language; this is followed by a little on texts available, followed in turn by a long discussion of the taxonomy of such texts and a defence of the study of "academic" or "learned" vernacular texts. There is much to be learned here, although the author has not attempted a coherent study. Bert S. Hall devotes himself to considering problems of understanding and interpreting mostly published text...

Yet the Renaissance was more than a "rebirth." It was also an age of new discoveries, both geographical (exploration of the New World) and intellectual. Both kinds of discovery resulted in changes of tremendous importance for Western civilization. In science, for example, Copernicus (1473-1543) attempted to prove that the sun rather than the earth was at the center of the planetary system, thus...