Humanism, Scholasticism, and the Theology and Preaching of Domenico De' Domenichi in the Italian Renaissance

Domenico de'Domenichi (1416-1478) was a Venetian-born humanist active in Venice, Florence and Rome, well-educated in the scholastic tradition.

He advised Popes Eugenius IV, Nicholas V, Calixtus II, Pius II, Paul II and Sixtus IV on theological matters.

Domenichi provides a look at several urban worlds where Renaissance humanism flourished.

Even more significantly, his dual intellectual life as both a humanist within the Renaissance tradition and as a theologian within the more mediaeval scholastic tradition indicates well the complexities of a Renaissance intellectual world critical of the mediaeval past at the same time those traditions flourished in a world far less secular than once believed.

Of Domenichi's many works - treating theological, ecclesiopolitical, philosophical, devotional and reform issues -his preaching best confronts and integrates the sometimes incompatible multiplicity of intellectual traditions so much a part of Renaissance Italy.