The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy

Abstract

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.

The «Documentary Culture» of Ronald Witt: A New Perspective on the History of Medieval Culture?

“…"Culture" conceived of as a textual phenomenon within a given area or community seems to be, in this sense, the point of arrival of his scientific reflection on Humanism. Anyone who reads In the Footsteps of the Ancients [Witt 2000[Witt (2005] after The Two Latin Cultures [Witt 2012[Witt (2017] will notice that In the Footsteps, although important work and one much more linked to the genetic process of Humanism, engages with certain texts while excluding others: it reflects in depth on historiographical, poetic, and epistolographic production while almost never touching upon documentary production stricto sensu. On the contrary, The Two Latin Cultures presents itself as all-encompassing, including every type of text within its horizon.…”

“…Nor, if we consider the book's final bibliography, was he familiar with Emily Steiner's [2003] research on interactions between documentary culture and literary practices in late medieval England. For The Two Latin Cultures, his own direct precedent seems to be Michael Clanchy's book [1979] on English practical literacy [quoted on: Witt 2012Witt , 51 (2017], which, however, remains focused solely on documentary practices. The works of Rosamond McKitterick [1989] and Nicholas Everett [2003] on the Carolingian and Lombard realms also seem to have been influential antecedents.…”

“…Beginning with a fluid situation in the 8th century, a period characterized by a certain lack of homogeneity in the preservation of archival sources and a fair degree of interaction between laity and clergy in charter production within the Regnum Italiae and especially in the Lombard areas, the Carolingian and Ottonian periods allow us to grasp two phenomena in particular. The first is of a quantitative nature and, for Witt, it was directly linked to the economic growth of the region: written documents increase considerably from the 8th century onwards, particularly between 900 and 1050, so that «the ratio between the latest and the earliest is almost four to one» [Witt 2012[Witt , 100 (2017]. The latter is qualitative in nature and also concerns charters: by the end of the 10th century written documents show greater uniformity, with more standardized and typologically narrower arengae and sanctiones.…”

Chivalry in Late Medieval Tuscany and Florence: Current historiography and new perspectives

“…In fact, he contends that chivalry's influence in Italy generally has been undervalued by historians, as it was “a major and essential element” of Italian society, “a fully naturalized and domesticated product.” Likewise, the prominent intellectual and cultural historian Ronald Witt has also noted tangentially the powerful influence of what he called “the chivalric ethos” on the behavior of urban elites in Tuscany in the thirteenth century. Witt () adopts a Kaeuperian view of chivalry, as he claims that the ethos had a disruptive influence urban society by encouraging and justifying elite violence with “dire social and political effects.” Similar observations about chivalry's applicability to Florentine elites can be found in the work of Lansing (), Najemy (), Dameron (), and among others, although they often use different terminology (i.e., knightly) and do not explore chivalric ideology. Indeed, while the terms “knightly” and “chivalric” are often used synonymously by scholars, this is actually misleading because chivalry's influence on the lifestyle and identity of elite male warriors extended well beyond dubbed knights.…”

La cronística pontificia a finales de la Edad Media: la periferia romana

“…El cronista lleva a cabo una labor heurística de recopilación de fuentes notariales y testimonios orales para su redacción, demostrando así las aptitudes que adquiere en Bolonia y Padua 64 , centro éste, como sostiene R.G. Witt, donde maduran y se desarrollan durante esta época los principios axiomáticos de las litterae humaniores que definen el humanismo bajomedieval 65 . Tanto su metodología como reflexión preliminar se asemejan a las disertaciones de los humanistas florentinos de la centuria posterior (Villani, Bonaiuti, Palmieri…).…”