Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning

This study charts the continuing influence of medieval scholastic thought in Renaissance civilization. In the three essays, Paul Oskar Kristellar illustrates the way medieval ideas and issues remained active in Renaissance philosophy, theology, literature and in education, both secular and religious. In his first essay, Kristeller explains the conflicts in various Renaissance literatures - between rigorous scholastic writings and eloquent humanist ones, between texts written in Latin and those in the vernacular - by appealing to a notion of literary genre which aligns different types of text with distinct audiences. The second essay considers the influence of St Thomas Aquinas during the Italian Renaissance, showing that he was widely read and respected by major humanists, and contributed to the debates over the distinction between philosophy and theology and the relative importance of the intellect and the will. The final essay suggests that monks and friars play a more important role in Renaissance thought than is usually realized. They made monastic libraries available to humanist scholars, and actively engaged in the intellectual disputes of their time.