Latin or, the Empire of a Sign By Françoise Waquet Translated by John Howe

A highly original and accessible history of Latin between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries

For almost three centuries, Latin dominated the civic and sacred worlds of Europe and, arguably, the entire western world. From the moment in the sixteenth century when it was adopted by the Humanists as the official language for schools and by the Catholic Church as the common liturgical language, it was the way in which millions of children were taught, people prayed to God, and scholars were educated.

Francoise Waquet’s history of Latin between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries is a highly original and accessible exploration of the institutional contexts in which the language was adopted.