LVIII - C - PART IIII - PENSUM DUODESEXAGESIMUM
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Online Latin language audio course for learning Classical LatinOpening the Tomb:
“For fully two centuries the humanists acted as if Latin were, and must remain, the only language worthy to be written.” Their purified version of Latin spread beyond Italy to become the language of the nascent Republic of Letters all across Europe. But in time, the modernizing spirit that the Renaissance let loose came to see Latin itself as archaic and outmoded. Even as the Neo-Latinists were writing works they hoped would last forever, the modern European languages began to produce their own classics: Rabelais and Montaigne, Shakespeare and Cervantes. Today, it is these vernacular writers whom we read in order to taste the spirit of the Renaissance, and not Latin masters like Angelo Poliziano, Leonardo Bruni, and Leon Battista Alberti. The Neo-Latinists thought they were putting their works into a time capsule; in fact, it turned out to be a tomb."
So, get on with your Latin lessons here on Latinum, and help the world re-open that tomb. All these wonderful books written in the renaissance are once again easily accessible through Google Books.
