ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the academy, which had its renaissance and first grand flowering in Italy. It focuses on an exceptional example in the life of the Catholic Church: the Council of Trent. This major assembly has produced a similarly major bibliography. The chapter turns to the university from which emerged the majority of those who populated the academies and institutions of Church and State. A vast quantity of knowledge was therefore transmitted via speech, which for the student was also the means of acquiring knowledge. From the start of the seventeenth century, public lectures tended to take place at the professor's home. Apart from public and private lessons, there was also a third didactic activity in Pisa: the circular debates that closed the lesson. Learned academies implemented a methodical working structure. The delivery of a without notes was something of a tour de force. The learned world of masters and apprentices spoke, and spoke a great deal.
