According to Ferguson how did writers and thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries view themselves? Were they part of the Middle Ages or a different era - the renaissance

The right answer is different era - the renaissance.

According to Ferguson, writers and thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries view themselves as somehow separated, different from the literature and art of that period. The feudal and ecclesiastical literature and the Gothic art of the Middle Ages did not describe their ideals. In this period, known as Renaissance, they turned their attention to the Roman and Greek ancient civilization.