ABSTRACT
The culture of the Florentine humanist Lapo del Castiglionchio is very close to that of Manetti. The works of Manetti, Castiglionchio and Alberti form a rather homogeneous whole. The Vita Alberti refers to an ideal model of education, a favorite theme of the Italian humanists. The epidictic style in Manetti and verbal jousting between scholars directed by Castiglionchio Alberti and justify and require the use of a High language and scholarly strain. The rejection of scholastic terminology, a characteristic feature of humanist literary aesthetics, will, however, lead to the irremediable loss of liturgical and musical technical vocabulary. The works of Manetti, Castiglionchio and Alberti are among the few texts of the first Italian Humanism that give descriptions of the liturgical polyphony as it was practiced at the time. The humanist who writes on music does so accidentally and by excluding himself from the field of specialists.
