The chapter examines the developments in the field of Latin studies in different periods and in different countries and institutions. Section 1 gives an outline of the history and the status of Latin studies in the schools and universities in a variety of continents and countries, over a certain period of time and in politically and ideologically distinct phases. The chapter analyses the diverging methods and research issues in Latin studies resulting from different institutional conditions. It scrutinises the influence of western European educational institutions in which Latin has been taught on individual academic disciplines also outside Europe, and raises the question whether they are determined by national or ideological schools of thought. Section 2 contains case studies seeking to determine the extent to which characteristic ‘national’ differences impinge on research in Latin. Using the example of critical editions of specific Latin texts, of the developments in the commentary tradition and of approaches derived from theoretical discourses elsewhere, the chapter attempts to illustrate the persistence or slowdown of national traditions in Latin studies to the present day.

The vernacular language was a topic of great interest across Italy throughout the sixteenth century; most were interested in setting standards of good writing based on the models of Petrarch and Boccaccio as promoted by Pietro Bembo. Florentines differed especially in that they came to distinguish literary style from the language itself, and focused on the study of language. They modified the tools of humanistic study, developed for Latin and Greek, by distinguishing between the study of living languages and dead ones, sinceliving languages constantly undergo change and development. They also used a biological model, arguing that a language is like a living thing with its own life cycle. Most Florentine writings from the 1540s and 1550s came from a circle of friends who often collaborated with one another: Pierfrancesco Giambullari, Giovan Battista Gelli, Cosimo Bartoli, Carlo Lenzoni, and Giovanni Norchiati. Although they are now best known for their arguments about the history of the language, in fact they devoted many years to the study of modern language practice.