Abstract

This cogent essay explores a hitherto unstudied aspect of Renaissance intellectual history and refines our understanding of the impact of Greek philosophy on Western thought. It is generally recognized that Aristotle was a touchstone for the learned world in the Middle Ages. Charles Schmitt shows here that what happened in the following centuries was not a mere continuation of the medieval tradition but a vital new development, influenced by the ideas of this era of ferment. He samples the response to Aristotle during the Renaissance, viewing the writings of Catholics and Protestants, humanists, scholastics, and scientists; he surveys the different kinds of works from which Renaissance readers learned their Aristotle; and he looks at the extent to which Aristotelians assimilated other modes of thought in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and early seventeenth centuries. Schmitt's analysis offers intellectual historians a corrected picture of this important period.