ABSTRACT
The modern as opposed to the medieval outlook began in Italy with the movement called the Renaissance. At first, only a few individuals, notably Petrarch, had this outlook, but during the fifteenth century it spread to the great majority of cultivated Italians, both lay and clerical. In some respects, Italians of the Renaissance-with the exception of Leonardo and a few others-had not the respect for science which has characterized most important innovators since the seventeenth century; with this lack is associated their very partial emancipation from superstition, especially in the form of astrology. Many of them had still the reverence for authority that medieval philosophers had had, but they substituted the authority of the ancients for that of the Church. This was, of course, a step towards emancipation, since the ancients disagreed with each other, and individual judgment was required to decide which of them to follow. But very few Italians of the fifteenth century would have dared to hold an opinion for which no authority could be found either in antiquity or in the teaching of the Church.
