Humanism
Michelangelo
Main
term freely applied to a variety of beliefs, methods, and philosophies
that place central emphasis on the human realm. Most frequently,
however, the term is used with reference to a system of education and
mode of inquiry that developed in northern Italy during the 14th century
and later spread through Europe and England. Alternately known as
“Renaissance humanism,” this program was so broadly and profoundly
influential that it is one of the chief reasons why the Renaissance is
viewed as a distinct historical period. Indeed, though the word
Renaissance is of more recent coinage, the fundamental idea of that
period as one of renewal and reawakening is humanistic in origin. But
humanism sought its own philosophical bases in far earlier times and,
moreover, continued to exert some of its power long after the end of the
Renaissance.
Origin and meaning of the term humanism » The ideal of humanitas
The history of the term humanism is complex but enlightening. It was
first employed (as humanismus) by 19th-century German scholars to
designate the Renaissance emphasis on classical studies in education.
These studies were pursued and endorsed by educators known, as early as
the late 15th century, as umanisti: that is, professors or students of
classical literature. The word umanisti derives from the studia
humanitatis, a course of classical studies that, in the early 15th
century, consisted of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral
philosophy. The studia humanitatis were held to be the equivalent of the
Greek paideia. Their name was itself based on the Latin humanitas, an
educational and political ideal that was the intellectual basis of the
entire movement. Renaissance humanism in all its forms defined itself in
its straining toward this ideal. No discussion, therefore, of humanism
can have validity without an understanding of humanitas.
Humanitas meant the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to
its fullest extent. The term thus implied not only such qualities as are
associated with the modern word humanity—understanding, benevolence,
compassion, mercy—but also such more aggressive characteristics as
fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour.
Consequently the possessor of humanitas could not be merely a sedentary
and isolated philosopher or man of letters but was of necessity a
participant in active life. Just as action without insight was held to
be aimless and barbaric, insight without action was rejected as barren
and imperfect. Humanitas called for a fine balance of action and
contemplation, a balance born not of compromise but of complementarity.
The goal of such fulfilled and balanced virtue was political in the
broadest sense of the word. The purview of Renaissance humanism included
not only the education of the young but also the guidance of adults
(including rulers) via philosophical poetry and strategic rhetoric. It
included not only realistic social criticism but also utopian
hypotheses, not only painstaking reassessments of history but also bold
reshapings of the future. In short, humanism called for the
comprehensive reform of culture, the transfiguration of what humanists
termed the passive and ignorant society of the “dark” ages into a new
order that would reflect and encourage the grandest human
potentialities. Humanism had an evangelical dimension. It sought to
project humanitas from the individual into the state at large.
The wellspring of humanitas was classical literature. Greek and Roman
thought, available in a flood of rediscovered or newly translated
manuscripts, provided humanism with much of its basic structure and
method. For Renaissance humanists, there was nothing dated or outworn
about the writings of Plato, Cicero, or Livy. Compared with the typical
productions of medieval Christianity, these pagan works had a fresh,
radical, almost avant-garde tonality. Indeed, recovering the classics
was to humanism tantamount to recovering reality. Classical philosophy,
rhetoric, and history were seen as models of proper method—efforts to
come to terms, systematically and without preconceptions of any kind,
with perceived experience. Moreover, classical thought considered ethics
qua ethics, politics qua politics: it lacked the inhibiting dualism
occasioned in medieval thought by the often conflicting demands of
secularism and Christian spirituality. Classical virtue, in examples of
which the literature abounded, was not an abstract essence but a quality
that could be tested in the forum or on the battlefield. Finally,
classical literature was rich in eloquence. In particular (since
humanists were normally better at Latin than they were at Greek) Cicero
was considered to be the pattern of refined and copious discourse. In
eloquence humanists found far more than an exclusively aesthetic
quality. As an effective means of moving leaders or fellow citizens
toward one political course or another, eloquence was akin to pure
power. Humanists cultivated rhetoric, consequently, as the medium
through which all other virtues could be communicated and fulfilled.
Humanism, then, may be accurately defined as that Renaissance
movement which had as its central focus the ideal of humanitas. The
narrower definition of the Italian term umanisti notwithstanding, all
the Renaissance writers who cultivated humanitas, and all their direct
“descendants,” may be correctly termed humanists.
Origin and meaning of the term humanism » Other uses
It is small wonder that a term as broadly allusive as humanism should be
subject to a wide variety of applications. Of these (excepting the
historical movement described above) there are three basic types:
humanism as classicism, humanism as referring to the modern concept of
the humanities, and humanism as human-centredness.
Accepting the notion that Renaissance humanism was simply a return to
the classics, some historians and philologists have reasoned that
classical revivals occurring anywhere in history should be called
humanistic. St. Augustine, Alcuin, and the scholars of 12th-century
Chartres have thus been referred to as humanists. In this sense the term
can also be used self-consciously, as in the New Humanism movement in
literary criticism led by Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More in the
early 20th century.
The word humanities, which like the word umanisti derived from the
Latin studia humanitatis, is often used to designate the nonscientific
scholarly disciplines: language, literature, rhetoric, philosophy, art
history, and so forth. Thus it is customary to refer to scholars in
these fields as humanists and to their activities as humanistic.
Humanism and related terms are frequently applied to modern doctrines
and techniques that are based on the centrality of human experience. In
the 20th century the pragmatic humanism of Ferdinand C.S. Schiller, the
Christian humanism of Jacques Maritain, and the movement known as
secular humanism, though differing from each other significantly in
content, all show this anthropocentric emphasis.
Not only is such a large assortment of definitions confusing, but the
definitions themselves are often redundant or impertinent. There is no
reason to call all classical revivals humanistic when the word classical
suffices. To say that professors in the many disciplines known as the
humanities are humanists is to compound vagueness with vagueness, for
these disciplines have long since ceased to have or even aspire to a
common rationale. The definition of humanism as anthropocentricity or
human-centredness has a firmer claim to correctness. For obvious
reasons, however, it is confusing to apply this word to classical
literature.
Basic principles and attitudes
Underlying the early expressions of humanism were principles and
attitudes that gave the movement a unique character and would shape its
future development.
Basic principles and attitudes » Classicism
Early humanists returned to the classics less with nostalgia or awe than
with a sense of deep familiarity, an impression of having been brought
newly into contact with expressions of an intrinsic and permanent human
reality. Petrarch, the acknowledged founder of the humanistic movement,
dramatized his feeling of intimacy with the classics by writing
“letters” to Cicero and Livy. Coluccio Salutati remarked with pleasure
that possession of a copy of Cicero’s letters would make it possible for
him to talk with Cicero. Niccolò Machiavelli would later immortalize
this experience in a letter that described his own reading habits in
ritualistic terms:
Evenings I return home and enter my study; and at its entrance I take
off my everyday clothes, full of mud and dust, and don royal and courtly
garments; decorously reattired, I enter into the ancient sessions of
ancient men. Received amicably by them, I partake of such food as is
mine only and for which I was born. There, without shame, I speak with
them and ask them about the reason for their actions; and they in their
humanity respond to me.
Machiavelli’s term umanità (“humanity”) means more than kindness; it
is a direct translation of the Latin humanitas. Machiavelli implies that
he shared with the ancients a sovereign wisdom of human affairs. He also
describes that theory of reading as an active and even aggressive
pursuit that was common among humanists. Possessing a text and
understanding its words were not enough; analytic ability and a
questioning attitude were necessary before a reader could truly enter
the councils of the great. These councils, moreover, were not merely
serious and ennobling; they held secrets available only to the astute,
secrets the knowledge of which could transform life from a chaotic
miscellany into a crucially heroic experience. Classical thought offered
insight into the heart of things. In addition, the classics suggested
methods by which, once known, human reality could be transformed from an
accident of history into an artifact of will. Antiquity was rich in
examples, actual or poetic, of epic action, victorious eloquence, and
applied understanding. Carefully studied and well employed, classical
rhetoric could implement enlightened policy, while classical poetics
could carry enlightenment into the very souls of men. In a manner that
might seem paradoxical to more modern minds, humanists associated
classicism with the future.
