Imperceptible change

The classics were still classy in the MIddle Ages. An ancient portrait of Seneca the Younger standing high over a 9th century manuscript of the Apocolocyntosis, Seneca's satire on the Roman emperor Claudius, St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 569 (arrangement by the British Museum)

A textbook definition of Renaissance humanism is that of a period o…