanism began in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century. It considers Petrarch a third generation humanist, who christianized a secular movement. The analysis traces the beginning of humanism in poetry and its gradual penetration of other Latin literary genres, and, through stylistic analyses of texts, the extent to which imitation of the ancients produced changes in cognition and visual perception.".

"The volume traces the link between vernacular translations and the emergence of Florence as the leader of Latin humanism by 1400 and why, limited to an elite in the fourteenth century, humanism became a major educational movement in the first decades of the fifteenth. It revises our conception of the relationship of Italian humanism to French twelfth-century humanism and of the character of early Italian humanism itself."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [515]-548) and indexes.