Introduction

The arguments elaborated by scholastic theologians and thinkers in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to deal with the quaestio concerning pagan virtues and salvation are taken up and discussed with greater sophistication and cogency throughout the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Yet the further evolution of the debate is due less to the formulation of new conceptual solutions than to the need to deal with the new contexts in which the pagan theme arises. In this respect, the early modern ‘phase’ of the debate on pagans is not so much characterized by the elaboration of new theses as by new usages of the theme of the virtues and salvation of the pagans. In other words, we are witnessing a transformation that is not internal to the discussion on the status of pagans, but which rather concerns the meaning and function that are assigned to the debate itself. The main aim of this volume is to highlight the areas, themes and argumentative strategies that define the specific character of the early modern ‘phase’ of the debate on the virtues and salvation of the pagans.