Three students of the classicist Piero Vettori turned to the study of vernacular language at midcentury and therafter: Benedetto Varchi, Girolamo Mei, and Vincenzio Borghini.Mei circulated his writings only in manuscript; he wrote especially on metrics and rhyme, and referred to the recently available writings of Aristoxenus of Taranto as well as Aristotle’s Poetics to discuss perception and judgment. Varchi acknowledged Bembo’s immense contributions but like Borghini, felt he had conflated the study of language with literature. Varchi used Aristotelian tools to analyze languages. They distinguished between literature as art and language as natural to humans; hence, its variation follows rules that are subject to rational analysis.Borghini devoted attention to the fourteenth-century vernacular, including an edition of Boccaccio’s Decameron that could withstand the Index of Forbidden Books.He also proposed a plan for teaching vernacular language in Florence’s schools.

This introductory chapter beginswith background. First it describes the shape of Florentine intellectual culture in the early sixteenth century. It then summarizes the political changes in the city beginning with the 1490s through the naming of Cosimo as leader, and summarizes Cosimo’s early years. The years of instability that preceding Cosimo's reign had harmed the city’s intellectual and cultural life. Cosimo worked both to maximize the city’s independence from foreign control and to reestablish the city’s importance as a cultural center. The Florentine Bernardo Segni later summarized these early successes, beginning with the reopening of the university at Pisa and the founding of the Accademia Fiorentina. As a resut, a new generation of scholars built their intellectual careers in the city. They took a particular interest in the study of the Florentine language, its letters, and Florentine culture. Segni also singled out some of the era’s principal scholars: Piero Vettori, Benedetto Varchi, and Giovan Battista Gelli. They, along with Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Vincenzio Borghini, and several others, are the principal focus of this study.