Scots at the Council of Ferrara-Florence and the Background to the Scottish Renaissance

This article represents the first study of the Scottish presence at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, which included three bishops and over forty other named Scots whose purpose in attending the council is reconstructed in as much detail as the surviving evidence permits. It also aims to show that educated and well-connected Scots were present in one of the premier cultural centers of the early Renaissance, such that the flowering of classicizing culture in Scotland a generation later comes as no surprise. It thereby underlines that ecumenical councils were important moments in the longer history of European cultural integration.