Renaissance Humanism between the Philosophy of the twentieth Century and the Grammar of the Media

Abstract

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to present some of the current debates about the situation of renaissance humanism studies in dialogue with the theories of Ernesto Grassi as they appear in his Rhetoric as Philosophy. The Humanist Tradition (1980), and with two recent publications: Cristopher Celenza’s The Lost Italian Renaissance. Humanists, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy (2004) and Rocco Rubini’s The Other Renaissance: Italian Humanism between Hegel and Heidegger (2014). Secondly, it tries to show that some aspects of the media theory of Marshall McLuhan (a Renaissance scholar himself) can be repurposed to illuminate how Renaissance humanists conceived the effect of classical latin on culture. This is exemplified by an analysis of some of Lorenzo Valla’s statements about this problem. Overall, we seek to show that some of the cross-roads pointed out by Celenza and Rubini regarding the current situation of Renaissance studies can be addressed taking into account the contributions of media theory.