Basic principles and attitudes » Realism
Early humanists shared in large part a realism that rejected traditional
assumptions and aimed instead at the objective analysis of perceived
experience. To humanism is owed the rise of modern social science, which
emerged not as an academic discipline but rather as a practical
instrument of social self-inquiry. Humanists avidly read history, taught
it to their young, and, perhaps most importantly, wrote it themselves.
They were confident that proper historical method, by extending across
time their grasp of human reality, would enhance their active role in
the present. For Machiavelli, who avowed to treat of men as they were
and not as they ought to be, history would become the basis of a new
political science. Similarly, direct experience took precedence over
traditional wisdom. Leon Battista Alberti’s dictum that an essential
form of wisdom could be found only “at the public marketplace, in the
theatre, and in people’s homes” would be echoed by Francesco
Guicciardini:
I, for my part, know no greater pleasure than listening to an old man
of uncommon prudence speaking of public and political matters that he
has not learnt from books of philosophers but from experience and
action; for the latter are the only genuine methods of learning
anything.
Renaissance realism also involved the unblinking examination of human
uncertainty, folly, and immorality. Petrarch’s honest investigation of
his own doubts and mixed motives is born of the same impulse that led
Giovanni Boccaccio in the Decameron to conduct an encyclopaedic survey
of human vices and disorders. Similarly critical treatments of society
from a humanistic perspective would be produced later by Erasmus, More,
Castiglione, Rabelais, and Montaigne. But it was typical of humanism
that this moral criticism did not, conversely, postulate an ideal of
absolute purity. Humanists asserted the dignity of normal earthly
activities and even endorsed the pursuit of fame and the acquisition of
wealth. The emphasis on a mature and healthy balance between mind and
body, first implicit in Boccaccio, is evident in the work of Giannozzo
Manetti, Francesco Filelfo, and Paracelsus; it is embodied eloquently in
Montaigne’s final essay, “Of Experience.” Humanistic tradition, rather
than revolutionary inspiration, would lead Francis Bacon to assert in
the early 17th century that the passions should become objects of
systematic investigation. The realism of the humanists was, finally,
brought to bear on the Roman Catholic Church, which they called into
question not as a theological structure but as a political institution.
Here as elsewhere, however, the intention was neither radical nor
destructive. Humanism did not aim to remake humanity but rather to
reform social order through an understanding of what was basically and
inalienably human.
Basic principles and attitudes » Critical scrutiny and concern with
detail
Humanistic realism bespoke a comprehensively critical attitude. Indeed,
the productions of early humanism constituted a manifesto of
independence, at least in the secular world, from all preconceptions and
all inherited programs. The same critical self-reliance shown by
Coluccio Salutati in his textual emendations and Boccaccio in his
interpretations of myth was evident in almost the whole range of
humanistic endeavour. It was cognate with a new specificity, a profound
concern with the precise details of perceived phenomena, that took hold
across the arts and the literary and historical disciplines and would
have profound effects on the rise of modern science. The increasing
prominence of mathematics as an artistic principle and academic
discipline was a testament to this development.
Basic principles and attitudes » The emergence of the individual and the
idea of the dignity of man
These attitudes took shape in concord with a sense of personal autonomy
that first was evident in Petrarch and later came to characterize
humanism as a whole. An intelligence capable of critical scrutiny and
self-inquiry was by definition a free intelligence; the intellectual
virtue that could analyze experience was an integral part of that more
extensive virtue that could, according to many humanists, go far in
conquering fortune. The emergence of Renaissance individualism was not
without its darker aspects. Petrarch and Alberti were alert to the sense
of estrangement that accompanies intellectual and moral autonomy, while
Machiavelli would depict, in The Prince, a grim world in which the
individual must exploit the weakness of the crowd or fall victim to its
indignities. But happy or sad, the experience of the individual had
taken on a heroic tone. Parallel with individualism arose, as a
favourite humanistic theme, the idea of the dignity of man. Backed by
medieval sources but more sweeping and insistent in their approach,
spokesmen such as Petrarch, Manetti, Valla, and Ficino asserted man’s
earthly preeminence and unique potentialities. In his noted De hominis
dignitate oratio (“Oration on the Dignity of Man”), Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola conveyed this notion with unprecedented vigour. Humanity, Pico
asserted, had been assigned no fixed character or limit by God but
instead was free to seek its own level and create its own future. No
dignity, not even divinity itself, was forbidden to human aspiration.
Pico’s radical affirmation of human capacity shows the influence of
Ficino’s recent translations of the Hermetic writings. Together with the
even bolder 16th-century formulations of this position by Paracelsus and
Giordano Bruno, the Oratio betrays a rejection of the early humanists’
emphasis on balance and moderation; it suggests the straining toward
absolutes that would characterize major elements of later humanism.
Basic principles and attitudes » Active virtue
The emphasis on virtuous action as the goal of learning was a founding
principle of humanism and (though sometimes sharply challenged)
continued to exert a strong influence throughout the course of the
movement. Salutati, the learned chancellor of Florence whose words could
batter cities, represented in word and deed the humanistic ideal of an
armed wisdom: that combination of philosophical understanding and
powerful rhetoric which alone could effect virtuous policy and reconcile
the rival claims of action and contemplation. In De ingenuis moribus et
liberalibus studiis (“On the Manners of a Gentleman and Liberal
Studies”), a treatise that influenced Guarino Veronese and Vittorino da
Feltre, Pietro Paolo Vergerio maintained that just and beneficent action
was the purpose of humanistic education; his words were echoed by
Alberti in Della famiglia (“On the Family”):
As I have said, happiness cannot be gained without good works and
just and righteous deeds. . . . The best works are those that benefit
many people. Those are most virtuous, perhaps, that cannot be pursued
without strength and nobility. We must give ourselves to manly effort,
then, and follow the noblest pursuits.
Matteo Palmieri wrote that
the true merit of virtue lies in effective action, and effective
action is impossible without the faculties that are necessary for it. He
who has nothing to give cannot be generous. And he who loves solitude
can be neither just, nor strong, nor experienced in those things that
are of importance in government and in the affairs of the majority.
Palmieri’s philosophical poem, La città di vita (“The City of Life”),
developed the idea that the world was divinely ordained to test human
virtue in action. Later humanism would broaden and diversify the theme
of active virtue. Machiavelli saw action not only as the goal of virtue
but also (via historical understanding of great deeds of the past) as
the basis for wisdom. Baldassare Castiglione, in his highly influential
Libro del cortegiano (Book of the Courtier), developed in his ideal
courtier a psychological model for active virtue, stressing moral
awareness as a key element in just action. François Rabelais used the
idea of active virtue as the basis for anticlerical satire. In his
profusely humanistic Gargantua, he has the active hero Friar John save a
monastery from enemy attack, while the monks sit uselessly in the church
choir, chanting meaningless Latin syllables. John later asserts that,
had he been present, he would have used his manly strength to save Jesus
from crucifixion, and he castigates the Apostles for betraying Christ
“after a good meal.” Endorsements of active virtue, as will be shown,
would also characterize the work of English humanists from Sir Thomas
Elyot to John Milton. They typify the sense of social responsibility,
the instinctive association of learning with politics and morality, that
stood at the heart of the movement. As Salutati put it, “One must stand
in the line of battle, engage in close combat, struggle for justice, for
truth, for honour.”
Early history
The influence of Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304–74) was profound and
many-sided. As the most prominent man of letters of the 14th century, he
promoted the recovery and transcription of classical texts, providing
the impetus for the important classical researches of Boccaccio and
Salutati. He threw himself into controversies in which he defined a new
humanism in contradistinction to what he considered to be the barbaric
influence of medieval tradition. He carried on an energetic
correspondence that established him as a cultural focal point and would
provide, if all his other works were lost, an accurate index of his
views and their development. As a theologian (he was an ordained priest)
he advanced the view, held by many humanists to follow, that classical
learning and Christian spirituality were not only compatible but also
mutually fulfilling. As a political apologist, he gave hearty support to
Cola di Rienzo’s brief revival of the Roman Republic (1347). As a poet,
he was the first Renaissance writer to produce a Latin epic (Africa),
but he was even more important for his compositions in the vernacular.
