The spark that ignited the renaissance
by Sevrin de Savage [Aaron D. McClelland]
Simply defined, Humanism was “a cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized secular concerns as a result of the rediscovery and study of the literature, art, and civilization of ancient Greece and Rome”. Yet to this day scholars still struggle to define exactly what Humanism was, but in the Quattrocento Florence it was all about the rediscovery and application of a responsible civic philosophic code found in the classic civilizations of Rome and Greece. Florence and its distant neighbour Venice were Republics in the midst of Kingdoms, Duchies, and Papal states - to survive, their Republics had to remain strong. Florentines embraced Humanism as part of a classic education that also included, Latin, Logic, Rhetoric, and later - Greek in an effort to strengthen their Republic through knowledge and its application. Little did the early Humanists know how profound a change this philosophy would make to the world, for it was Humanism that ignited the flames of the Renaissance.
In 1438 Matteo Palmieri wrote; “Philosophy is the foremost and truest medicine of the mind. It eliminates our anxieties and turbulent passions, restrains our desires and appetites, and banishes cowardice from baser spirits. Yet it does not possess equal power in everyone but is most productive when it meets with a receptive and suitable nature ... Thus we see that the study of philosophy and other laudable sciences does not bear the same fruit in everyone. Just as carefully cultivated fields are not equally productive, but vary according to the quality of the soil, so carefully educated people do not all turn out to be good, but improve according to their natural disposition.”
Though an obvious statement to the modern scholar, Palmieri’s observations were enlightened for his time. He both heralded the possibility for good that the pursuit of Humanism promised, while at the same time pointing out its greatest flaw; That by its nature, Humanism empowered man with unfettered free choice and being so enabled, could choose to do evil.
That Humanism was born in Italy is not surprising; Humanism’s roots lay in the rediscovery of ancient Latin manuscripts, and Italy never completely lost its Latin literacy. Latin was still taught, not just to the Clergy as it was elsewhere in Europe, but also to Notaries, Lawyers, and the sons of the rich. The knowledge base was already there for those early explorers of Humanism.
In the early Trecento, lawyers began searching through Roman manuscripts retrieved from burial chambers where they had been hidden from the Barbarian invasions from the north. They sought answers to legal questions from the times before the dark ages. But they also found something they had not counted upon; Philosophic writings from the great age of the Roman Republic and it was from these manuscripts that the Humanist movement arose. Petrarch was the first who established this new philosophy, declaring that man possessed free choice with almost limitless possibilities.
By the opening years of the Quattrocento, the Humanist movement in Florence was centered around the Chancellor of the Republic, Coluccio Salutati and his brilliant protégé Leonardo Bruni. Their main message was that through Humanism, citizens were obliged to serve the state which provided them wealth and community; The state could only be strong if its citizens were moral, educated, and dedicated to the Republic. What started out as a search for legal guidance, turned into a philosophic movement that changed the world.
One of the first challenges to present day thinking made by Humanism was its inherent opposition to Scholasticism. Though it did not exclude Christianity, by its very existence, Humanism made the claim that a man’s mind was just as important as his soul. Promoting the idea that mankind was not just along for the ride, but was an active participant in the world. This shift in perspective was not solely focussed on philosophic matters, but spilled over into all aspects of life.
The leading men of Florence embraced the ideal that they should serve their community much the same way enlightened men of antiquity served the Roman Republic. In the Quattrocento, this was manifest as individuals and Guilds set themselves to projects that paid heed to this new view of civic life. Cosimo de’ Medici urged his father, Giovanni to devote a large percentage of the family income to civic patronage; The Arte della Calimala (merchant’s guild) bankrolled the commission for a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of San Giovanni; The Arte della Seta (silkmaker’s guild) commissioned the building of the Ospidale degli Innocenti (hospital of the innocents) to house and care for orphans; In 1437, Cosimo opened the world’s first public library at San Marco. That vast sums of money were now being dedicated, not just to the Church, but also to secular aspects of society changed the way even the common citizen viewed their world.
