The book under review is a study of the ideas about language in Italy in the pre-modern period, taking as its point of departure the famous debate between Flavio Biondo (1392–1463) and Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) that took place in Florence in 1435. Briefly put, Biondo held that there was only one Latin language and that later vulgar varieties of the language were the result of contamination by Barbarian invaders, while Bruni maintained that there had been two varieties of Latin, a Classical language and a vulgar language, which coexisted in Ancient Rome in a diglossic relationship.

The book’s full title gives a foretaste of what the reader may expect: an overwhelming amount of data that leaves no detail unmentioned. Five introductory chapters take up a total of 181 pages, the shortest being 5 pages, the longest 73 pages. Then follows the central Chapter 6 with 476 pages, followed by a conclusion of 26 pages. At the end of the book is a bibliography of 69 pages (!), but, surprisingly, there is no index, which would have made it much easier to explore the wealth of data presented here. The book has its origin in a Habilitationsschrift of 2021, which presumably was expanded with the introductory chapters for publication.

One wonders why no-one suggested a restriction in the size of this book, whose sheer volume of data does not make it an easy read from cover to cover. Besides, the reader is assumed to be able to read long quotations in Latin, reading Latin as fluently as the Humanist writers themselves. I readily admit that I had to make quite an effort to understand, for instance, a quotation from Petrarca (n. 306): Humanist Latin is markedly different from Classical Latin. The same goes for the lengthy quotations in (Humanist) Italian, which are not provided with a translation either. The book is well-written, though in the kind of academic German that favors long sentences. One has the feeling that even within the conventions of this style things could sometimes have been stated in a somewhat simpler fashion. As far as I could understand the discussion of the hermeneutic writings of Schleiermacher, Heidegger, and Gadamer (pp. 79ff.), their ideas boiled down to the adjunction to read texts in their time, which could perhaps have been stated in a less round-about way. The author himself concedes that with written texts a “diskurstraditionelle Verankerung” may be somewhat difficult (p. 85).

In like fashion, one might ask why it was necessary “die Gesamtheit des Varietätenraumes zu erfassen”, when the author himself admits that the model he discusses extensively has only limited practical use for the discussion at hand and will not be applied in its entirety in Chapter 6 (pp. 77f.). Since the table on pp. 160ff. is based solely on written material, it is not suitable for an analysis of the entire linguistic spectrum. The main conclusion can only be that there was a lot of linguistic variation in the Roman world, which did not require a lengthy discussion of the general literature on variationism. By contrast, the chapter on the notion of Vulgar Latin in modern linguistic studies, arguably an important topic for this book, counts only 18 pages.

By themselves, these introductory chapters are certainly interesting. They provide a theoretical framework for the entire thesis, which is somewhat skewed towards publications written in German. English authors are not omitted completely, but the treatment is based mainly on the German publications (as well as those in Italian and French). In itself this is not a bad thing, because the English-language predominance in academic publications is not necessarily a positive development. Nevertheless, some readers are bound to be left somewhat puzzled, looking in vain for more familiar models. Some of the topics discussed here do not seem to have the same urgency in other linguistic paradigms, such as the proliferating dia-terminology, with terms like diamesisch, diastratisch, diaphasisch, diatopisch, to mention only the few terms used in the summarizing table (pp. 666–668), and leaving out the numerous ones used in the table in Chapter 3.1 (p. 45), which are all taken from authors writing in German.

The central Chapter 6 is divided into two main paragraphs, the first counting 63 pages, the second a whopping 413 pages. This second part is structured according to individual writers, each being dealt with in the same systematic way. First, there is an introduction, then a textual analysis, then a sozio- und varietätenlinguistische Perspektive, then a Rekontextualisierung, and finally a summary. This systematic approach makes it easier to compare the ideas of the different writers, but unfortunately it also means that much of the material is treated several times. The author’s effort to place the ideas of the writers in their time is to be applauded. He quite successfully sketches the intellectual and cultural climate in which each writer develops his ideas about the linguistic situation in Ancient Rome and the contemporary language question. In the summary at the end of the book, the author again (p. 661) underscores the importance of separating the textual analysis, based on hermeneutical principles, from the recontextualization, based on a thorough biographical and bibliographical description of each writer, and claims that his approach may be the first systematic attempt to do so. But it is not obvious why all ideas are to be described in detail first in the textual analysis and then repeated in the recontextualization (and again in the summary). It is difficult to see what the difference between a textual analysis and a recontextualization is. Shouldn’t discussions in the history of linguistics be treated always as a recontextualization? Isn’t that what history of linguistics is all about?

