Reclaiming the ancients

Because the dawn of the Renaissance meant that intellect and creativity reflected

God’s greatness, all the Classical poets and playwrights whose works had been

ignored, lost, or both through medieval times could be reclaimed and inducted into the

Godliness Hall of Fame (figuratively speaking). Roman playwrights such as Seneca,

who wrote comedies, became fit subjects for study and emulation.

Renaissance writers took ideas from Rome and Greece and put new life into them. The

word renaissance means “rebirth” or “reawakening.” Renaissance scholars woke up to

old books that had been kept in monastery libraries — books that monks copied by

hand from still older books.

Chrysoloras, the Greek who came from Constantinople to teach in Florence,

encouraged his students to start collecting ancient Greek manuscripts. (There were no

Pokemon cards, so they thought this would be fun.) Well-heeled Florentines even

started traveling to Greece to look for books. They came back with literary treasures

and began amassing the first private (rather than Church-kept) libraries since the

Roman Empire.