Francesco Robortello on Popularizing Knowledge

With this paper I aim to discuss Francesco Robortello’s theory of the popularization of knowledge. After some preliminary remarks on popularizing knowledge during the Renaissance, I present Robortello’s three strategies for making scientific and philosophical contents more relevant, namely schematizing, rhetoricizing, and translating knowledge. My claim is that for Robortello popularization, vulgarization, and translation are first and foremost means for educating people, not reducing high culture to a lower level. His intention is to discover the most appropriate techniques for making the complex content of knowledge more accessible. Whatever the results of popularization may be, the process is motivated by an intent to democratize knowledge. Knowledge, after all, is power, a power that belongs to all; the power of the people.