Italy:The Seedbed

of Literary Humanism

Humanism

1300-1600

Portrait of a Humanist

by Giovanni Bellinic. 1490

Dante Alighieri1265-1321

Francesco Petrarch1302-1374

Often referred to as the first humanist

Lorenzo Valla

• 1407-1457• Treatise on Donation of

Constantine c. 1440• Poet, philosopher,

literary critic• Master of classical

rhetoric and grammar• Worked in court of

Alfonso of Naples in 1430s before becoming a papal secretary

Machiavelli• Self taught for the

most part, this Florentine thinker was highly original in his political ideas

• Later in life he fell afoul of the Florentine oligarchy and was tortured

• His views on politics are still widely controversial today

What exactly is humanism?

• Humanism is a vague term that is often misunderstood; it is important to distinguish between– Secular humanism: 20th century– Literary and civic humanism: 1300-1550

• Dante inspired the revival of classical literature that was at the heart of literary humanism

• One of its earliest exponents was Francesco Petrarch, a churchman who wrote love poetry, inspired by courtly love literature

• Petrarch was infatuated with Cicero and the grandeur of the Roman Republic

The Rise of the Merchants & Cities

• The rise of merchants was most pronounced on the Italian peninsula and was well under way by the twelfth century

• The Crusades opened new channels for Italian merchants to expand their trading ventures to the Byzantine Empire and the Near East, where the lucrative trade in spices and fine silks created opportunities to accumulate vast profits

• In order to protect themselves from pirates and others merchants frequently became proficient at arms and hired men who could protect their valuable possessions

• By the thirteenth century the merchants were successfully leading popular communes throughout the Italian peninsula against the dominance of the warrior or feudal aristocracy

The Rise of the Merchants & Cities• Although these trends toward increasing urbanization and

the creation of independent communes led by the merchants also spread to Northern Europe, by 1300 the Italian peninsula contained more than a dozen independent city states ruled by the merchant elite

• Merchants supplied the aristocracy with loans and the luxury goods that aristocrats needed to maintain their elaborate social practices

• Increasingly members of the aristocracy found it advantageous to form marriage alliances with the most wealthy and influential merchants, a phenomenon that was almost unthinkable a century earlier

• As the merchants’ influence grew they developed and celebrated values and traditions that either mocked or rivaled the romanticism of the chivalric ethos

Humanism• Humanism emerged during the late thirteenth and early

fourteenth centuries• It was the product of the practical and legalistic orientation of

the merchants who controlled the city states of northern Italy• Its initial practitioners were often men who were interested in

the recovery of ancient texts– Celebration of the achievements of the Greeks and Romans– To uncover lost knowledge

• Unlike the impractical orientation of chivalric poems, humanist writings tended to explore practical concerns, such as whether a document was a forgery (many medieval documents were) and whether it contained knowledge that could be applied to specific problems

• Humanists were often opposed to the scholastic learning of the universities and its emphasis on theology; many humanists were often at least partially self taught

Humanism

• An early source of this humanist trend in education and learning was the northern Italian Republic of Florence– Bruno Latini wrote a practical advice manual and how to rule a city

state c. 1280; Bruno had been a notary, a quasi legal profession engaged in the authentication of documents and contracts

– His student Dante Alighieri would inspire generations of humanist writers through his mastery of classical Latin, his familiarity with the ancient world, and his development of what would become the vernacular Italian language

• Humanists shared with the authors of chivalric literature a willingness to write in the vernacular; however, unlike the chivalric poets who wrote about Love and fantasy, humanists often used the vernacular to write about serious issues related to the journey of the soul and the quest for divine revelation

• This use of the vernacular implicitly threatened the Church’s control over serious intellectual discourse

Literary Humanism• Begins in early 1300s with Dante & Petrarch but gains

steam in the 1400s with the flight of Byzantine scholars to Italy

• Literary Humanism was focused on the recovery of ancient Greek & Latin texts and involved essentially four processes– Collection – multiple copies of the same text helped

to eliminate errors– Transcription – rewriting the old texts into new

script– Translation – more precise; words matter– Imitation – of the classical Latin style

• Philosophical orientation of Humanism– Man is the primary concern– Revival of Greco-Roman philosophical speculation– Increasingly assumes a Platonic orientation

Literary Humanism• Emphasized writing and rhetoric in school studies

instead of scholastic methodology• Well suited to societies with a growing need for

lawyers because of emphasis on writing and rhetoric• Continues well past the sixteenth century with

Erasmus’ translation of a Greek New Testament into Latin (c. 1500)

• By celebrating both the past and the potential of humanity, it provides impetus to both the Renaissance and the Reformation

• Generally conveyed a more optimism regarding human nature than medieval philosophy which emphasize the corruption of the flesh and original sin

Civic Humanism• The application of humanist philosophy to

government– republican values glorified– Cicero seen as ideal statesman– emphasized need to have virtuous leaders– focused on practical matters

• Favoured especially in Florence in the 15th and 16th centuries but also influential in England; it gives rise to social contract theories of the Enlightenment

• In contrast to scholastic political philosophy of the late Middle Ages (e.g. Aquinas), it increasingly removed religious considerations from political theory and eventually paved the way for the social contract theories of the Enlightenment

Niccolo Machiavelli, 1469-1527• Champion of republican values in Florence during the

15th and early 16th centuries• Had practical experience as one of the leading statesmen

of Florence from 1499-1510• His practical guide for dictators, known as the Prince, left

a longstanding legacy that he embraced violence and was amoral

• However, he wrote other works that clearly leave the impression that he believed in the value of a republican form of government

• His political theories were a departure from previous political philosophy in that they were not based so much on the ideal form of government as the methods to achieve the interests of the state

Summary of Humanism

• The historiography of the Renaissance often claims that Humanism began in 14th century Florence with the figure of Petrarch (c. 1350) who developed a cult following around Cicero; but clearly many of the trends evident in Petrarch’s writings were already visible in the writings of Dante and Bruno Latini c. 1300

• In its earliest forms it displayed mastery of various literary genres (both prose and poetry), and it celebrated ancient Roman culture

• It influenced – Literature– Art & Architecture– Education and scholarly pursuits– Political Philosophy

The Influence of Humanism• The recovery and analysis of texts provided an impetus for

much of the reforming spirit that was to spark the Reformation– Lorenzo Valla’s analysis of the Donation of Constantine led to the

conclusion that the document was a forgery; this discovery brought into question the Papacy’s claims to temporal authority in the Italian peninsula

– Erasmus’s translation of the New Testament into Latin during the early 1500s provided the basis for Luther’s vernacular (German) version during the 1520s

• By translating and explaining Greek and Roman sources, the humanists shed new light on the Greco Roman past which would provide a large portion of the subject matter for Renaissance art

• Humanism inspired several later intellectual movements, such as Renaissance painting, neo-Platonism, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment

The Influence of Humanism

• One of the primary legacies of humanism was its impact on the modern educational program– challenged the speculative and impractical nature of

scholastic educational practices, which emphasized theology

– focus on practical issues and eventually (in the 1700s) reoriented the course of higher education toward the humanities and away from speculative philosophy

– Education in the vernacular• The impact of the humanist educational program

is still evident in higher education today