Renaissance Latin is a name given to the distinctive form of Latin style developed during the European Renaissance of the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, particularly by the humanist movement. Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. ... Renaissance humanism (often designated simply as humanism) was a European intellectual movement beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century. ...

Ad fontes was the general cry of the humanists, and as such their Latin style sought to purge Latin of the medieval Latin vocabulary and stylistic accretions that it had acquired in the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. They looked to golden age Latin literature, and especially to Cicero in prose and Virgil in poetry, as the arbiters of Latin style. They abandoned the use of the sequence and other accentual forms of metre, and sought instead to revive the Greek formats that were used in Latin poetry during the Roman period. The humanists condemned the large body of medieval Latin literature as "gothic" — for them, a term of abuse — and believed instead that only ancient Latin from the Roman period was "real Latin". Ad fontes is a Latin expression which means that fundamental research is very important in politics, history and science. ... Medieval Latin refers to the Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church. ... Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust Marcus Tullius Cicero (IPA:Classical Latin pronunciation: , usually pronounced in English; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, and is widely considered one of Romes greatest orators and prose stylists. ... Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday [[speech. ... A bust of Virgil, from the entrance to his tomb in Naples, Italy. ... The Chinese poem Quatrain on Heavenly Mountain by Emperor Gaozong (Song Dynasty) Poetry (from the Greek , poiesis, making or creating) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. ... In Latin poetry, a sequence (Latin sequentia) is a poem written in a non-classical metre, often on a sacred Christian subject. ... In literature, meter or metre (sometimes known as prosody) is a term used in the scansion (analysis into metrical patterns) of poetry, usually indicated by the kind of feet and the number of them. ... Latin poetry was a major part of Latin literature during the height of the Latin language. ... The cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, a significant architectural contribution of the High Middle Ages. ...

The humanists also sought to purge written Latin of medieval developments in its orthography. They insisted, for example, that ae be written out in full wherever it occurred in classical Latin; medieval scribes often wrote e instead of ae. They were much more zealous than medieval Latin writers that t and c be distinguished; because the effects of palatalization made them homophones, medieval scribes often wrote, for example, eciam for etiam. Their reforms even affected handwriting; Humanists usually wrote Latin in a script derived from Carolingian minuscule, the ultimate ancestor of most contemporary lower-case typefaces, avoiding the black-letter scripts used in the Middle Ages. Erasmus even proposed that the then-traditional pronunciations of Latin be abolished in favour of his reconstructed version of classical Latin pronunciation. The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Look up Homophone in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Penmanship is the art of writing clearly and quickly. ... Example from 10th century manuscript Carolingian or Caroline minuscule is a script developed as a writing standard in Europe so that the Roman alphabet could be easily recognized by the small literate class from one region to another. ... Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ... For the origin and evolution of fonts, see History of western typography. ... In typography, a typeface is a co-ordinated set of character designs, which usually comprises an alphabet of letters, a set of numerals and a set of punctuation marks. ... Desiderius Erasmus in 1523 Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, probably 1466 – July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. ... Latin pronunciation both in the classical and post-classical age, has varied across in different regions and different eras. ... The Roman alphabet or Latin alphabet was adapted from an Etruscan alphabet, to represent the phonemes of the Latin language. ... Classical Latin is the language used by the principal exponents of that language in what is usually regarded as classical Latin literature. ...

The humanist plan to remake Latin was largely successful, at least in education. Schools now taught the humanistic spellings, and encouraged the study of the texts selected by the humanists, to the large exclusion of later Latin literature. On the other hand, while humanist Latin was an elegant literary language, it became much harder to write books about law, medicine, science or contemporary politics in Latin while observing all of the Humanists' norms about vocabulary purging and classical usage. Because humanist Latin lacked precise vocabulary to deal with modern issues, their reforms accelerated the process of turning Latin from a workday language to an object of antiquarian study. Their attempts at literary work, especially poetry, often have a strong element of pastiche. A literary language is a register of a language that is used in writing, and which often differs in lexicon and syntax from the language used in speech. ... Lady Justice is a personification of the law. ... medicines, see medication and pharmacology. ... Part of a scientific laboratory at the University of Cologne. ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... The word pastiche describes a literary or other artistic genre. ...

Renaissance Latin gradually developed into the New Latin of the 17th-19th centuries, used as the language of choice for authors discussing subjects considered sufficiently important to merit an international (i.e., pan-European) audience. New Latin (or Neo-Latin) is a post-medieval version of Latin, now used primarily in International Scientific Vocabulary cladistics and systematics. ...

Renaissance Latin authors

Fourteenth century

• Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
• William of Ockham (c. 1288-c. 1348)
• Jean Buridan (1300-1358)
• Petrarch (1304-1374)
• Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)

Dante in a fresco series of famous men by Andrea del Castagno, ca. ... William of Ockham William of Ockham (also Occam or any of several other spellings) (c. ... Jean Buridan, in Latin Joannes Buridanus (1300 - 1358) was a French priest who sowed the seeds of religious scepticism in Europe. ... From the c. ... Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (June 16, 1313 – December 21, 1375) was an Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist in his own right and author of a number of notable works including On Famous Women, the Decameron and his poetry in the vernacular. ...

Fifteenth century

• Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370-1444)
• Antonio Beccadelli (1394-1471)
• Francesco Filelfo (1398-1481)
• Leone Battista Alberti (1404-1472)
• Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pope Pius II (1405-1464)
• Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457)
• Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481)
• Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)
• Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485)
• Poliziano (1454-1494)
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)

Leonardo Bruni Leonardo Bruni (c. ... Antonio Beccadelli (1394—1471), called Il Panormita (poetic form meaning The Palermitan), was an Italian poet, canon lawyer, scholar, diplomat, and chronicler. ... Francesco Filelfo (July 25, 1398 - July 31, 1481), was an Italian Renaissance humanist. ... Statue of Leon Battista Alberti. ... Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Latin Aeneas Sylvius), (October 18, 1405 – August 14, 1464) was Pope from 1458 until his death. ... Lorenzo Valla Lorenzo (or Laurentius) Valla (c. ... Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library, fresco by Melozzo da Forlì, c. ... Domenico Ghirlandaio. ... Rodolphus Agricola (February 17, 1444 – October 27, 1485), was a Dutch scholar and humanist. ... Angelo Poliziano. ... Pico della Mirandola 1463-1494. ...

Sixteenth century

• Guillaume Budé (1467-1540)
• Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
• Thomas More (1478-1535)
• George Buchanan (1506-1582)

Guillaume Budé (Latin: Guglielmus Budaeus) (1467 - August 23, 1540) was a French scholar. ... Desiderius Erasmus in 1523 Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, probably 1466 – July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. ... There are also several institutions named Thomas More College. ... George Buchanan (1506 - 1582) was a Sixteenth Century Scottish, Humanist theorist, see George Buchanan (humanist) Sir George Buchanan (1854 - 1924) was a United Kingdom, Diplomat who was British ambassador to Russia during the Russian Revolution in 1917, see George Buchanan (diplomat) Sir George Buchanan was a British civil engineer active...