His Canzoniere provided the model on which the Renaissance lyric was to
take shape and the standard by which future productions would be judged.
His work established secular poetry as a serious and noble pursuit. His
eloquent and forceful presence made him a personal symbol of his own
ideas. Crowned with laurel, favoured by rulers, legates, and scholars,
he became the human focus for the new interest in classical revival and
literary artistry.
It was, however, as a philosophical spokesman that Petrarch exerted
his greatest influence on the history of humanism. In his prose works
and letters he established many of the positions that would be central
to the movement and broached many of the issues that would be its
favourite subjects for debate. His idea of the poet as a philosophical
teacher and thus as a champion of culture would inspire humanists from
Boccaccio to Sidney. His endorsement of the study of rhetoric and his
underlying notion of language as an informing principle of the
individual and society would become crucial subjects of humanistic
discussion and debate. His view of classical culture, not as an
undifferentiated element of the past but as an authentic alternative to
his own medieval society, was of equal historical importance. Petrarch
broke with the past and helped to reestablish the Socratic tradition in
Europe by specifying self-knowledge as a primary goal of philosophy.
This attitude and his unfailing insistence on moral autonomy were early
and important signs of the individualism that would become a Renaissance
hallmark. He emphasized human virtue as opposed to fortune, thus setting
the stage for numerous famous treatments of this theme. He struggled
repeatedly with the dilemma of action versus contemplation, establishing
it as a favourite topic for humanistic debate. Petrarch did not invent
these subjects, nor does he usually treat them with overwhelming power.
His preeminence lies in the fact that he was the first writer since
antiquity to assert that they and other human matters were valid issues
for philosophical inquiry in and of themselves, and in the energy and
eloquence with which he made his work their forum.
Petrarch’s influence was immediately apparent in the work of two
major Florentine humanists, Giovanni Boccaccio and Coluccio Salutati. A
close friend and devoted supporter of Petrarch, Boccaccio (1313–75) not
only enlarged upon his preceptor’s ideas but also made important
humanistic contributions of his own. His Teseide was the first classical
epic to have been written in the vernacular and influenced the more
famous Italian epics of Ariosto and Tasso. His De genealogia deorum
gentilium (“On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles”), a scholarly
interpretive compendium of classical myth, was the first in a long line
of Renaissance mythographies; it includes a celebrated defense of poetry
as a medium of hidden truth, a stimulant to virtue, and a source of
mental health. His most memorable contribution to humanism, however, was
probably the famous Decameron. Ostensibly this work is no more than a
collection of 100 tales about love. But subjected to the interpretive
scrutiny that Boccaccio himself recommends in De genealogia deorum
gentilium, the Decameron takes on a far more serious tone. The opening
phrase “Umana cosa è” (“It is a human thing”) is deeply thematic,
reminding us that the author structured his work on Dante’s spiritual
epic, La divina commedia. A close reading of the Decameron suggests that
in it Boccaccio is trying to establish for the human realm the same sort
of comprehensive understanding that Dante established for the life of
the spirit. Through moral fable and direct address to the reader, he
undertakes a reinterpretation of human experience based not on
traditional doctrine but rather on perceived reality. Appealing
repeatedly to reason and nature, and constantly implying the superiority
of awareness to innocence (which he equates with ignorance), he calls
for a moral order built fairly and solidly on the potentialities of
human nature. His 10 storytellers, who leave the plague-ravaged and
chaotic city of Florence and reestablish themselves at a delightfully
landscaped villa, suggest the remaking of culture through
disentanglement with the past, unprejudiced analysis, and enlightened
imagination. Rightly considered to be the wellspring of Western realism,
the Decameron is also a monument to humanism. Though it makes little
mention of classical thought, Boccaccio’s great work rings with a tone
that was even more basic to the humanistic movement: an emphasis on the
human capacity for self-knowledge and willed renewal.
Other humanistic elements implicit in Petrarch’s thought were
developed in the life and work of Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406). Like
Petrarch, Salutati collected manuscripts, wrote on morality and
politics, and carried on a voluminous correspondence. He was an
aggressive and scientific philologist, instrumental in establishing
principles of textual criticism that would become key elements of the
humanistic method. He was a forceful apologist for the active life, and
his theories bore fruit in his own career as chancellor of the
Florentine republic. His use of classical eloquence in the service of
his state was an early documentation of the humanistic faith in the
political power of rhetoric; it led a bitter enemy, Gian Galeazzo
Visconti of Milan, to say that a thousand Florentine horsemen had hurt
him less than the letters of Coluccio. Salutati was succeeded in the
Florentine chancellorship by two scholar-statesmen who reflected his
influence, first Leonardo Bruni (1369–1444) and then Gian Francesco
Poggio Braccioloni (1380–1459). Bruni was a pioneer in the advocacy of
humanistic education, holding that the studia humanitatis shape the
perfected man and that the goal of this perfected virtue is political
action. His theory of education stressed the importance of practical
experience (implicit in the work of Boccaccio) and put heavy emphasis on
historical studies. His history of Florence is considered to be the
first work of modern historiography; and, under the influence of
Emmanuel Chrysoloras (1368–1415), a Byzantine teacher who had lectured
at Florence and Pavia, he produced Latin translations of Plato and
Aristotle that broke with medieval tradition by reproducing the sense of
the Greek prose rather than following it word by word. Poggio, the
foremost recoverer of classical texts, was also a moralist, a historian,
a brilliant correspondent, and an early scholar of architectural
antiquities. His long career, which included service to both church and
state and friendships with Salutati, Bruni, Niccolò Niccoli, Guarino,
Nicholas of Cusa, Donatello, and Cosimo de’ Medici, exemplifies the
scope and vitality of Italian humanism. Together these Florentine
chancellors, whose active lives spanned almost a century, strengthened
and consolidated the humanistic program. Moreover, their leadership
strongly influenced the cultural developments that would make
15th-century Florence the most active intellectual and artistic centre
in Europe.
As one proceeds with the history of humanism, the following major
points about its development in the 14th century ought to be kept in
mind. Humanism received its crucial imprint from the work of a single
man and thence developed among men who maintained close touch with each
other and acknowledged a shared mission. Humanism was not originally an
academic movement but rather a program defined and promoted by statesmen
and men of letters. Its proclaimed goal was widespread cultural renewal;
therefore, it chose its subjects for consideration from the phenomena of
human life as lived and adopted the Ciceronian model of philosopher as
citizen in preference to the contemplative ideal. The heavy emphasis on
civic action is connected with the fact that humanism developed in a
republic rather than a monarchy.
By the turn of the 15th century, all of the key elements that came to
define humanism were in place except for two: its detailed educational
system and what might be called its Greek dimension. The founders of the
first humanistic schools were Vittorino da Feltre (1373–1446) and
Guarino Veronese (Guarino da Verona, 1374–1460). Vittorino and Guarino
were fellow students at the University of Padua at the turn of the
century; they are said later to have tutored each other (Guarino as an
expert in Greek, Vittorino in Latin) after Guarino had opened the first
humanistic school (Venice, c. 1414). Vittorino taught in both Padua
(where he was briefly professor of rhetoric) and Venice during the early
1420s. In 1423 he accepted the invitation of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga,
marquis of Mantua, to become tutor to the ruling family. At this post
Vittorino spent the remaining 22 years of his life. His school, held in
a delightful palace that he renamed “La Giocosa,” had as its students
not only the Gonzaga children (among them the future marquis, Ludovico)
but also an increasing number of others, including sons of Poggio,
Guarino, and Filelfo. The eminent humanist Lorenzo Valla studied there,
as did Federico da Montefeltro, who later promoted humanistic
institutions as duke of Urbino. Vittorino’s school in Mantua was the
first to focus the full power of the humanistic program, together with
its implications in other arts and sciences, upon the education of the
young. Latin literature, Latin composition, and Greek literature were
required subjects of study. Heavy emphasis was placed on Roman history
as an educational treasury of great men and memorable deeds. Rhetoric
(as taught by Quintilian) was a central topic, not as an end in itself
but as an effective means of channeling moral virtue into political
action. Vittorino summed up the essentially political thrust of
humanistic education as follows:
Not everyone is called to be a physician, a lawyer, a philosopher, to
live in the public eye, nor has everyone outstanding gifts of natural
capacity, but all of us are created for the life of social duty,all are
responsible for the personal influence that goes forth from us.
