In the preceding three chapters, this book's approach has been chronological, reflecting the significant developments in elementary and secondary education occurring in Italian schools from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. In this chapter, on the other hand, the treatment will be topical: the fact is that methods of reading and using school authors hardly changed over this long period. Simple philology (e.g. paraphrase, grammar, figures, word-order, geography, history, mythology, elementary rhetorical analysis) remained pupils' habitual fare. Even the use of the vernacular as an aid for learning Latin, after its introduction into Italian education during the Duecento, showed little significant development in succeeding centuries. Only in one or two marginal areas (for example, the new preoccupation with verse analysis in the fifteenth century) was there any sign of innovation in the approach to the authors.

Another important feature of school reading throughout this period is the overwhelming dominance of basic philology. Morals and philosophy make an occasional appearance, but invariably such comments are lost in an immense ocean of philological minutiae. There was no new preoccupation with the nitty-gritty of philology in the Italian Renaissance classroom: this had been the staple fare of medieval schools too.

GLOSSING BETWEEN THE LINES: THE STRUGGLING PUPIL

The role of the vernacular

Although often well advanced in Latin, pupils reading the authors in the grammar schoolroom still glossed their texts in the vernacular, as is evident from a number of manuscripts signed by pupils in schools.