To what extent can one speak of 'the Renaissance' in terms of grammar: did the medieval curricular subject grammatica survive into the Renaissance unchanged or was it transformed by the pedagogical programme of the humanists? The studies collected here focus on this question and trace the development of humanistic approaches to grammar. The first section consists of essays on the general characteristics of grammar in the period and on its connections with rhetoric. The following parts are devoted to three major grammatical writers: Guarino Veronese (1374-1460), NiccolA (2) Perotti (1419/1420-1480), and Antonio de Nebrija (1441/1444?-1522). There is finally a section dealing with other figures, such as the famous Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457). Professor Percival focuses throughout on widely disseminated textbooks, beginning with the earliest attempt at a humanistic rejuvenation of grammar, the brief 'Regulae grammaticales' of Guarino Veronese (c. 1418), followed by Perotti's comprehensive 'Rudimenta grammatices', published in 1473 by Rome's first printers, and finally Nebrija's commercially successful 'Introductiones Latinae' (Salamanca, 1481). Nebrija's textbook proved the longest-lived, but Perotti's was also an international best-seller, going through many editions in several countries.
To what extent can one speak of 'the Renaissance' in terms of grammar: did the medieval curricular subject grammatica survive into the Renaissance unchanged or was it transformed by the pedagogical programme of the humanists? The studies collected here focus on this question and trace the development of humanistic approaches to grammar. The first section consists of essays on the general characteristics of grammar in the period and on its connections with rhetoric. The following parts are devoted to three major grammatical writers: Guarino Veronese (1374-1460), NiccolA (2) Perotti (1419/1420-1480), and Antonio de Nebrija (1441/1444?-1522). There is finally a section dealing with other figures, such as the famous Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457). Professor Percival focuses throughout on widely disseminated textbooks, beginning with the earliest attempt at a humanistic rejuvenation of grammar, the brief 'Regulae grammaticales' of Guarino Veronese (c. 1418), followed by Perotti's comprehensive 'Rudimenta grammatices', published in 1473 by Rome's first printers, and finally Nebrija's commercially successful 'Introductiones Latinae' (Salamanca, 1481). Nebrija's textbook proved the longest-lived, but Perotti's was also an international best-seller, going through many editions in several countries.
'It is [...] well worth the effort [...] to have these essays collected together in an accessible format, since their author represents [...] a kind of scholarship that is rapidly disappearing [...], one that is equally at home amond intellectual historians and philosophers and that rests on a facility in both Greek and Latin that surpasses that of many professional classicists.' Neo-Latin News
'It is [...] well worth the effort [...] to have these essays collected together in an accessible format, since their author represents [...] a kind of scholarship that is rapidly disappearing [...], one that is equally at home amond intellectual historians and philosophers and that rests on a facility in both Greek and Latin that surpasses that of many professional classicists.' Neo-Latin News
W. Keith Percival is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Kansas, USA, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
W. Keith Percival is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of Kansas, USA, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Contents: Introduction; General Topics: The grammatical tradition and the rise of the vernaculars; Grammar and rhetoric in the Renaissance; Renaissance grammar; Renaissance grammar, rebellion or evolution?; Guarino of Verona: The historical sources of Guarino's Regulae grammaticales: a reconsideration of Sabbadini's evidence; Textual problems in the Latin grammar of Guarino Veronese; A working edition of the Carmina differentialia by Guarino Veronese; NicollA (2) Perotti: The place of the Rudimenta grammatices in the history of latin grammar; Early editions of NiccolA (2) Perotti's Rudimenta grammatices; The influence of Perotti's Rudimenta in the cinquecento; Antonio de Nebrija: Nebrija and the medieval grammatical tradition; Italian affiliations of Nebrija's Latin grammar; Nebrija's syntactic theory in its historical setting; Nebrija's linguistic A"uvre as a model for missionary linguistics; Other Figures: The Artis grammaticae opusculum of Bartolomeo Sulmonese: a newly discovered Latin grammar of the quattrocento; The Orthographia of Gasparino Barzizza; Lorenzo Valla and the criterion of exemplary usage; Index.
