Lorenzo Valla : A Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought Hoguet Prize History Essay by Nicholas B .
the journal of literature and the arts at saint david ’ s school
Lorenzo Valla : A Transition from Medieval to Modern Thought Hoguet Prize History Essay by Nicholas B .
The Italian Renaissance was not merely a revival of art and culture ; even at the beginning of the fifteenth century , new , critical methods of thinking were being introduced to society . Lorenzo Valla was born in 1407 into a dramatically transformational period in history : the transition between the Middle Ages and the height of the Renaissance . Valla was an influential humanist and philosopher , best known for criticizing medieval traditions through historical , textual analysis (“ Lorenzo Valla ”). The controversial application of Valla ’ s critical humanist philology to his reform of Aristotelian scholasticism , the evaluation of church documents , and the later Protestant Reformation ultimately served as a stepping stone from medieval to modern thinking .
Valla combined his critical linguistic analysis with humanist ideas to attack the foundations of Aristotelian scholasticism , laying the groundwork for the critical thinking embodied by the Renaissance period . Aristotelian scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophical thought based on metaphysical arguments seen in the works of Aristotle and grounded in the Christian faith . Throughout the European Middle Ages , it was taught in Christian schools ( Minio-Paluello ). Valla ’ s criticism of Aristotelian scholasticism was centrally based on linguistics . For instance , Aristotelian thought was rooted in the existence of ten basic categories of explanatory concepts for everything . Valla , however , believed that the world consisted of things , called res , which he narrowed down into just three basic categories : substance , quality , and action ( Nauta ). Valla disregarded
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