ABSTRACT
Linguistic studies were well advanced and improved texts were put before a public for whom the Latin language held few mysteries. The Renaissance stands not only for a renewal of classical scholarship, but also for successful attempts at elevating the vernacular to a proper vehicle for literature. In Italy, grammar books were written and dictionaries compiled, language standardized, under the aegis of Academies. The sublimity implies greatness of aim and of means of execution, grandeur, purity, anything which contributes to making a writer famous; excellence aimed at delighting the reader. Castelvetro is important, mainly for having presented a clear picture of the unities, time, place, action and for having systematized the theory of verisimilitude. Scaliger, the most influential of the group, perhaps also the most level-headed, was a great partisan of the imitation of Virgil and of nature and a believer in common sense and hard work as leading more or less infallibly to literary success.