Other studies at Mantua included music, drawing, astronomy, and
mathematics. The meadows around La Giocosa were turned into playing
fields. Vittorino’s educational policy spoke at once to mind and body,
to aesthetic enjoyment and moral virtue. His work embodied a more
comprehensive appeal to human perfectibility than had been attempted
since antiquity. Humanists were not unaware of the originality and
ambitiousness of this project. With reference to a similar program of
his own, Guarino’s son Battista remarked that “no branch of knowledge
embraces so wide a range of subjects as that learning that I have now
attempted to describe.”
Guarino had learned his Greek in Constantinople under the influence
of Chrysoloras, whose dynamic presence had done much to foster Greek
studies in Italy. During the course of the 15th century, which saw the
famous council of Eastern and Western churches (Ferrara–Florence,
1438–45) and later the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1453), Italy
received as welcome immigrants a number of other eminent Byzantine
scholars. George Gemistus Plethon (1355–1450) was a major force in
Cosimo de’ Medici’s foundation of the Platonic Academy of Florence.
George of Trebizond (Georgius Trapezuntius, 1395–1484), a student of
Vittorino, was a formidable bilingual stylist who wrote important
handbooks on logic and rhetoric. Theodore Gaza (c. 1400–75) and Johannes
Argyropoulos (1410–90) contributed major translations of Aristotle. John
(originally Basil) Bessarion (1403–72), who became a cardinal in 1439,
explored theology from a Platonic perspective and sought to resolve
apparent conflicts between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy; his
large collection of Greek manuscripts, donated to the Venetian senate,
became the core of the notable library of St. Mark. This infusion of
Byzantine scholarship had a profound effect on Italian humanism. By
making Greek texts and commentaries available to Western students, and
by acquainting them with Byzantine methods of criticism and
interpretation, the teachers from Constantinople enabled Italian
humanists to explore the bases of classical thought and to appreciate
its greatest monuments, either in the original or in accurate new Latin
translations.
The 15th century
As Italian humanism grew in influence during the 15th century, it
developed ramifications that connected it with every major field of
intellectual and artistic activity. Moreover, the advent of printing at
mid-century and the contemporaneous upsurge of publication in the
vernacular brought new sectors of society under humanistic influence.
These and other cultural impetuses hastened the export of humanistic
ideas to the Low Countries, France, England, and Spain, where
significant humanistic programs would be in place by the early 16th
century. Even as these things were happening, however, other changes
were deeply and permanently affecting the character of the movement. The
concerns of many major humanists were narrowed by inevitable historical
processes of specialization, to the extent that, in a large number of
cases, humanism lost its comprehensive thrust and became a predominantly
academic or literary pursuit. The political élan of humanism was
weakened by the decline of republican institutions in Florence.
Ambiguities and paradoxes implicit in the original program developed
into open conflicts, dividing the movement into camps and depleting much
of its original integrity. But before considering these developments,
one might do well to appreciate three 15th-century examples of humanism
at its height: the career of Leon Battista Alberti and the humanistic
courts at Florence and Urbino.
The 15th century » Leon Battista Alberti
The achievement of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) testifies to the
formative power and exhaustive scope of earlier Italian humanism. He
owed his boyhood education to Gasparino da Barzizza (1359–1431), the
noted teacher who, with Vergerio, was influential in the development of
humanism at Padua. Alberti attended the University of Bologna from 1421
until 1428, by which time he was expert in law and mathematics and so
adept at humanistic literary skills that his comedy Philodoxeos was
accepted as the newly discovered work of an ancient author. In 1428 he
became secretary to Cardinal Albergati, bishop of Bologna, and in 1432
he accepted a similar position in the papal chancery at Rome. His
service to the church soon brought him incomes that permanently secured
his livelihood, and he spent the remainder of his life at a variety of
literary, philosophical, and artistic pursuits so dazzling as to
challenge belief. He was a poet, essayist, and biographer. His moral and
philosophical works, especially Della famiglia, De iciarchia (“On the
Man of Excellence and Ruler of His Family”), and Momus, are humanistic
statements that nonetheless bear the mark of a unique individual. He
wrote a rhetorical handbook and a grammatical treatise, the Regule
lingue Florentine, which bespeaks his strong influence on the rise of
literary expression in the vernacular. He contributed an important text
on cartography and was instrumental in the development of ciphers. A
prominent architect (e.g., the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini and the
facade of Sta. Maria Novella in Florence), he was also an eminent
student of all artistic ideas and practices. His three studies—De
pictura (On Painting), De statua (On Sculpture), and De re aedificatoria
(Ten Books on Architecture)—were landmarks in art theory, powerful in
developing the theory of perspective and the idea of “human” space. His
theoretical and practical reliance on mathematics (which he considered
to be the basic, unifying element of all science) is rightly seen as an
important step in the early development of modern method.
Behind these achievements was a man of startling physical prowess and
inexhaustible sanguinity. He said outright that an individual could
encompass whatever project he truly willed, and his own life bore
witness to this radical thesis. In the 19th century Jacob Burckhardt
would write of him as a “universal man” of the Renaissance, while his
own contemporary Politian described him with wonderment: “It is better
to be silent about him than not to say enough.” Alberti’s theory and
practice bore an undeniably humanistic stamp. His passion for
mathematics was in all likelihood an outgrowth of the educational
program at Padua (Vittorino, himself an avid mathematician, was also a
student of Barzizza). His omnivorous pursuit of knowledge recalls
Barzizza’s conviction that humanitas was the unifying principle of many
arts. An advocate of classical erudition in art and architecture as well
as in literary activity, he extended into his artistic studies the same
sense of precision and specificity that earlier humanists had applied to
philology. His sense of human dignity, evident in all his productions,
was supported and indeed justified by a strenuous realism. His advocacy
of the vernacular disturbed a number of more doctrinaire humanists, who
favoured total Latinity. But this predisposition, rather than a
divergence from humanistic principle, was a direct outgrowth of its
evangelistic thrust. In short, Alberti uniquely fulfilled the humanistic
aspiration for a learning that would comprehend all experience and a
philosophical heroism that would renew society.
The 15th century » The Medici and Federico da Montefeltro
The 15th century saw the rise of the Platonic Academy of Florence and
the great humanistic courts. Close ties between Poggio and the Medici
helped make that ruling family of Florence the new custodians of the
humanistic heritage. Cosimo de’ Medici (Cosimo the Elder, 1389–1464),
who had personally lured the great council of churches from Ferrara to
Florence in 1439, became so enamoured of Greek learning that, at the
suggestion of Gemistus Plethon, he decided to found a Platonic academy
of his own. He amassed a great collection of books, which would form the
nucleus of the Laurentian Library. He generously supported the work of
scholars, in particular encouraging the brilliant Marsilio Ficino
(1433–99) to undertake a complete Latin translation of Plato. Other
notable members of the academy were Politian, Cristoforo Landino
(1424–1504), and Ficino’s own student, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
(1463–94). The Medici family was equally notable in its patronage of the
arts, supporting projects by a list of masters that included
Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and Cellini. Cosimo’s famous grandson
Lorenzo (Lorenzo the Magnificent, 1449–92) was of a thoroughly
humanistic disposition. Lorenzo’s versatile and energetic nature lent
itself equally to politics and philosophy, to martial arts and music. He
wrote poetry and literary commentary and formed close ties with Ficino,
Pico, and other leading scholars of the academy. He continued his
grandfather’s lavish patronage of art and learning and was said to have
spent half of his city’s revenues on the purchase of books alone. Active
in many fields, he nonetheless acknowledged the preeminence of the life
of the mind. When chided by a friend for sleeping late and not going out
to work, Lorenzo replied, “What I have dreamed in one hour is worth more
than what you have done in four.”
