INTRODUCTION

1. THE RENAISSANCE OF CLASSICAL CULTURE AND LEARNING

Jakob Burckhardt’s The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860).
The collapse of classical cities and classical culture in the fifth century was followed by a thousand years of barbarism and superstition. The revival in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of commerce and towns in Italy (esp. Florence) paved the way for a rediscovery of Classical literature and the reinvention of a more secular, even anti-religious, philosophy. The new secular, individualistic beliefs were inherently incompatible with Christianity – and came to be called ‘humanism’ – that is a philosophy of life entirely centred in this world and in the achievements of individuals. The urban classes who embraced this new ‘humanist’ culture broke the power of the clergy, overthrew the social, economic and political feudal order of the aristocracy, in so doing they also destroyed conventional ethical restraints on political behaviour. They also embraced more rational forms of knowledge such as science, and in general laid the foundations for a rational, modern, secular, capitalist, bourgeois, world.
How and why can we argue that Burckhardt was wrong?

• ‘Humanism’ and in the revival of towns and trade did not coincide.
• Classical culture had never been forgotten.

2. HUMANIST METHODOLOGIES

Scholastic methods used ancient and Christian texts as ‘authorities’
     distorts by taking remarks out of context
     simplifies by distilling complex positions to simple statements
 By contrast Humanist methods return to original text (in its original language) to recover ‘real’ meaning
     implications for view of history
     implications for self-perception: ‘recovering’ true civilization.

Context One: Debates about papal sovereignty (cf. lecture in Week 4)
 
 

Case Study One: the poet FRANCESCO PETRARCH  (1304-74), who flourished in the courts of the Popes at Avignon, and later Rome.

• love of ancient Latin literature and savage rejection of inherited medieval culture  aim at cultural renewal through recovery of culture of Antiquity
• greatness of Rome due to moral grandeur, virtue and patriotism
• an historical discontinuity between Ancient and Modern times
• BUT he was a pure scholar who never had any role in politics

3. EDUCATION
It has also been claimed that the humanist culture of the later middle ages differed from that of the high Middle Ages in terms of the types of education
    ‘old’: chivalric (aristocracy)
     university (clerics)
    ‘new’: humanist education
          studia humanitatis
          grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy
Humanists ideals of education drawn from Cicero
     development of the manly man, vir virtutis

• i.e. develop good moral character via liberal arts
• goals = virtue and wisdom, and ability to express these qualities
• wisdom & ethics from moral philosophy & history and above all law
• eloquence, ability to put wisdom into practice, communicate truth thanks to grammar, rhetoric, poetry

4. PROPAGANDA.

Context Four:  The City of Florence
The city of Florence and the invention of the term ‘civic humanism’ by the historian Hans Baron.

• No university (until 1349) – a different tradition of learning. Petrarch never returned to settle in his native city – but influential
• The place of Florence in papal politics.
• Florence and the cultivation of Roman imagery.
• Florence and the Duchy of Milan (1390-1420)

• defender of the ideal republics of Greece & Rome: free discourse and unfettered thought of   citizens;
• society that rewarded talent in politics and literature
• Roman Empire destroyed this ancient civilization >> permanent break in history revival in modern Republics,
• Florence  defence of freedom = defence of learning & civilization

5.  PLATONIC HUMANISM :  Second Phase of Renaissance
Shouldn’t the good man, even the good civil servant cultivate his soul, as well as attempting to achieve perfection through the more practical skills of his daily work and family life?
The second stage of renaissance humanism is thus often associated with a rejection of active classical Roman virtues and a re-emphasis upon spiritual Greek, especially neo-Platonic ideas.
 
 

Case Study Three: LORENZO VALLA (1407-1457)

Language as a Cultural Artefact.
     shift of focus from Ciceronian Latin, Roman art & architecture, and ‘civic’ values
     rejection of rhetorical culture & ethical commitment to active life
     philosophy more important than family, business & politics
     interest in spiritual, religious & speculative questions >> possibility of philosophical concord  and religious unity
(a) language
     On the elegances of the Latin language (published 1444)
     demonstrated that language undergoes historical development
     corrected errors that had developed in classical, patristic and biblical texts
(b) religion
     Declamation of the forged donation of Constantine (c.1440) demolished forged documents used   by popes to defend claims to temporal power
     Adnotationes in Novum Testamentum revise and interpret the NT by returning to Greek texts
Special significance in the City of Florence.

• Patronage of the Duke of Milan
• Council of Florence 1438-9 and access to Greek neo-platonic theologians (eg. Bessarion)
• Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 1463-94
• Rise of the Medici Family.

Humanism. Was it an intellectual & cultural movement specifically associated with cities?
Desire for a ‘practical’ education in law and rhetoric evident in ‘courtly’ as well as ‘civic’ contexts throughout Europe.
The so-called ‘republican’ features of Florentine government were not unique to Florence - although Florence was unusual in acknowledging no sovereign overlord.
The eventual switch to a more mystical spirituality from the mid 15th century was far from unique to Florence and far from dependent on an interest in Plato.
However the Florentine renaissance was unique in certain respects:

• An exaggerated antipathy to monarchical and aristocratic government
• Lack of reference to explicit theological or clerical context of debates

Weblinks: a word of warning. The websites here will give you a valuable rapid introduction to new subjects, but are of variable quality. In preparing an essay it is always better to read and cite scholarly works of reference from the University library.