Renaissance Discoveries: Latin

The Latin language is one of the greatest creations of the human mind. Cicero claimed its eloquence contributed even more to the prestige of the Romans than their armies. One of its greatest practitioners was Julius Caesar. But with the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West in 476 came, it could be said, the Fall of the Roman Language—a thousand years in which Latin changed, declined and, in places, fell out of use. The revival of classical Latin, and a return to the linguistic grandeur of Rome, was therefore one of the greatest ambitions of a number of Italian scholars in the 1400s: men who believed that in good writing, speaking and thinking lay the key to a better culture and a more successful society.