Renaissance humanism and Hagiography

Abstract

This paper takes as reference a small literary corpus of hagiographic neolatin within Portuguese humanism. The author argues that European Renaissance humanism played a decisive role in the birth of renewed hagiography with  critical, philological and literary requirements. The European context of doctrinal reforms and the controversy surrounding the cult of the saints were decisive in hagiographic literary production, but other factors were also relevant in this process: some humanistic characteristic, such as interest in philological reconstitution, imitation of Greek-latin literary models and a  certain kind of passion for 'antiquarian'. This paper intends to identify this humanistic mark in the hagiographic literature and its consequences.