principles are expounded. Of his prose comedies, Le Né-
gromant is a translation from Ariosto.
Latin studies Throughout the Middle Ages Latin re-
mained the language of the Church, used for a variety of
purposes. It was also the language of polite literature, cer-
tainly until the 10th or 11th century when the vernacular
languages first began to be used in a self-consciously artis-
tic way. Medieval Latin had developed its own character-
istics which made it a distinct language, and the
rediscovery of the classical Latin writers gradually influ-
enced humanists and scholars in their own use of Latin.
The letters of PETRARCHshow evidence that he had begun
to assimilate the style of the recently discovered Ciceron-
ian correspondence (see CICERO). For the first generation
of Italian humanists, work on Latin authors took second
place as a rule to the work of editing Greek texts and
translating them (into Latin), but as the 15th century
went on scholars became more anxious about their per-
sonal standards of Latinity. Latin gradually ceased to be a
living language used with flexibility and variety and be-
came increasingly restricted by an artificial canon of rules
formulated from the works of Cicero. ERASMUSdid much
by ridicule and by example to weaken the influence of this
Ciceronianism, but the classical writers remained the
models for imitation and the criteria by which contempo-
rary products were judged.
The study of classical Latin literature itself began with
work on the interpretation of texts. The earliest humanists
regarded classical Latin authors as in some sense contem-
poraries; Petrarch responded to the revelations of the
weaknesses in Cicero’s character which followed the dis-
covery (1345) of the letters to Atticus as if responding to
the discovery that a trusted friend had feet of clay. This
sense of the contemporaneity of classical authors passed
into a desire to produce the most accurate texts, to treat
Latin authors as testimony to a remote past. This is an im-
portant aspect of that historical sense which so sharply
distinguished the later Renaissance from the Middle Ages.
The second half of the 15th and the 16th century saw the
skills of textual analysis refined (see CRITICISM, TEXTUAL);
Lorenzo VALLA’s demonstration (1440) that the Donation
of Constantine was a forgery depended on a very accurate
knowledge of Latin usage in the fourth century CE. Work
of this kind led finally to the encyclopedic editions of
Latin authors produced by Isaac CASAUBON, Joseph
SCALIGER, and others. Latin became the language of schol-
arship and ceased to evolve except within a very limited
sphere. Once the styles of ancient Latin authors were more
fully appreciated and understood, the next stage was the
investigation of the material remains of the Roman world,
and the late 16th- and 17th-century editions embodied the
latest researches in archaeology, NUMISMATICS, and legal
and religious history.
Latin also continued to be used as a medium for cre-
ative writing, and an immense quantity of Latin verse was
produced by Renaissance writers on every conceivable
subject. The writings of BEMBO, FRACASTORO, SANNAZARO,
and SADOLETO, to name but four, show the extent to which
the Latin language could be exploited by humanist poets.
Often a scholar’s international reputation depended on his
skill as a versifier; George BUCHANANin Scotland and John
Milton in England are examples of writers whose Latin
poems reached a European audience. The Latin eclogues
(1498) of Mantuan (Giovan Battista SPAGNOLI) were a cru-
cial influence upon the development of PASTORALpoetry
in the vernacular throughout Europe.
See also: NEO-LATIN LITERATURELaurana, Francesco (c. 1430–c. 1502) Dalmatian
sculptor
Laurana was born at Zara, but little is known of his early
life. He produced works in Italy, France, and Sicily, some-
times in collaboration with his relative Luciano LAURANA.
He is first recorded as working on the triumphal arch of
Alfonso I at the Castel Nuovo in Naples (1453), after
which he moved to the court of RENÉ OF ANJOU, for whom
he executed some notable medals. Laurana is best known,
however, for a series of portrait busts of women connected
with the royal house of Naples, including those of Battista
Sforza (Bargello, Florence) and Beatrice of Aragon (Kunst-
historisches Museum, Vienna). Besides these, he also
produced a number of reliefs and worked on the Mastran-
tonio chapel at the church of San Francesco in Palermo,
Sicily (1468).Laurana, Luciano (c. 1422–1479) Dalmatian architect
A relative of the sculptor Francesco LAURANA, Luciano was
born at Lo Vrana, near Zara, and is first recorded as work-
ing in Urbino in about 1465. By 1468 he had been ap-
pointed principal architect on the construction of the
ducal palace of Urbino, which became the site of his best
work. Laurana was responsible for the courtyard of the
palace and the facade, which resembled the triumphal
arch of Alfonso I at Castelnuovo in Naples, upon which he
may have worked in the 1450s. The palace at Urbino was
later completed by the Sienese architect FRANCESCOdi
Giorgio and is known to have inspired BRAMANTE.Laurenziana, Bibliotheca A LIBRARYin Florence, origi-
nally that of the MEDICI FAMILY. The library was built to
house the valuable collection of books and manuscripts
founded by Cosimo de’ Medici and enlarged by other
members of the Medici family in the 15th and 16th cen-
turies. It was opened to the public in 1571. The library
building was designed by MICHELANGELO for Pope
Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici) in 1523 in the cloisters of
the church of San Lorenzo and includes such features as a
carved ceiling, mosaic floor, and carved benches all made22772 2 LLaattiinn ssttuuddiieess