From Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist: The Development of Agostino Steuco's “Counter“-Reformation Thought*

Abstract

The study of Italian humanism in the age of the Reformation has focused almost exclusively on the relationship between humanism and the ItalianSpirituali.This emphasis can be traced back to the many works of Delio Cantimori. Cantimori persistently argued that humanism, with its emphasis on scriptural studies, philology, and spiritual and ecclesiastical renewal promoted evangelical spirituality and church reform among Italians. He saw the Spirituali—many of whom were humanists—as pious, devout individuals caught between their own evangelical convictions and the traditions of a spiritually unsatisfying and morally corrupt ecclesiastical system. It was the dynamics of this spiritual crisis, fueled by the clash between evangelism and the doctrines of the church, that formed the basis of many of Cantimori's works on humanism and reform in Italy.