Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World

Despite its apparent antiquity, Neo-Latin is in fact a fairly recent discipline, at least as an academic specialism. Post-classical Latin has always been studied in various manifestations, usually in more specific contexts (Mediaeval Latin poetry, church Latin and the like). Neo-Latin, however, is described as the study of Latin language and literature from the time of, approximately, Petrarch (thus, the beginning of the Renaissance) to the present day. Instead of using Latin texts from the period for the study of their topics, the texts themselves now become the objects of study in their own right.

“Fairly recent” in this context...