ABSTRACT
Humanist culture flourished among the aristocratic classes that gathered at the courts of princes and the palaces of kings. Cultivated persons regarded their native Italian language as a vulgar language spoken on the streets by illiterate crowds. The spirit of open-minded inquiry guided two of Italy's leading intellectuals, the humanist Pico della Mirandola and the artist Leonardo da Vinci. In 1487 Pico summoned an international assembly of philosophers to Rome. Leonardo da Vinci exemplified the human being who possessed the divine gift of free choice. Sixteenth-century Italy became a battlefield of French, German, and Spanish interests. However, the spectacle of the country's woes rarely surfaced in contemporary Italian art and poetry. Instead, writers such as Ludovico Ariosto and painters such as Correggio contributed to Italian culture an appreciation for the classical past, an admiration for ideal beauty in visual and literary forms, and an acceptance of human sexuality.