Take the reactions by Florentines to the Pazzi Conspiracy and Pope Sixtus IV’s involvement in it; April, 1478 saw Guiliano de’ Medici assassinated in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Lorenzo barely escaping with his life. As Jacopo de’ Pazzi rode through the streets calling for liberty through the deaths of the Medici, the common people replied; “Viva Lorenzo who gives us bread”. In the hours following the assassination and attempted coup d'tat, Florentines took the Archbishop of Pisa - one of the key conspirators - and lynched him from the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria. In the war of words that followed, we saw the Holy Father being defied and publicly vilified by the Signoria and the populace of Florence. During this turbulent time that saw Pope Sixtus IV excommunicate Lorenzo and put Florence under interdict, Florentines countered with public declarations that the Pope was “the Judas in the seat of Peter” and “Vicar of the devil”. Citizens saw no contradiction with their reaction to the Pope’s actions and in keeping faith with the Church. Humanism allowed them to view the Pope as a man separated from the will of God by his own greed - they were empowered to challenge the Pope’s will.
The art world too was changed dramatically by Humanism. Not only did Humanism provide a milieu for patronage of the arts, with rich guilds and individual citizens offering commissions to sculptors, artists, and architects in an effort to beautify their city, but it also fostered those artists to develop their own unique visions. Previously, the Medieval mindset was that only God could see the world, therefore prior to the renaissance, artists were delegated as visual storytellers or chroniclers. If one examines great Medieval works of art, one finds flat, disproportionate works that illustrate an event or an idea - man’s visual point of view didn’t matter. Humanism gave artists license to paint the world as they saw it. It allowed Fillipo Brunelleschi to bring perspective to the art world, to allow artists to state; This is how I saw this event. This is my perspective on the world. An example that illustrates this idea even further is Sandro Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi in which he paints three generations of Medici honouring the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in a manger that looks suspiciously like part of an ancient Roman ruin. In the ultimate statement by an artist that his view mattered, Botticelli includes himself in the painting, dressed in a borrowed robe and peering out of the painting at the observer as if to say; Yes, I am poor, but look what I created.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 saw an influx of Greeks into Italy, and with them ancient Greek writings. It also saw Humanists develop an interest in Hebrew to accomplish more accurate translations of the Bible. The printing press saw Venice become a centre of publication of texts whose focus was the new Humanism, and allowed - for the first time - the middle class to be able to afford such volumes.
Culturally, Humanism broke the bonds of tradition that limited individuals by their station of birth. No longer was noble birth the only criteria for success, even those born out of wedlock could fulfill their destiny. Leonardo di Vinci, (‘Leonardo of the town of Vinci’), was the bastard son of a minor Notary and if he had been born two centuries before would never had been permitted to rise above his station. Many of the greatest artists of the age, broke from the traditional family occupation to fulfill their destiny; Donatello was the son of a wool comber; Botticelli’s father was a tanner; Michelangelo, the son of a magistrate.
But it was Humanists like Leonardo Bruni who changed the way the world viewed itself and its history. Bruni wrote what has been acknowledged as the world’s first modern history book in his History of the Florentine People. In it, Bruni defined history in three parts; Antiquity, Middle Age, and Modern. Bruni drew from a contemporary, Flavio Biondo who coined the term Middle Age and from Petrarch who had written of the ‘dark age’ between the fall of Rome to his own time. Bruni and his fellow Humanists believed that they had seen the passing of the Dark Ages and were entering a modern age of enlightenment. Bruni used the phrase studia humanitatis - the study of human endeavours to differentiate humanism from the study of theology and metaphysics. He, along with his contemporaries, set aside the the squabbling debates of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and applied themselves to improving the human condition.
Humanism set mankind free from the reins of the Medieval mindset and allowed individuals to reach their potential no matter their station in life. At the same time it imposed upon citizens the responsibility of serving their Republic. But it also elevated mankind to a station equal to the Church, giving individuals the freedom to examine morality from a secular point of view. As Matteo Palmieri warned, this duality empowered both the moral and immoral. While many embraced this new culture of service to their fellow man, others saw it as license to indulge in excess.
The growing pains of Humanism in Florence would evidence themselves throughout the Quattrocento, enflaming a pious backlash beginning with the establishment of the Ufficiali di Notte, (Office of the Night) and would end the century with Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities.
