Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century

This 2001 book is a comprehensive study of the curriculum of school education in medieval and Renaissance Italy.

Robert Black (Author)

9780521036122, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 April 2007

508 pages
22.6 x 15 x 3 cm, 0.756 kg

'Humanism and Education should become a major text for the history of education in medieval and Renaissance Europe, provoking new debates not only on issues of education history but also on the larger topics of humanism and the cultural validity of an Italian Renaissance.' History

Based on the study of over 500 surviving manuscript school books, this comprehensive 2001 study of the curriculum of school education in medieval and Renaissance Italy contains some surprising conclusions. Robert Black's analysis finds that continuity and conservatism, not innovation, characterize medieval and Renaissance teaching. The study of classical texts in medieval Italian schools reached its height in the twelfth century; this was followed by a collapse in the thirteenth century, an effect on school teaching of the growth of university education. This collapse was only gradually reversed in the two centuries that followed: it was not until the later 1400s that humanists began to have a significant impact on education. Scholars of European history, of Renaissance studies, and of the history of education will find that this deeply researched and broad-ranging book challenges much inherited wisdom about education, humanism and the history of ideas.

Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Editorial note regarding citations from manuscripts and publications
A note on chronological terminology
Introduction
1. Italian Renaissance education: an historical perspective
2. The elementary school curriculum in medieval and Renaissance Italy: traditional methods and developing texts
3. The secondary grammar curriculum
4. Latin authors in medieval and Renaissance Italian schools: the story of a canon
5. Reading Latin authors in medieval and Renaissance Italian schools
6. Rhetoric and style in the school grammar syllabus
Appendices
Bibliography
Index of manuscripts
General index.

Subject Areas: Education [JN], History of ideas [JFCX], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]