The sozio- und varietätenlinguistische Perspektive aims to make a comparison between the Humanist ideas and modern linguistics. Here, too, the author stands by his decision to adopt a “dezidiert linguistische Untersuchungsperspektive” (p. 662). This procedure has saved the author from falling into the trap of presentism, attributing modern frameworks to writers in the past. The comparison with modern theories may help to understand the positions taken by Humanist writers. Schöntag warns the reader explicitly that these were not the terms and categories with which the Humanist writers themselves operated (p. 665). But the result of this separate sociolinguistic treatment is that much of the material from the textual analysis and the recontextualization is repeated, only this time with a different terminology.

The wealth of detailed information of the book under review contributes to the richness of its fabric. There can be no doubt that the author has an amazing knowledge of the topic, and the book contains many gems. Take, for instance, his remark about the difference in agenda between Romanists and Latinists (p. 167), or the excellent summary of the changing views about Latin (p. 285), and there are many other examples of insightful remarks. Unfortunately, these gems sometimes threaten to be drowned in the staggering amount of data. Even granted the usefulness of a strictly applied systematic presentation of each separate writer, some information could have been left out. The entire paragraph 6.1.5, including the discussion (pp. 220ff.) of the history of schools and universities as institutions, is certainly very interesting, but has only marginal relevance for the topic at hand. The same goes for the discussion of manumissio (p. 140, n. 236), or of the Church fathers (n. 351), or the list of the kings of Rome (n. 952), or the life of Stilicho (n. 915). In some cases, it would have sufficed to refer to other publications. The encyclopedic survey of the history of Latin could have been dispensed with, for instance, a reference to Zetzel (2018)Zetzel, James E. G. 2018 Critics, Compilers, and Commentators: An introduction to Roman philology, 200 BCE – 88 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press. or Clarkson and Horrocks (2007)Clackson, James & Geoffrey Horrocks 2007 The Blackwell History of the Latin Language. Oxford: Blackwell.. The topic of variation within Latin has been described exhaustively by Adams (2013)Adams, James N. 2013 Social Variation and the Latin Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , which rather obviates the need for discussions like the one of the Faliscan inscriptions here (p. 81f.). For the history of Latin after the Roman period Waquet (1998)Waquet, Françoise 1998 Le latin ou l’empire d’un signe: XVI^e–XX^e siècle. Paris: Albin Michel. would have been a good reference.

In some cases irrelevant information is provided where relevant information would have been required. On pp. 143ff. the author discusses the structure of the Roman army (which could have been dealt with by referring to Haynes 2013Haynes, Ian 2013 Blood of the Provinces: The Roman auxilia and the making of provincial society from Augustus to the Severans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ), but leaves out the rather crucial information that most Roman soldiers were not native speakers of Latin, which is relevant for the process of Latinization. For Christian Latin an extensive literary history is given, but much less attention is given to the socio-linguistic status of this variety (one remark on p. 143), for which Mohrmann’s (1961)Mohrmann, Christine 1961 Études sur le latin des chrétiens. 2 vols. 2nd edition. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. studies are still relevant. About the important issue of the relationship between Rumanian and Latin, which is referred to briefly in a footnote (n. 376), one should like to hear more. Likewise, the concrete references to parallels with the Greek-speaking world pointed out by some of the Humanist writers (p. 368, p. 390) could have received more attention, in particular the claim by some of them that contemporary Byzantines still spoke Classical Greek (see the remark in the concluding chapter, p. 670). The issue of the Greek language recurs later on in a different context (pp. 482f.), when it is characterized by the Humanist writers as the learned language in Classical Rome.

The first sixty-four pages of Chapter 6 deal with the question of the relationship between Renaissance and Humanism. Deconstructing conventional periodizations of history is certainly useful, and the author is no doubt right that Renaissance as a concept postdates the ideas themselves, but this does not mean that the idea of a rebirth of the Classical world was non-existent. Philosophical and medical authors in the early 16th century attacked the Arabic translations of Classical authors as a contamination of the pure Greco-Latin world, and preached a return to the sources as a means to reconnect with Classical Antiquity in terms that suggest a rebirth after a dark age, as for instance Leonhard Fuchs (1501–1566) did (see Klein-Franke 1980Klein-Franke, Felix 1980 Die klassische Antike in der Tradition des Islam. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.: 33). The important point is whether the contemporary scholars themselves conceived of a break in the tradition.

