Importance of the Revival of Learning -- Mediæval Romance -- The Legend of Faustus -- Its Value for the Renaissance -- The Devotion of Italy to Study -- Italian Predisposition for this Labour -- Scholarship in the Dark Ages -- Double Attitude assumed by the Church -- Piety for Virgil -- Meagre Acquaintance with the Latin Classics -- No Greek Learning -- The Spiritual Conditions of the Middle Ages adverse to Pure Literature -- Italy no exception to the rest of Europe -- Dante and Petrarch -- Definition of Humanism -- Petrarch's Conception of it -- His Æsthetical Temperament -- His Cult for Cicero, Zeal in collecting Manuscripts, Sense of the Importance of Greek Studies -- Warfare against Pedantry and Superstition -- Ideal of Poetry and Rhetoric -- Critique of Jurists and Schoolmen -- S. Augustine -- Petrarch's Vanity -- Thirst for Fame -- Discord between his Life and his Profession -- His Literary Temperament -- Visionary Patriotism -- His Influence -- His Successors -- Boccaccio and Greek Studies -- Translation of Homer -- Philosophy of Literature -- Sensuousness of Boccaccio's Inspiration -- Giovanni da Ravenna -- The Wandering Professor -- His Pupils in Latin Scholarship -- Luigi Marsigli -- The Convent of S. Spirito -- Humanism in Politics -- Coluccio de' Salutati -- Gasparino da Barzizza -- Improved Style in Letter-writing -- Revival of Greek Learning -- Manuel Chrysoloras -- His Pupils -- Lionardo Bruni -- Value of Greek for the Renaissance. I have already observed that it would be inaccurate to identify the whole movement of the Renaissance with the process whereby the European nations recovered and appropriated the masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. At the same time this reconquest of the classic world of thought was by far the most important achievement of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It absorbed nearly the whole mental energy of the Italians, and determined in a great measure the quality of all their intellectual production in the period I have undertaken to illustrate. Through their activity in the field of scholarship the proper starting-point was given to the modern intellect. The revelation of what men were and what they wrought under the influence of other faiths and other impulses, in distant ages with a different ideal for their aim, not only widened the narrow horizon of the Middle Ages, but it also restored self-confidence to the reason of humanity. Research and criticism began to take the place of scholastic speculation. Positive knowledge was substituted for the intuitive guesses of idealists and dreamers. The interests of this world received their due share of attention, and the _litteræ humaniores_ of the student usurped upon the _divinarum rerum cognitio_ of theologians.