The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy M IN MEDIEVAL ITALY

This book traces the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Italy, the area in which humanism began in the mid thirteenth century, a century or more before exerting its influence on the rest of Europe. Covering a period of over four and a half centuries, this study offers the first integrated analysis of Latin writings produced in the area, examining not only religious, literary, and legal texts. Ronald G. Witt characterizes the changes reflected in these Latin writings as products of the interaction of thought with economic, political, and religious tendencies in Italian society as well as with intellectual influences coming from abroad. His research ultimately traces the early emergence of humanism in northern Italy in the mid thirteenth century to the precocious development of a lay intelligentsia in the region, whose participation in the culture of Latin writing fostered the beginnings of the intellectual movement which would eventually revolutionize all of Europe.

Introduction; Part I. The Two Latin Cultures of Medieval Italy: 1. The Carolingian conquest; 2. Italy and the Ottonian renaissance; 3. The golden age of traditional book culture and the birth of a new book culture (1000–1075); Part II. The Birth of New Order: 4. The investiture conflict and the emergence of the communes; Part III. The Dominance of the Legal-Rhetorical Mentality: 5. The triumph of the legal culture; 6. The institutional structure of education, 1100–1180; 7. Literary creativity in an age of intensifying legal-rhetorical culture; Part IV. The French Renaissance of the Twelfth Century: 8. French literary and scholarly achievement in the twelfth century; Part V. Toward a Broader Intellectual Life: 9. The destabilization of the elites and the expanding market for education; 10. New knowledge and the tempering of the legal-rhetorical culture; 11. The development of the traditional disciplines and the resolution of the crisis of language; 12. The return to antiquity; Conclusion; Appendix.

This book traces the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Italy, the birthplace of humanism in the mid thirteenth century. Ronald G. Witt argues that the early emergence of humanism in northern Italy resulted from the precocious development of a lay intelligentsia in the region, whose participation in the culture of Latin writing fostered the beginnings of the intellectual movement which would eventually revolutionize all of Europe.

Ronald G. Witt is currently William B. Hamilton Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University, North Carolina. His most recent book, In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Italian Humanism 1250–1420 (2000), received the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize of the American Historical Society (2001), the American Philosophical Society's Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History (2001), and the Renaissance Society of America's Gordon Book Prize (2001). He is also the author of Humanism and Reform, (2001), Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works and Thought of Coluccio Salutati, (1331–1406) (1983), and Coluccio Salutati and his Public Letters (1976), as well as numerous articles.