Imagine an age when education was reshaping the human spirit. In Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators, Woodward transports you into the first flowering of the Italian Renaissance, where schooling was not just instruction, but a moral and cultural rebirth.
At the heart of this book is Vittorino da Feltre — teacher, mentor, innovator. In Mantua, he founded La Casa Gioiosa (the House of Joy), where nobles and orphans studied side by side, sharing lessons in Latin, Greek, music, athletics, and virtue. He believed the ideal pupil was a balanced person — body, mind, and character in harmony.
Woodward doesn't stop there. He brings forward four foundational treatises by Vergerio, Bruni, Aeneas Sylvius (later Pope Pius II), and Guarino — retranslated into English — so you can see how thinkers of the time argued for liberal education, eloquence, and moral formation.
The final section is Woodward's own reflective overview, positioning humanist schools not merely as relics of the past but as living models — education as moral formation, as a bridge between antiquity and modern life. This book remains a touchstone for readers who want to feel the Renaissance—not just study it.