development of Latin to meet the changing needs of new 
     talent and new subject-matter was thus precluded; with 
     one blow of ‘his Mace petrific’ the classical spirit ended 
     the history of the Latin tongue. This was not what the 
     humanists had intended.

     Febvre and Martin point also (in L’Apparition du livre , p. 
479) to the role of the revival of ancient Roman script. “Even 
more, the return to the antique letters contributed to make of 
Latin a dead language.” This is a basic point. The very letters 
which we associate with print itself were not medieval but 
Roman and were used by the humanists as part of their 
archeological effort. But the high visual quality of Roman script, 
so congenial to the printing press, was the main factor in 
ending the reign of Latin, even more than the revival of ancient 
styles by means of the printed word.