Simply defined, Humanism was “a cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance that emphasized secular concerns as a result of the rediscovery and study of the literature, art, and civilization of ancient Greece and Rome”. Yet to this day scholars still struggle to define exactly what Humanism was, but in the Quattrocento Florence it was all about the rediscovery and application of a responsible civic philosophic code found in the classic civilizations of Rome and Greece. Florence and its distant neighbour Venice were Republics in the midst of Kingdoms, Duchies, and Papal states - to survive, their Republics had to remain strong. Florentines embraced Humanism as part of a classic education that also included, Latin, Logic, Rhetoric, and later - Greek in an effort to strengthen their Republic through knowledge and its application. Little did the early Humanists know how profound a change this philosophy would make to the world, for it was Humanism that ignited the flames of the Renaissance.
In 1438 Matteo Palmieri wrote; “Philosophy is the foremost and truest medicine of the mind. It eliminates our anxieties and turbulent passions, restrains our desires and appetites, and banishes cowardice from baser spirits. Yet it does not possess equal power in everyone but is most productive when it meets with a receptive and suitable nature ... Thus we see that the study of philosophy and other laudable sciences does not bear the same fruit in everyone. Just as carefully cultivated fields are not equally productive, but vary according to the quality of the soil, so carefully educated people do not all turn out to be good, but improve according to their natural disposition.”
Though an obvious statement to the modern scholar, Palmieri’s observations were enlightened for his time. He both heralded the possibility for good that the pursuit of Humanism promised, while at the same time pointing out its greatest flaw; That by its nature, Humanism empowered man with unfettered free choice and being so enabled, could choose to do evil.
That Humanism was born in Italy is not surprising; Humanism’s roots lay in the rediscovery of ancient Latin manuscripts, and Italy never completely lost its Latin literacy. Latin was still taught, not just to the Clergy as it was elsewhere in Europe, but also to Notaries, Lawyers, and the sons of the rich. The knowledge base was already there for those early explorers of Humanism.
In the early Trecento, lawyers began searching through Roman manuscripts retrieved from burial chambers where they had been hidden from the Barbarian invasions from the north. They sought answers to legal questions from the times before the dark ages. But they also found something they had not counted upon; Philosophic writings from the great age of the Roman Republic and it was from these manuscripts that the Humanist movement arose. Petrarch was the first who established this new philosophy, declaring that man possessed free choice with almost limitless possibilities.
By the opening years of the Quattrocento, the Humanist movement in Florence was centered around the Chancellor of the Republic, Coluccio Salutati and his brilliant protégé Leonardo Bruni. Their main message was that through Humanism, citizens were obliged to serve the state which provided them wealth and community; The state could only be strong if its citizens were moral, educated, and dedicated to the Republic. What started out as a search for legal guidance, turned into a philosophic movement that changed the world.
One of the first challenges to present day thinking made by Humanism was its inherent opposition to Scholasticism. Though it did not exclude Christianity, by its very existence, Humanism made the claim that a man’s mind was just as important as his soul. Promoting the idea that mankind was not just along for the ride, but was an active participant in the world. This shift in perspective was not solely focussed on philosophic matters, but spilled over into all aspects of life.
The leading men of Florence embraced the ideal that they should serve their community much the same way enlightened men of antiquity served the Roman Republic. In the Quattrocento, this was manifest as individuals and Guilds set themselves to projects that paid heed to this new view of civic life. Cosimo de’ Medici urged his father, Giovanni to devote a large percentage of the family income to civic patronage; The Arte della Calimala (merchant’s guild) bankrolled the commission for a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of San Giovanni; The Arte della Seta (silkmaker’s guild) commissioned the building of the Ospidale degli Innocenti (hospital of the innocents) to house and care for orphans; In 1437, Cosimo opened the world’s first public library at San Marco. That vast sums of money were now being dedicated, not just to the Church, but also to secular aspects of society changed the way even the common citizen viewed their world.
