Latin can never be dead when we have Ross to bring its history-both linguistic and cultural-so wonderfully alive. There is so much fascinating knowledge to be gained by watching this video. And…who knew that Julius Caesar had a librarian?! This is where “enlightening” meets “entertaining”-so glad that there’s a replay feature!
An absolutely brilliant exposition of how Latin transmuted into the modern Romance languages (and, lest we forget, how it heavily influenced English vocabulary to boot). As a footnote to this topic, I know that Newton published his “Laws of Mechanics” in Latin in 1687, but interestingly wrote his later work “Opticks” in 1704 in English. I suppose we can take 1700 as a reasonable marker (roughly) for when Latin was no longer the lingua franca of the intelligentsia in Europe. I do have one burning question though: how much of an influence (if any) was the sack of Constantinople in 1453 and the subsequent fleeing of lettered men in the eastern part of the empire to the Italian peninsula on the Italian Renaissance? In general, were the Byzantines at that time conversant in Latin? Many thanks for all your fantastic videos, Ross; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the ones I’ve seen.
Thanks so much for your comments and questions. The Sack of Constantinople was hugely important from a cultural as well as a political point of view. I’d love to do a video on it and its repercussions. For the moment I’ll just say a couple of things. First of all, many Byzantine scholars did *not* know Latin, although the ones who came to the West (such as Cardinal Bessarion, who arrived in 1439) did learn it. But there was a language barrier from the Greek point of view as well as from a Latin one. Secondly, the importance of 1453 for the Renaissance can be overstated. Claims are often made that Mehmed’s conquest brought to the West a flood of émigré Byzantine scholars clutching hitherto unknown manuscripts, kicking off a renaissance in Greek studies and, indeed, kicking off the Renaissance itself. The theory has the advantage of a firm starting date for the Renaissance, 1453, as well as a dramatic event, the conquest of Constantinople. It has the disadvantage, however, of being a bit inaccurate. Many Byzantine scholars *did* flee to the West after 1453, and the conquest determined scholars such as Bessarion to salvage what he could of Greek literature. However, only a few long-lost Greek manuscripts turned up after 1453. The fact was that, thanks to earlier manuscript hunters such as Giovanni Aurispa and Guarino da Verona, most of the important Greek texts had long since arrived in the West, including the complete works of Plato (acquired by Cosimo de’ Medici in 1439). Further, scholars such as Manuel Chrysoloras and then his many students had trained several generations of Italian scholars to read, translate and interpret them. Florence had been, of course, the nexus of these activities, a kind of Athens on the Arno since virtually the turn of the century. So 1453 gave a bit more impetus to a process that had been underway for about fifty years. The myth of the importance of 1453 for the Renaissance is discussed in a really interesting book, Wallace K. Ferguson’s The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (1948); see especially p. 72.
I have so many quesitions: How Latin was taught in school in Renaissance? Since there were so few of Latin speakers and it's being use primarily for literacy, do people in Renaissance actually spoke Latin as communicative language? Do they learn Latin by translation based on their vernacular?
Hi Catherine - The first Latin dictionary was probably "De verborum significatu" by Marcus Verrius Flaccus, who tutored the grandsons of the Emperor Augustus and died in about 20 AD. Latin dictionaries aimed at second-language users (Italian, English, French, Spanish) obviously came much later. One of the best early Latin-English dictionaries was Thomas Elyot’s from 1538, which, like Niccolò Perotti’s, used classical sources as examples.
Latin can never be dead when we have Ross to bring its history-both linguistic and cultural-so wonderfully alive. There is so much fascinating knowledge to be gained by watching this video. And…who knew that Julius Caesar had a librarian?! This is where “enlightening” meets “entertaining”-so glad that there’s a replay feature!
Thank you, Mim!
Thank you, very interesting story.
Thank you - glad you enjoyed it.
An absolutely brilliant exposition of how Latin transmuted into the modern Romance languages (and, lest we forget, how it heavily influenced English vocabulary to boot). As a footnote to this topic, I know that Newton published his “Laws of Mechanics” in Latin in 1687, but interestingly wrote his later work “Opticks” in 1704 in English. I suppose we can take 1700 as a reasonable marker (roughly) for when Latin was no longer the lingua franca of the intelligentsia in Europe. I do have one burning question though: how much of an influence (if any) was the sack of Constantinople in 1453 and the subsequent fleeing of lettered men in the eastern part of the empire to the Italian peninsula on the Italian Renaissance? In general, were the Byzantines at that time conversant in Latin? Many thanks for all your fantastic videos, Ross; I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the ones I’ve seen.
Thanks so much for your comments and questions. The Sack of Constantinople was hugely important from a cultural as well as a political point of view. I’d love to do a video on it and its repercussions. For the moment I’ll just say a couple of things. First of all, many Byzantine scholars did *not* know Latin, although the ones who came to the West (such as Cardinal Bessarion, who arrived in 1439) did learn it. But there was a language barrier from the Greek point of view as well as from a Latin one.
Secondly, the importance of 1453 for the Renaissance can be overstated. Claims are often made that Mehmed’s conquest brought to the West a flood of émigré Byzantine scholars clutching hitherto unknown manuscripts, kicking off a renaissance in Greek studies and, indeed, kicking off the Renaissance itself. The theory has the advantage of a firm starting date for the Renaissance, 1453, as well as a dramatic event, the conquest of Constantinople. It has the disadvantage, however, of being a bit inaccurate. Many Byzantine scholars *did* flee to the West after 1453, and the conquest determined scholars such as Bessarion to salvage what he could of Greek literature. However, only a few long-lost Greek manuscripts turned up after 1453. The fact was that, thanks to earlier manuscript hunters such as Giovanni Aurispa and Guarino da Verona, most of the important Greek texts had long since arrived in the West, including the complete works of Plato (acquired by Cosimo de’ Medici in 1439). Further, scholars such as Manuel Chrysoloras and then his many students had trained several generations of Italian scholars to read, translate and interpret them. Florence had been, of course, the nexus of these activities, a kind of Athens on the Arno since virtually the turn of the century. So 1453 gave a bit more impetus to a process that had been underway for about fifty years.
The myth of the importance of 1453 for the Renaissance is discussed in a really interesting book, Wallace K. Ferguson’s The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (1948); see especially p. 72.
I have so many quesitions: How Latin was taught in school in Renaissance? Since there were so few of Latin speakers and it's being use primarily for literacy, do people in Renaissance actually spoke Latin as communicative language? Do they learn Latin by translation based on their vernacular?
Off the topic and Out of curiosity, when was the first dictionary created?
Hi Catherine - The first Latin dictionary was probably "De verborum significatu" by Marcus Verrius Flaccus, who tutored the grandsons of the Emperor Augustus and died in about 20 AD. Latin dictionaries aimed at second-language users (Italian, English, French, Spanish) obviously came much later. One of the best early Latin-English dictionaries was Thomas Elyot’s from 1538, which, like Niccolò Perotti’s, used classical sources as examples.