One of the most important issues dealt with in this book is why the discussion of the language question took place precisely at this time. The author lucidly explains that the discussion about the language situation in Rome is a consequence of the contemporary debate about the volgare: there was no consensus about whether it was the right language in which to write learned treatises. And there was an inevitable subsidiary question: if it was allowed to use volgare for learned treatises, which variety should be used, i.e. the variety of which urban center?

A second important point is Schöntag’s explanation that the two competing theories of Biondo and Bruni about the linguistic situation in Ancient Rome, which are at the root of the debate, are not as mutually exclusive as they may seem at first sight (p. 324). Roughly speaking, there are two ways in which one can view the sociolinguistic situation of Classical Latin: either there was only one Latin language, with different registers, or there were two forms of Latin, Classical and vulgar. Both positions permit two different conclusions about the need for language reform in the contemporary situation, in which the authors lived and worked (cf. p. 330). Schöntag is quite right when he states that the thesis of a contamination of the Latin language through the Barbarian invasions can very well be combined with a deep admiration for the pure Latin language, as can the view that there was a vulgar variety of the language from day one. Both positions could result either in a plea for the rejuvenation of the Classical language, or in embracing the contemporary volgare, not only for literary, but also for formal and academic purposes.

A third interesting conclusion is that there was a shift in the debate from the ‘first generation’, who focused on Latin against the background of the discussion about the contemporary volgare, to the ‘second generation’, who were more focused on the contemporary situation and on the need to select a variety of Italian as the new cultural standard. In this discussion arguments taken from the history of Latin (p. 505) were still used but, significantly, the debate took place almost exclusively in Italian (p. 659). Yet, as the author notes (p. 547), even in the 16th century questions about the linguistic situation in Ancient Rome were still hotly debated.

What I personally found most interesting is the shift in attention for language acquisition processes with writers of the 16th century. This applies to Leon Battista Alberti’s (1404–1472) idea of a mixed language as the result of the impact of speakers of substratal languages as second language learners (p. 338), but also to the theory advanced by Pietro Bembo (1470–1547; p. 495) and Claudio Tolomei (ca. 1492–1556; p. 529) of a mixed language as the result of the impact of superstratal languages. It is easy to miss these connections within the mass of encyclopedic and biographical details, combined with the lack of an index. The ideas about pollution/contamination of the language through the speech of non-native speakers crop up several times, but no direct link is made with the acquisition of speech by non-native speakers (p. 378, cf. p. 396). In this respect, Celso Cittadini (1553–1627) was an innovator. His ideas are dealt with in detail by Schöntag (pp. 591–617; note that in the meantime a new edition of the Trattato della vera origine was published by Ortolano in 2019Ortolano, Pierluigi ed. 2019 Cittadini, Celso. Trattato della vera origine e del processo, e nome della nostra lingua, scritto in volgar sanese (Venezia, Ciotti, 1601). Florence: Franco Cesati 2019.). What makes Cittadini stand out is his focus on the process of Latinization. He is not interested in superstratal languages, and not very much in substratal languages either, but he believes that the Latin language changed, not so much in the sense of ‘internal changes’ in the language, but as the result of an acquisition process that led to falsi Latini and Barbarezmi, already at an early time when the first provincial speakers came to Rome and learnt Latin, and later on during the conquests of the provinces of the Roman empire when large numbers of non-native speakers acquired Latin as their second language. At the very end of the book, Schöntag (p. 687) refers to Cittadini as the culminating point of the debate, thus underscoring his importance in the development of linguistic ideas.

The concluding chapter sketches the complex issues in a few pages. The remarks about the notion of Vulgar Latin (pp. 677f.) are a valuable contribution to the debate. The long passage (p. 679–686) about the interaction between the Humanistic scholars and their networks is an excellent example of combination of data and analysis. This could have been material for a separate monograph. Whether all of the biographical data were necessary for the analysis of the debate about the volgare is debatable.

In conclusion, one might say that the analysis of the ideas of each individual writer in this book is comprehensive and lucid, though it is not always easy to tease out the essential points. The Habilitationsschrift on which the book is largely based won an academic prize of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University Erlangen-Nürnberg. This prize for an academic Habilitation was fully deserved, but before publication someone could have urged the author to leave out some of the overwhelming amount of references and encyclopedic details. Notwithstanding my critical remarks, however, I believe this is an amazing work, whose value as a Fundgrube of erudition and knowledge about the period can hardly be surpassed.