ABSTRACT
The concept of liberty goes back to classical Greece and Rome, and is closely linked to the humanistic revival of classical letters in the Renaissance. The problem of liberty, however, became more acute with the invention of the printing press, that lead to a diffusion of texts far wider than anything known to the classical or the medieval worlds. The sixteenth century, during which the new techniques of printing became widely established throughout Europe, also coincides with an increasingly rigorous exercise of censorship on the part of both the political and the ecclesiastical authorities of the time. It is also necessary to bear in mind the collapse of the Roman Catholic Church as the unique religious authority throughout Europe at precisely this time. The rise of fragmented and aggressively Protestant forms of Christianity in the north of Europe led to a new religious pluralism, but also to widespread forms of intolerance on the part of most, if not all, the religious authorities, both Catholic and Protestant, involved in often violent forms of conflict.
