The Rhetoric and Humanism of Cicero and Its Impact on the Humanists of the Early Italian Renaissance

Marcus Tullius Cicero exerted a major influence on rhetoric: intellectual
writings, oratory, and education in the Early Italian Renaissance. Cicero's
humanism expressed a fellowship with society and included justice, reasoning,
moral and social duties to the community. It eventually replaced traditional
learning and established a pattern of classical studies that was to continue for
centuries.
The Early Italian Renaissance was basically a cultural, literary and scholarly
movement that represented an important and new phase in the study and
interpretation of the history of classical antiquity and played a unique role in
Western cultural history.
This paper explores the extent to which contemporary authors have identified
the similarities and differences between Cicero's humanism and the humanism of
the Early Italian Renaissance. The author suggests areas requiring further
research.