The influence of humanism was evident in many 15th-century Italian
courts, including Rome itself, which boasted, in Pius II (Enea Silvio
Piccolomini, also known as Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, 1405–64), a
humanist pope. It manifested itself strikingly at Urbino, where Federico
da Montefeltro (1422–82) turned an isolated hill town into a treasury of
Renaissance culture. Schooled by Vittorino in Mantua, Federico chose
warfare as his calling. As a mercenary he gained a reputation for
winning his battles and keeping his word, and the fortune he accumulated
in fees and prizes became the medium for his city’s renewal. He brought
architects, artists, and scholars to Urbino and built a great palace
whose unadorned exterior concealed magnificent chambers, a graceful
courtyard, and a secret garden. Federico was enthusiastically devoted to
the collection and preservation of books. His library, described by
Vespasiano Bisticci as being even more complete than that of the Medici,
contained an army of 30 to 40 scribes who were constantly at work. His
own virtues were so notable and diverse as to mark him as a possible
model for Rabelais’s humanistic giant, Gargantua. Mighty at arms, he was
also conscientious in religious observances; supremely powerful, he was
nonetheless a modest and courteous companion. Beneath the ivied
tranquility of his secret garden stretched an indoor equestrian arena.
He commissioned paintings by Piero della Francesca and was the object of
humanistic dedications by Poggio, Landino, and Ficino. He kept two
organists at court and maintained five men to read the classics aloud at
meals. Federico’s intellectual accomplishments were impressive. His
skill at mathematics shows the influence of Vittorino. He was a good
Latinist and as a student of classical history was able to hold his own
in conversation with the erudite Pius II. At philosophy Federico was
even more astute. Vespasiano wrote that
he began to study logic with the keenest understanding, and he argued
with the most nimble wit that was ever seen. After he had heard
(Aristotle’s) Ethics many times, comprehending it so thoroughly that his
teachers found him hard to cope with in disputation, he studied the
Politics assiduously. . . . Indeed, it may be said of him that he was
the first of the Signori who took up philosophy and had knowledge of the
same. He was ever careful to keep intellect and virtue to the front, and
to learn some new thing every day.
Federico’s balance and versatility made him, even more than Lorenzo,
an example of the humanistic program in action. Baldassare Castiglione,
perhaps the most thoughtful of the later Italian humanists, would speak
of him as “the light of Italy; there is no lack of living witnesses to
his prudence, humanity (umanità), justice, intrepid spirit, (and)
military discipline.” Castiglione described Federico’s residence as
seeming to be less a palace than “a city in the form of a palace”; one
might say as well that this structure, with its elegant accommodation
for every creative human activity, was an architectural image of the
humanistic mind.
Later Italian humanism
The achievement of Alberti, Federico, and the Medici up to Lorenzo may
be seen as the effective culmination of Italian humanism, the ultimate
realization of its motives and principles. At the same time as these
goals were being achieved, however, the movement was beginning to suffer
bifurcation and dilution. Even the enthusiastic Platonism of the
Florentine academy was, in its idealism and emphasis on contemplation, a
significant digression from the crucial humanistic doctrine of active
virtue, and Pico della Mirandola himself was politely admonished by a
friend to forsake the ivory tower and accept his civic responsibilities.
The conflicting extremes to which sincere humanistic inquiry could drive
scholars are nowhere more apparent than in the fact that the
arch-idealist Pico and the arch-realist Machiavelli lived in the same
town and at the same time. Castiglione, who had belonged to the court of
Federico’s son Guidobaldo, would be saddened by its decline and shocked
when another of his patrons, the “model” Renaissance prince Charles V,
ordered the sack of Rome. To a large extent, the cause of these and
other vicissitudes lay in the nature of the movement itself, for that
boundless diversity which nourished its strength was also a well of
potential conflict. Humanists’ undifferentiated acceptance of the
classical heritage was also in effect an appropriation of the profound
controversy implicit in that heritage. Rifts between Platonists,
monarchists, and republicans; positivists and skeptics; idealists and
cynics; and historians and poets came to be more and more characteristic
of humanistic discourse. Some of these tensions had been clear from the
start, Petrarch having been ambiguous in his sentiments regarding action
versus contemplation, and Salutati having been not wholly clear about
whether he preferred republics to monarchies. But the 15th century,
bringing with it the irreconcilable heterogeneity of Greek thought,
vastly multiplied and deepened these divisions. Of these schisms, the
two that perhaps most deeply influenced the course of humanism were the
so-called res–verbum (“thing–word”) controversy and the split between
Platonic idealism and historical realism.
Later Italian humanism » Things and words
Simply put, the res–verbum controversy was an extended argument between
humanists who believed that language constituted the ultimate human
reality and those who believed that language, though an important
subject for study, was the medium for understanding an even more basic
reality that lay beyond it. The origin of the controversy lay in the
debate in the 5th–4th century bc between the Socratic school, which held
that language was an important means of understanding deeper truths, and
the Sophistic-rhetorical school, which held that “truth” was itself a
fiction dependent on varying human beliefs and therefore that language
had to be considered the ultimate arbiter. Petrarch, who had no direct
contact with the works of Plato and little detailed knowledge of his
ideas, drew on Cicero and St. Augustine in his development of a
Christian-rhetorical position, holding that “it is more satisfying
(satius) to will the good than to know the truth” and espousing rhetoric
as the effective means of convincing people “to will the good.”
This assertion would critically shape the character of humanism
through the Renaissance and beyond. It was never effectively challenged
by Renaissance Platonists because, for reasons discussed below,
Renaissance Platonists, though strong in Platonic idealism, were weak in
Platonic analytical method. The enthronement of language as both subject
and object of humanistic inquiry is evident in the important work of
Lorenzo Valla (1407–57) and Politian (Angelo Poliziano, 1454–94). Valla
spoke of language as a “sacrament” and urged that it be studied
scientifically and historically as the synthesis of all human thought.
For Valla, the study of language was, in effect, the study of humanity.
Similarly, Politian held that there were in fact two dialectics: one of
ideas and one of words. Rejecting the dialectic of ideas as being too
difficult and abstruse, he espoused the dialectic of words (i.e.,
philology and rhetoric) as the proper human study. This project would
bear fruit in the intensive linguistic-philosophical researches of Mario
Nizolio (1498–1575). Though anticipated by Petrarch, the radical
emphasis on the primacy of the word constituted a break with the
teaching of other early humanists, such as Bruni and Vittorino, who had
strongly maintained that the word was of value only through its
relationship to perceived reality. Nor did the old viewpoint lack later
adherents. In an epistolary debate with Ermolao Barbaro (1454–93), Pico
asserted the preeminence of things over words and hence of philosophy
over rhetoric: “But if the rightness of names depends on the nature of
things, is it the rhetorician we ought to consult about this rightness,
or is it the philosopher who alone contemplates and explores the nature
of everything?” Appeals of this sort, however, were not to win the day.
Philosophical humanism declined because, though rich in conviction, it
had failed to establish a systematic relationship between philosophy and
rhetoric, between words and things. By the 16th century, Italian
humanism was primarily a literary pursuit, and philosophy was left to
develop on its own. Despite significant challenges, the division between
philosophical and literary studies would solidify in the development of
Western culture.
