To create a second Renaissance,
translate the first.
The Renaissance itself was written in Latin. We never translated it.
533,307
Latin editions, 1450–1700
<3%
translated into English
The Renaissance is waiting to be discovered.
↓ Scroll to explore the gap
The Story of the First Renaissance
In 1460, a monk brought a manuscript from Macedonia to Florence. It changed everything.
The book that transmitted Greek philosophy to Renaissance Europe.
The Rediscovery
When Cosimo de' Medici received a Greek manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum, he ordered Marsilio Ficino to stop translating Plato and translate this first.
Ficino's translations of Hermes, Plato, and Plotinus into Latin sparked the Renaissance. Ideas that had been locked away in Greek for a thousand years suddenly flowed across Europe.
Where Renaissance "natural magic" became experimental science.
The Path to Science
Renaissance "natural magic" was not superstition—it was the study of nature's hidden forces. Della Porta's work on optics, magnetism, and chemistry laid groundwork for the Scientific Revolution.
All of this was written in Latin—the international language of scholarship. And almost none of it has been translated into English.
A Library Waiting to Be Unlocked
Cosmological diagrams, alchemical emblems, anatomical masterpieces—all written in Latin.
The Pattern Repeats
1460
Ancient Greek texts
locked away for 1,000 years
translated into Latin
2025
Renaissance Latin texts
locked away for 500 years
waiting for translation
The Renaissance happened because someone translated old books.
It can happen again.
Latin dominated European printing for two centuries
From Gutenberg to Newton, Latin was the language of international scholarship. Nearly a third of all books printed in early modern Europe were in Latin.
Source: Universal Short Title Catalogue, n=1.65 million editions (2025)
Classical Latin is well-served. Renaissance Latin is not.
The Loeb Classical Library has 520 volumes covering Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. But the actual bulk of the Latin corpus—Renaissance scholarship—is almost untouched.
Major literary works
Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose
Chronicles, scholastics
100,000+ unique works
Estimates based on translation series catalogues. See methodology →
Important thinkers you can't read
These thinkers shaped science, philosophy, and culture. Their Latin works influenced generations. Yet most remain untranslated into English.
Samuel Stryk
Jurist who defined German legal tradition
Hermann Conring
Founded German legal history; Leibniz called him 'most learned'
Georg Wolfgang Wedel
Medical professor, pharmacology, chemistry
What knowledge is locked away?
The untranslated corpus spans every field of Renaissance thought. History of science, religious history, legal history, philosophy—all depend on texts most scholars cannot read.
Largest category (~32% of Latin printing)
Almost entirely untranslated
Beyond Galen/Hippocrates commentaries
Commentaries largely untouched
Pre-Scientific Revolution texts
I Tatti warming up
Chronicles, local histories
Translation rates estimated from major scholarly series. See methodology →
This is solvable.
Digitization infrastructure exists. AI-assisted translation is advancing rapidly. The scholarly apparatus for identifying what matters is in place.
What's missing is coordinated effort and funding. A systematic program could transform access to Renaissance thought within a decade.
See our translation priorities →A PROJECT OF THE EMBASSY OF THE FREE MIND
Create a second Renaissance by translating the first
The original Renaissance was sparked by rediscovering ancient texts. Half a million more are waiting. The Ancient Wisdom Trust is working to unlock them—through cataloging, digitization, and translation.
Translations are published freely at Source Library.