gave rise to a much larger audience and
widespread knowledge of ancient works.
By the sixteenth century nearly all of the
currently known works of ancient Latin
authors were in print. In addition, the
study and revival of classical Latin played
a key role in the flowering of art, philoso-
phy, law, and science in Renaissance Eu-
rope.
Most of the new books were in Latin,
while the ancient Greek writers appeared
in new Latin translations as the works of
Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, and
Aeschylus and Ptolemy began turning up
in the fifteenth century. Giovanni Aurispa,
an enthusiastic manuscript hunter, trav-
eled to Byzantium to search out unknown
works, while Greeks fleeing the assault of
the Turks (who overthrew the Byzantine
Empire in 1453) came west with their an-
cient literature. Inspired by the story of
the library of Alexandria, Pope Nicholas V
sought to establish its modern rival in the
Vatican and commissioned the translation
of Greek works into Latin. In the 1470s,
the library was finally created by Pope Six-
tus IV, who made an immense collection
of nearly four thousand books and manu-
scripts available to scholars.
In northern Europe, classical scholar-
ship of the sixteenth century went beyond
the discovery and explanation of the an-
cient texts. Scholars of the Netherlands
and Germany applied the actions and ide-
als of ancient rulers and philosophers to
the events taking place in their own day,
especially the many conflicts brewing
around the Protestant Reformation. The
ideas of Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Plato,
and Demosthenes entered the intellectual
mainstream and were taken up by philoso-
phers, poets, playwrights, and university
lecturers. The ancient Greeks and Romans
became widely regarded as the intellectual
forebears of European civilization, even as
the formerly universal Catholic Church
was torn by dissent and movements for
reform.SEEALSO: Aristotelianism; Aurispa, Gio-
vanni; humanism; NicholasClement VII .....................................
(1342–1394)
“Antipope” whose election brought about
the Great Western Schism. Born Robert of
Geneva, the son of the Count of Geneva,
he was appointed bishop of Therouanne
in 1361 and of the city of Cambrai in- In 1371 he became a member of the
College of Cardinals, the body that elects
the pope. As a cardinal he led a brutal
campaign against the town of Cesena,
where the townspeople were resisting di-
rect control of the pope. He put down the
rebellion but a massacre he ordered of sev-
eral thousand inhabitants earned him the
nickname of “Butcher of Cesena.” After
this event, he was elected pope by a com-
mittee of French cardinals after the death
of Gregory XI, but the election was con-
tested by another candidate, Urban VI. Al-
lied to the French king, Clement left Rome
to establish a rival papal court and admin-
istration in Avignon, in what is now south-
ern France. This commenced the Great
Schism that did lasting damage to the
church. With rival popes enthroned at Avi-
gnon and Rome, all of Christendom was
forced to choose sides. The authority of
the church hierarchy was thrown into
doubt, inspiring the first stirrings of a
movement for reformation of the church.
Clement had the support of France, Scot-
land, Spain, and the Kingdom of Naples,
as well as several states in the Holy Roman
Empire, but he was unable to heal the
breach in the church that continued for
another generation after his death.
Clement VII