ABSTRACT
Humanism means an interest in Latin and Greek literature which sets a high value on the lessons to be drawn from it. The role of notarial and legal professions in Italian society is an essential part of the background against humanism. The group of enthusiasts who carried out the humanist revolution in Florence grew up originally under the leadership of the chancellor of the republic Coluccio Salutati. Out of the innumerable treatises on politics written by humanists during the Renaissance period only The Prince by Niccol Machiavelli. A survey of the impact of humanism may end conveniently with the Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects first published by Giorgio Vasari. The most direct effect of humanism was to establish literary genres which enabled a more realistic view of human nature and society to be adopted. The humanism is associated with an awakened sense of the concrete: real human bodies, real historical events, rather than the symbolical and the allegorical.
