Humanism and education in medieval and Renaissance Italy

"This is the first study of the educational curriculum in medieval and Renaissance Italy. Robert Black's analysis finds that the real innovators in the history of Latin education in Italy were the thirteenth-century schoolmasters who introduced a new method of teaching grammar based on logic, and their early fourteenth-century successors, who first began to rely on the vernacular as a tool to teach Latin grammar. Thereafter, in the later fourteenth and for most of the fifteenth century, conservatism, not innovation, characterised the earlier stages of education. The study of classical texts in medieval Italian schools reached its height in the twelfth century but then collapsed as universities rose in importance during the thirteenth century, a sharp decline only gradually reversed in the two centuries that followed. Dr. Black demonstrates that the famous humanist educators did not introduce the revolution in the classroom that is usually assumed, and that humanism did not make a significant impact on school teaching until the later fifteenth century." "Humanism and Education is a major contribution to Renaissance studies, to Italian history, and to the history of European education, the fruit of sustained manuscript research over many years."--Jacket.