Take the reactions by Florentines to the Pazzi Conspiracy and Pope Sixtus IV’s involvement in it; April, 1478 saw Guiliano de’ Medici assassinated in the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and Lorenzo barely escaping with his life. As Jacopo de’ Pazzi rode through the streets calling for liberty through the deaths of the Medici, the common people replied; “Viva Lorenzo who gives us bread”. In the hours following the assassination and attempted coup d'tat, Florentines took the Archbishop of Pisa - one of the key conspirators - and lynched him from the tower of the Palazzo della Signoria. In the war of words that followed, we saw the Holy Father being defied and publicly vilified by the Signoria and the populace of Florence. During this turbulent time that saw Pope Sixtus IV excommunicate Lorenzo and put Florence under interdict, Florentines countered with public declarations that the Pope was “the Judas in the seat of Peter” and “Vicar of the devil”. Citizens saw no contradiction with their reaction to the Pope’s actions and in keeping faith with the Church. Humanism allowed them to view the Pope as a man separated from the will of God by his own greed - they were empowered to challenge the Pope’s will.
The art world too was changed dramatically by Humanism. Not only did Humanism provide a milieu for patronage of the arts, with rich guilds and individual citizens offering commissions to sculptors, artists, and architects in an effort to beautify their city, but it also fostered those artists to develop their own unique visions. Previously, the Medieval mindset was that only God could see the world, therefore prior to the renaissance, artists were delegated as visual storytellers or chroniclers. If one examines great Medieval works of art, one finds flat, disproportionate works that illustrate an event or an idea - man’s visual point of view didn’t matter. Humanism gave artists license to paint the world as they saw it. It allowed Fillipo Brunelleschi to bring perspective to the art world, to allow artists to state; This is how I saw this event. This is my perspective on the world. An example that illustrates this idea even further is Sandro Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi in which he paints three generations of Medici honouring the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in a manger that looks suspiciously like part of an ancient Roman ruin. In the ultimate statement by an artist that his view mattered, Botticelli includes himself in the painting, dressed in a borrowed robe and peering out of the painting at the observer as if to say; Yes, I am poor, but look what I created.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 saw an influx of Greeks into Italy, and with them ancient Greek writings. It also saw Humanists develop an interest in Hebrew to accomplish more accurate translations of the Bible. The printing press saw Venice become a centre of publication of texts whose focus was the new Humanism, and allowed - for the first time - the middle class to be able to afford such volumes.
Culturally, Humanism broke the bonds of tradition that limited individuals by their station of birth. No longer was noble birth the only criteria for success, even those born out of wedlock could fulfill their destiny. Leonardo di Vinci, (‘Leonardo of the town of Vinci’), was the bastard son of a minor Notary and if he had been born two centuries before would never had been permitted to rise above his station. Many of the greatest artists of the age, broke from the traditional family occupation to fulfill their destiny; Donatello was the son of a wool comber; Botticelli’s father was a tanner; Michelangelo, the son of a magistrate.
But it was Humanists like Leonardo Bruni who changed the way the world viewed itself and its history. Bruni wrote what has been acknowledged as the world’s first modern history book in his History of the Florentine People. In it, Bruni defined history in three parts; Antiquity, Middle Age, and Modern. Bruni drew from a contemporary, Flavio Biondo who coined the term Middle Age and from Petrarch who had written of the ‘dark age’ between the fall of Rome to his own time. Bruni and his fellow Humanists believed that they had seen the passing of the Dark Ages and were entering a modern age of enlightenment. Bruni used the phrase studia humanitatis - the study of human endeavours to differentiate humanism from the study of theology and metaphysics. He, along with his contemporaries, set aside the the squabbling debates of how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, and applied themselves to improving the human condition.
Humanism set mankind free from the reins of the Medieval mindset and allowed individuals to reach their potential no matter their station in life. At the same time it imposed upon citizens the responsibility of serving their Republic. But it also elevated mankind to a station equal to the Church, giving individuals the freedom to examine morality from a secular point of view. As Matteo Palmieri warned, this duality empowered both the moral and immoral. While many embraced this new culture of service to their fellow man, others saw it as license to indulge in excess.
The growing pains of Humanism in Florence would evidence themselves throughout the Quattrocento, enflaming a pious backlash beginning with the establishment of the Ufficiali di Notte, (Office of the Night) and would end the century with Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities.
Sevrin de Savage
February 23, Anno Societatis XL