These essays address unifying themes such as the acquisition of knowledge (Fracastoro's theories on the cognitive process); textual criticism (the editing of the works of Livy and Alberti); the academic and social value of humanist studies (the views of Dante and Lombardelli); literary imitation (of the classics and the Bible in Piccolomini, humanists' imitation of each other in the case of Petrarch and Boccaccio); and the reflection of social reality in literature (freedom versus duty in Ariosto and Quarini, marriage and the law in Renaissance comedy, the role of women in the chivalric epic, in comedy and in the novellas of Masuccio, political expediency in Machiavelli and in treatises on the courtier from Castiglione onwards). An indication on the breadth of the impact of the movement is given by studies which describe its effect on the literary tradition of Wales and on writers of the Enlightenment like Parini.