Italian Humanism and Medieval Rhetoric

Book excerpt: These essays are concerned with the nature of early renaissance political thought and the relationship between humanism and medieval rhetoric. One group traces the influence of medieval political thought on the rise of the modern conception of republicanism; others focus on the medieval art of letter writing and its place in the medieval cultural context; while still others analyse the often contradictory thought of the early humanist, Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), who struggled to reconcile his classical learning with his medieval allegiances. In the collection as a whole humanism emerges as a literary movement drawing as heavily on patristic and medieval culture as on antiquity. Awareness of its various debts permits recognition of what humanism itself contributed to the development of western thought and ethics.