Chapter IX: Conclusion

General Survey -- The Part played in the Revival by the Chief Cities
-- Preoccupation with Scholarship in spite of War and Conquest --
Place of the Humanists in Society -- Distributors of Praise and Blame
-- Flattery and Libels -- Comparison with the Sophists -- The Form
preferred to the Matter of Literature -- Ideal of Culture as an end in
itself -- Suspicion of Zealous Churchmen -- Intrusion of Humanism into
the Church -- Irreligion of the Humanists -- Gyraldi's 'Progymnasma'
-- Ariosto -- Bohemian Life -- Personal Immorality -- Want of Fixed
Principles -- Professional Vanity -- Literary Pride -- Estimate of
Humanistic Literature -- Study of Style -- Influence of Cicero --
Valla's 'Elegantiæ' -- Stylistic Puerilities -- Value attached to
Rhetoric -- 'Oratore' -- Moral Essays -- Epistolography -- Histories
-- Critical and Antiquarian Studies -- Large Appreciation of Antiquity
-- Liberal Spirit -- Poggio and Jerome of Prague -- Humanistic Type of
Education -- Its Diffusion through Europe -- Future Prospects -- Decay
of Learning in Italy 372

RENAISSANCE IN ITALY