Later Italian humanism » Idealism and the Platonic Academy of Florence
The idealism so prominent in the Florentine academy is called Platonic
because of its debt to Plato’s theory of Ideas and to the
epistemological doctrine established in his Symposium and Republic. It
did not, however, constitute a complete appreciation or reassertion of
Plato’s thought. Conspicuously absent from the Florentine agenda was the
analytic method (dialectic), which was Socrates’ greatest contribution
to philosophy. This major omission cannot be explained philologically,
at least after Ficino’s work had made the complete Platonic corpus
available in clear Latin prose. The explanation lies rather in a
specific cast of mind and in a dramatically successful forgery. The
major Platonists of the mid-15th century, Plethon, Bessarion, and
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicholaus Cusanus, 1401–64), had all concentrated
their attention on the religious implications of Platonic thought; and,
following them, Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) sought to reconcile Plato with
Christ in a pia philosophia (“pious philosophy”). The transcendental
goals of these philosophers left little room for the painstaking
dialectical method that sifted through the details of perception and
language, even though Plato himself had repeatedly alleged that
transcendence itself was impossible without this method. Along with
Plato, moreover, Ficino had translated into Latin the works of the
so-called Hermes Trismegistos. These books, which also emphasized
transcendence at the expense of method, laid claim to divine authority
and to an antiquity far greater than Plato’s. They were, in fact,
forgeries from a much later period, and are in many ways typical of the
idealized and diluted versions of Plato that are called Neoplatonic. But
the academy, and for that matter all the other Platonists of the 15th
century, bought them wholesale. The result of these factors was a
Platonism sans Platonic method, a philosophy that, straining for
absolutes, had little interest in establishing its own basis in reality.
Near the end of The Book of the Courtier, Castiglione puts a speech
typical of Florentine Platonism in the mouth of his friend, the
Platonist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547). As Bembo finishes his oration, a
female companion tugs at the hem of his robe and says, “Take care,
Master Pietro, that with such thoughts your soul does not forsake your
body.”
Later Italian humanism » Machiavelli’s realism
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), whose work derived from sources as
authentically humanistic as those of Ficino, proceeded along a wholly
opposite course. A throwback to the chancellor-humanists Salutati,
Bruni, and Poggio, he served Florence in a similar capacity and with
equal fidelity, using his erudition and eloquence in a civic cause. Like
Vittorino and other early humanists, he believed in the centrality of
historical studies, and he performed a signally humanistic function by
creating, in La Mandragola, the first vernacular imitation of Roman
comedy. His characteristic reminders of human weakness suggest the
influence of Boccaccio; and like Boccaccio he used these reminders less
as satire than as practical gauges of human nature. In one way at least,
Machiavelli is more humanistic (i.e., closer to the classics) than the
other humanists, for while Vittorino and his school ransacked history
for examples of virtue, Machiavelli (true to the spirit of Polybius,
Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus) embraced all of history, good, evil, and
indifferent, as his school of reality. Like Salutati, though perhaps
with greater self-awareness, Machiavelli was ambiguous as to the
relative merits of republics and monarchies. In both public and private
writings (especially the Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio
[“Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy”]) he showed a marked
preference for republican government, while in The Prince he developed,
with apparent approval, a model of radical autocracy. For this reason,
his goals have remained unclear.
His methods, on the other hand, were coherent throughout and remain a
major contribution to social science and the history of ideas. Like
earlier humanists, Machiavelli saw history as a source of power, but,
unlike them (and here perhaps influenced by Sophistic and Averroistic
thought), he saw neither history nor power itself within a moral
context. Rather he sought to examine history and power in an amoral and
hence (to him) wholly scientific manner. He examined human events in the
same way that Alberti, Galileo, and the new science examined physical
events: as discrete phenomena that had to be measured and described
before they could be explained and evaluated. To this extent his work,
though original in its specific design, was firmly based in the
humanistic tradition. At the same time, however, Machiavelli’s
achievement significantly eroded humanism. By laying the foundations of
modern social science, he created a discipline that, though true to
humanistic methodology, had not the slightest regard for humanistic
morality. In so doing, he brought to the surface a contradiction that
had been implicit in humanism all along: the dichotomy between critical
objectivity and moral evangelism.
Later Italian humanism » The achievement of Castiglione
Though Italian humanism was being torn apart by the natural development
of its own basic motives, it did not thereby lose its native
attractions. The humanistic experience, in both its positive and
negative effects, would be reenacted abroad. Baldassare Castiglione
(1478–1529), whose Book of the Courtier affectionately summed up
humanistic thought, was one of its most powerful ambassadors. Alert to
the major contradictions of the program, yet intensely appreciative of
its brilliance and energy, Castiglione wove its various strains together
in a long dialogue that aimed at an equipoise between various humanistic
extremes. Ostensibly a treatise on the model courtier, The Book of the
Courtier is more seriously a philosophically organized pattern of
conflicting viewpoints in which various positions—Platonist and
Aristotelian, idealist and cynic, monarchist and republican, traditional
and revolutionary—are given eloquent expression. Unlike most of his
humanistic forebears, Castiglione is neither missionary nor polemical.
His work is not an effort at systematic knowledge but rather an essay in
higher discretion, a powerful reminder that every virtue (moral or
intellectual) suggests a concomitant weakness and that extreme postures
tend to generate their own opposites. The structure of the dialogue, in
which Bembo’s Platonic ecstasy is balanced by Bibbiena’s assortment of
earthy jests, is a testament to this intention. While Castiglione’s
professed subject matter would epidemically inspire European letters and
manners of the 16th century, his more profound contribution would be
echoed in the work of Montaigne and Shakespeare. His work suggests a
redefined humanism, a virtue matured in irony and directed less toward
knowledge than toward wisdom.
Later Italian humanism » Tasso’s Aristotelianism
In 16th-century Italy, humanistic methods and attitudes provided the
medium for a kaleidoscopic variety of literary and philosophical
productions. Of these, the work that perhaps most truly reflected the
original spirit of humanism was the Gerusalemme liberata of Torquato
Tasso (1544–95). New humanistic translations of Aristotle during the
15th century had inspired an Aristotelian Renaissance, and the attention
of literary scholars focused particularly on the Poetics. In
constructing his epic poem, Tasso was strongly influenced by Aristotle’s
views regarding the philosophical dimension of poetry; loosely
paraphrasing Aristotle, he held (in his Apologia) that poetry, by
incorporating both particulars and universals, was capable of seeking
truth in its perfect wholeness. As a vehicle for philosophical truth,
poetry consequently could provide moral education, specifically in such
virtues (reinterpreted from a Christian perspective) as Aristotle had
described in the Nichomachean Ethics. The Aristotelian Renaissance thus
facilitated the revival of one of the chief articles in the original
humanistic constitution: the belief in the poet’s role as renewer of
culture.
Northern humanism
Though humanism in northern Europe and England sprang largely from
Italian sources, it did not emerge exclusively as an outgrowth of later
Italian humanism. Non-Italian scholars and poets found inspiration in
the full sweep of the Italian tradition, choosing their sources from
Petrarch to Castiglione and beyond.
Northern humanism » Desiderius Erasmus
Erasmus (c. 1466–1536) was the only other humanist whose international
fame in his own time compared with Petrarch’s. While lacking Petrarch’s
polemical zeal and spirit of self-inquiry, he shared the Italian’s
intense love of language, his dislike for the complexities and pretenses
of medieval institutions both secular and religious, and his commanding
personal presence. More specifically, however, his ideas and overall
direction betray the influence of Lorenzo Valla, whose works he
treasured. Like Valla, who had attacked biblical textual criticism with
a vengeance and proved the so-called Donation of Constantine to be a
forgery, Erasmus contributed importantly to Christian philology. Also
like Valla, he philosophically espoused a kind of Christian hedonism,
justifying earthly pleasure from a religious perspective. But he was
most like Valla (and indeed the entire rhetorical “arm” of Italian
humanism) in giving philology prominence over philosophy. He described
himself as a poet and orator rather than an inquirer after truth. His
one major philosophical effort, a Christian defense of free will, was
thunderously answered by Luther. Though his writings are a well of good
sense, they are seldom profound and are predominantly derivative. In
Latin eloquence, on the other hand, he was preeminent, both as stylist
and theorist. His graceful and abundant Ciceronian prose (whose
principles he set down in De copia verborum et rerum) helped shape the
character of European style. Perhaps his most original work is Moriae
encomium (The Praise of Folly), an elegant combination of satire and
poetic insight whose influence was soon apparent in the work of More (to
whom it was dedicated) and Rabelais.
