ABSTRACT
The Dantean revival of virtus and humana civilitas became increasingly influential. Throughout Europe, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the prototypes of great national states had begun to form and were engaged in frequent and often prolonged conflict. The loss of freedom by small city-states throughout Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries occurred even among the Lombard cities. It was Pier Paolo Vergerio himself who provided the first systematic statement on the educational programme of humanism. Emphasis in the tract is primarily upon the content and method of higher education. Vergerio's lack of sympathy with much of the Greek tradition of liberal learning, perhaps on account of his ignorance, is revealed in his equally brief treatment of mathematics. Other attacks on humanism appeared from various writers, of whom two were particularly prominent, although their lives remain obscure. Humanism as an educational programme made considerable demands for materials, and highly educated teachers.
