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15th-century writers in Latin

  • Matteo PalmieriMatteo di Marco Palmieri was born in Florence in 1406 into a middle-class family that already knew how to navigate the city's corridors of power.
  • Antonio BonfiniAntonio Bonfini arrived at the Hungarian royal court with a scholar's restlessness and a humanist's ambitions, and what he produced there would shape how…
  • Manuel ChrysolorasManuel Chrysoloras arrived in Florence in the winter of 1397, carrying something that had been absent from northern Italy for seven centuries. Greek.
  • Leon Battista AlbertiLeon Battista Alberti once boasted that he could stand with his feet together and spring clean over a man's head. He claimed he could throw a coin so high…
  • John GowerJohn Gower wrote nearly thirty thousand lines of verse in three different languages, and almost nobody knows his name. Born around 1330, he was a personal…
  • Conrad CeltesKonrad Bickel stood in the vineyards of Wipfeld near Schweinfurt on the 1st of February 1459. He was born into a family that expected him to become a vintner…
  • Leonardo BruniLeonardo Bruni arrived in the Tuscan town of Arezzo around 1370. His early years unfolded within a region known for its vibrant cultural life and growing…
  • Janus PannoniusThe 29th of August 1434 marked the birth of Janus Pannonius in Slavonia. His father's social status remains unclear to historians today.
  • Lorenzo VallaLorenzo Valla entered the world in Rome around 1407. His father Luciave della Valla worked as a lawyer within the Papal Curia.
  • Filippo BuonaccorsiFilippo Buonaccorsi arrived in Rome during the year 1462. He joined a circle of scholars known as the Rome Academy. This group operated under the leadership…
  • Nicholas of CusaNicholas of Cusa was born in 1401 in the small town of Kues, tucked into southwestern Germany along the Moselle River, the second child of a prosperous boat…
  • Flavio BiondoFlavio Biondo was born in 1392 in Forlì, the capital of the Romagna region, and he spent much of his life trying to rescue a city from its own forgetting.
  • Giovanni Pico della MirandolaGiovanni Pico della Mirandola was 23 years old when he announced a challenge to the entire intellectual world. In December 1486, he published 900 theses…
  • Poggio BraccioliniGian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini arrived in the village of Terranuova near Arezzo on the 11th of February 1380. His father took him to Florence to pursue…