Northern humanism » The French humanists
Erasmus’ associates in France included the influential humanists Robert
Gaguin (1433–1501), Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c. 1455–1536), and
Guillaume Budé (Guglielmus Budaeus, 1467–1540). Of these three, Budé was
most central to the development of French humanism, not only in his
historical and philological studies but also in his use of his national
influence to establish the Collège de France and the library at
Fontainebleau. The influence of Francis I (1494–1547) and his learned
sister Margaret of Angoulême (1492–1549) was important in fostering the
new learning. The diversity and energy of French humanism is apparent in
the activities of the Estienne family of publishers; the poetry of
Pierre de Ronsard (1524–85), Joachim du Bellay (c. 1522–60), and
Guillaume du Bartas (1544–90); the political philosophy of Jean Bodin
(1530–96); the philosophical methodology of Petrus Ramus (Pierre de la
Ramée, 1515–72); and the dynamic relationship between humanistic
scholarship and church reform (see below, Humanism and Christianity).
Hampered by religious repression and compressed more severely in time,
the French movement lacked the intellectual fecundity and the
programmatic unity of its Italian counterpart. In François Rabelais and
Michel de Montaigne, however, the development of humanistic methods and
themes resulted in unique and memorable achievement.
Northern humanism » The French humanists » François Rabelais (c.
1490–1533)
Rabelais ranks with Boccaccio as a founding father of Western realism.
As a satirist and stylist (in his hands French prose became a free,
poetic form), he influenced writers as important as Jonathan Swift,
Laurence Sterne, and James Joyce and may be seen as a major precursor of
modernism. His five books concerning the deeds of the giant princes
Gargantua and Pantagruel constitute a treasury of social criticism, an
articulate statement of humanistic values, and a forceful, if often
outrageous, manifesto of human rights. Rabelaisian satire took aim at
every social institution and (especially in Book III) every intellectual
discipline. Broadly learned and unflaggingly alert to jargon and sham,
he repeatedly focused on dogmas that fetter creativity, institutional
structures that reward hypocrisy, educational traditions that inspire
laziness, and philosophical methodologies that obscure elemental
reality. His heroes, Gargantua and his son and heir Pantagruel, are
figures whose colossal size and appetites (Rabelais’s etymology for
Pantagruel is “all-thirsty”) symbolize the nobility and omnivorous
curiosity that typified the humanistic scheme. The multifarious
educational program detailed in Gargantua is reminiscent of Vittorino,
Alberti, and the Montefeltro court; and the utopian Abbey of Thélème,
whose gate bears the motto “Do as you please,” is a tribute to
enlightened will and pleasure in the manner of Valla, Erasmus, and More.
Characteristically overstated and never wholly free of irony, Rabelais’s
work is a far cry from the earnest moral and educational programs of the
early humanists. Rather than rebuild society, he seeks to amuse, edify,
and refine it. His qualified endorsement of human dignity is based on
the healthy balance of mind and body, the sanctity of all true learning,
and the authenticity of direct experience.
Northern humanism » The French humanists » Michel de Montaigne (1533–92)
Montaigne’s famous Essays are not only a compendious restatement and
reevaluation of humanistic motives but also a milestone in the
humanistic project of self-inquiry that had been originally endorsed by
Petrarch. Scholar, traveler, soldier, and statesman, Montaigne was, like
Machiavelli, alert to both theory and practice; but while Machiavelli
saw practice as forming the basis for sound theory, Montaigne perceived
in human events a multiplicity so overwhelming as to deny theoretical
analysis. Montaigne’s use of typical humanistic
modalities—interpretation of the classics, appeals to direct experience,
exclusive emphasis on the human realm, and universal curiosity—led him,
in other words, to the refutation of a typical humanistic premise: that
knowledge of the intellectual arts could teach one a sovereign art of
life. In an effort to make his inquiry more inclusive and unsparing,
Montaigne made himself the subject of his book, demonstrating through
hundreds of personal anecdotes and admissions the ineluctable diversity
of a single human spirit. His essays, which seem to move freely from one
subject or viewpoint to another, are often in fact carefully organized
dialectical structures that draw the reader, through thesis and
antithesis, stated subject and relevant association, toward a
multidimensional understanding of morality and history. The final essay,
grandly titled “Of Experience,” counsels a mature acceptance of life in
all its contradictions. Human dignity, he implies, is indeed possible,
but it lies less in heroic achievement than in painfully won
self-knowledge. In this sense Montaigne’s attitude toward the humanistic
tradition is generally similar to that suggested in the work of
Castiglione and Rabelais. While effectively taking issue with a number
of the more extreme humanistic contentions, he retained and indeed
justified the basic attitudes that gave the movement its form.
Northern humanism » The English humanists
English humanism flourished in two stages: the first a basically
academic movement that had its roots in the 15th century and culminated
in the work of Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot, and Roger Ascham, the
second a poetic revolution led by Sir Philip Sidney and William
Shakespeare.
Though continental humanists had held court positions since the days
of Humphrey of Gloucester, English humanism as a distinct phenomenon did
not emerge until late in the 15th century. At Oxford William Grocyn (c.
1446–1519) and his student Thomas Linacre (c. 1460–1524) gave impetus to
a tradition of classical studies that would permanently influence
English culture. Grocyn and Linacre attended Politian’s lectures at the
Platonic Academy of Florence. Returning to Oxford, they became central
figures in a group that included such younger scholars as John Colet
(1466/67–1519) and William Lily (1468?–1522). The humanistic
contributions of the Oxford group were philological and institutional
rather than philosophical or literary. Grocyn lectured on Greek and
theology; Linacre produced several works on Latin grammar and translated
Galen into Latin. To Linacre is owed the foundation of the Royal College
of Physicians; to Colet, the foundation of St. Paul’s School, London.
Colet collaborated with Lily (the first headmaster of St. Paul’s) and
Erasmus in writing the school’s constitution, and together the three
scholars produced a Latin grammar (known alternately as “Lily’s Grammar”
and the “Eton Grammar”) that would be central to English education for
decades to come.
In Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Sir Thomas Elyot (c. 1490–1546), and
Roger Ascham (1515–68), English humanism bore fruit in major literary
achievement. Educated at Oxford (where he read Greek with Linacre), More
was also influenced by Erasmus, who wrote The Praise of Folly (Latin
Moriae encomium) at More’s house and named the book punningly after his
English friend. More’s famous Utopia, a kind of companion piece to The
Praise of Folly, is similarly satirical of traditional institutions
(Book I) but offers, as an imaginary alternative, a model society based
on reason and nature (Book II). Reminiscent of Erasmus and Valla, More’s
Utopians eschew the rigorous cultivation of virtue and enjoy moderate
pleasures, believing that “Nature herself prescribes a life of joy (that
is, pleasure)” and seeing no contradiction between earthly enjoyment and
religious piety. Significantly indebted both to classical thought and
European humanism, the Utopia is also humanistic in its implied thesis
that politics begins and ends with humanity: that politics is based
exclusively on human nature and aimed exclusively at human happiness.
Sir Thomas Elyot chose a narrower subject but developed it in more
detail. His great work, The Book Named The Governor, is a lengthy
treatise on the virtues to be cultivated by statesmen. Born of the same
tradition that produced The Prince and The Courtier, The Governor is
typical of English humanism in its emphasis on the accommodation of both
classical and Christian virtues within a single moral view. Elyot’s
other contributions to English humanism include philosophical dialogues,
moral essays, translations of ancient and contemporary writers
(including Isocrates and Pico), an important Latin-English dictionary,
and a highly popular health manual. He served his country as ambassador
to the court of Charles V. Finally, the humanistic educational program
set up at the turn of the century was vigorously supported by Sir John
Cheke (1514–57) and codified by his student Roger Ascham. Ascham’s
famous pedagogical manual, The Schoolmaster, offers not only a complete
program of humanistic education but also an evocation of the ideals
toward which that education was directed.
Ascham had been tutor to the young princess Elizabeth, whose personal
education was a model of humanistic pedagogy and whose writings and
patronage bespoke great love of learning. Elizabeth I’s reign
(1558–1603) saw the last concerted expression of humanistic ideas.
Elizabethan humanism, which added a unique element to the history of the
movement, was the product not of pedagogues and philologists but of
poets and playwrights.
