Latin in the Renaissance

Abstract

During the fifteenth century, the supremacy of humanism led to the adoption of Latin as the language of culture. While the use of written vernacular expanded in the commercial, religious, and administrative areas, high and literary culture were expressed in Latin. In this period two particular linguistic experiments were born, spanning both Latin and the vernacular: macaronic Latin and pedantic jargon. However, the 1520s and 1530s saw the progressive establishment of the vernacular, and a century later, with Galileo Galilei’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, it also became the language of science.