Northern humanism » The English humanists » Sidney and Spenser
Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86) was, like Alberti and Federico da
Montefeltro, a living pattern of the humanistic ideal. Splendidly
educated in the Latin classics at Shrewsbury and Oxford, Sidney
continued his studies under the direction of the prominent French
scholar Hubert Languet and was tutored in science by the learned John
Dee. His brief career as writer, statesman, and soldier was of such
acknowledged brilliance as to make him, after his tragic death in
battle, the subject of an Elizabethan heroic cult. Sidney’s major works,
Astrophel and Stella, the Defence of Poesie, and the two versions of the
Arcadia, are medleys of humanistic themes. In the sonnet sequence
Astrophel and Stella, he surpassed earlier imitators of Petrarch by
emulating not only the Italian humanist’s subject and style but also his
philosophical bent and habit of self-scrutiny. The Defence of Poesie,
composed (like Erasmus’ Praise of Folly) in the form of a classical
oration, reasserts the theory of poetry as moral doctrine that had been
articulated by Petrarch and Boccaccio and revived by the Italian
Aristotelians of the 16th century. The later or “new” Arcadia is an epic
novel whose theoretical concerns include the dualities of contemplation
and action, reason and passion, and theory and practice. In this
ambitious and unfinished work, Sidney attempts a characteristically
humanistic synthesis of classical philosophy, Christian doctrine,
psychological realism, and practical politics. Seen as a whole,
moreover, Sidney’s life and work form a significant contribution to a
debate that had been smoldering since the decline of political liberty
in Florence in the 15th century. How, it was asked, could humanism be
politically active or “civic” in a Europe that was almost exclusively
monarchic in structure? Many humanists had counseled retirement from
active life, while Castiglione had seen his learned courtier rather as
an advisor than as a leader. Sidney and his friend Edmund Spenser
(1552/53–1599) sought to resolve this dilemma by creating a form of
chivalric humanism. The image (taken on personally by Sidney and
elaborated upon by Spenser in The Faerie Queene) of the hero as questing
knight suggests that the humanist, even if not empowered politically,
can achieve a valid form of activism by refining, upholding, and
representing the values of a just and noble court. Spenser’s poetic
development of this humanistic program was even more specific than
Sidney’s. In his famous letter to Raleigh, he asserts that his purpose
in The Faerie Queene is “to fashion a gentleman or noble person in
virtuous and gentle discipline” and describes a project (never to be
completed) of presenting his idea of the Aristotelian virtues in twelve
poetic books. As with Sidney, however, this moral didacticism is neither
self-righteous nor pedantic. The prescriptive content of The Faerie
Queene is qualified by a strong emphasis on moral autonomy and a mature
sense of the ambiguity of experience.
Northern humanism » The English humanists » Chapman, Jonson, and
Shakespeare
The poetry and drama of Shakespeare’s time were a concourse of themes,
ancient and modern, continental and English. Prominent among these
motives were the characteristic topics of humanism. George Chapman
(1559?–1634), the translator of Homer, was a forthright exponent of the
theory of poetry as moral wisdom, holding that it surpassed all other
intellectual pursuits. Ben Jonson (1572–1637) described his own
humanistic mission when he wrote that a good poet was able “to inform
young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great
virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they
decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength” and that the
poet was “the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things
divine no less than human, a master in manners.” Jonson, who sought this
moral goal both in his tragedies and in his comedies, paid tribute to
the humanistic tradition in Catiline, a tragedy in which Cicero’s civic
eloquence is portrayed in heroic terms.
Less overtly humanistic, though in fact more profoundly so, was
William Shakespeare (1564–1616). Thoroughly versed (probably at his
grammar school) in classical poetic and rhetorical practice, Shakespeare
early in his career produced strikingly effective imitations of Ovid and
Plautus (Venus and Adonis and The Comedy of Errors, respectively) and
drew on Ovid and Livy for his poem The Rape of Lucrece. In Julius
Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus he developed Plutarchan
biography into drama that, though Elizabethan in structure, is sharply
classical in tone. Shakespeare clearly did not accept all the precepts
of English humanism at face value. He grappled repeatedly with the
problem of reconciling Christian doctrine with effective political
action, and for a while (e.g., in Henry V) seemed inclined toward the
Machiavellian alternative. In Troilus and Cressida, moreover, he broadly
satirized Chapman’s Homeric revival and, more generally, the humanistic
habit of idolizing classical heroism. Finally, he eschewed the moralism,
rationalism, and self-conscious erudition of the humanists and was
lacking as well in their fraternalism and their theoretical bent. Yet on
a deeper level he must be acknowledged the direct and natural heir of
Petrarch, Boccaccio, Castiglione, and Montaigne. Like them he delighted
more in presenting issues than in espousing systems and held critical
awareness, as opposed to doctrinal rectitude, to be the highest possible
good. His plays reflect an inquiry into human character entirely in
accord with the humanistic emphasis on the dignity of the emotions, and
indeed it may be said that his unprecedented use of language as a means
of psychological revelation gave striking support to the humanistic
contention that language was the heart of culture and the index of the
soul. Similarly, Shakespeare’s unparalleled realism may be seen as the
ultimate embodiment, in poetic terms, of the intense concern for
specificity—be it in description, measurement, or imitation—endorsed
across the board by humanists from Boccaccio and Salutati on.
Shakespearean drama is a treasury of the disputes that frustrated and
delighted humanism, including (among many others) action versus
contemplation, theory versus practice, res versus verbum, monarchy
versus republic, human dignity versus human depravity, and individualism
versus communality. In treating of these polarities, he generally
proceeds in the manner of Castiglione and Montaigne, presenting
structures of balanced contraries rather than syllogistic endorsements
of one side or another. In so doing, he achieves a higher realism,
transcending the mere imitation of experience and creating, in all its
conflict and fertility, a mirror of mind itself. Since the achievement
of such psychological and cultural self-awareness was the primary goal
of humanistic inquiry, and since humanists agreed that poetry was an
uncommonly effective medium for this achievement, Shakespeare must be
acknowledged as a preeminent humanist.
One cannot leave Shakespeare and the phenomenon of English humanism
without reference to a highly important aspect of his later drama.
Throughout his career, Shakespeare had shown a keen interest in the
concept of art, not only as a general idea but also with specific
reference to his own identity as dramatist. In two of his final plays,
The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, he developed this concept into
dramatic and thematic structures that had strongly doctrinal
implications. Major characters in both plays practice a moral artistry—a
kind of humanitas compounded of awareness, experience, imagination,
compassion, and craft—that enables them to beguile and dominate other
characters and to achieve enduring justice. This special skill, which is
cognate with Shakespeare’s own dramatic art, suggests a hypothetical
solution to many of the dilemmas posed in his earlier work. It implies
that problems unavailable to political or religious remedy may be solved
by creative innovation and that the art by which things are known and
expressed may constitute, in and of itself, a valid field of inquiry and
an instrument for cultural renewal. In developing this idea of the
sovereignty of art, Shakespeare made the final major contribution to a
humanistic tradition that will be discussed in the two sections that
follow.
Humanism and the visual arts
Humanistic themes and techniques were woven deeply into the development
of Italian Renaissance art; conversely, the general theme of “art” was
prominent in humanistic discourse. The mutually enriching character of
the two disciplines is evident in a variety of areas.
Humanism and the visual arts » Realism
Humanists paid conscious tribute to realistic techniques in art that had
developed independently of humanism. Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266–1337),
the Florentine painter responsible for the movement away from the
Byzantine style and toward ancient Roman technique, was praised by
Vasari as “the pupil of Nature.” Giotto’s own contemporary Boccaccio
said of him in the Decameron that
there was nothing in Nature—the mother and ruling force of all
created things with her constant revolution of the heavens—that he could
not paint with his stylus, pen, or brush or make so similar to its
original in Nature that it did not appear to be the original rather than
a reproduction. Many times, in fact, in observing things painted by this
man, the visual sense of men would err, taking what was painted to be
the very thing itself.
Boccaccio, himself a naturalist and a realist, here subtly adopts the
painter’s achievement as a justification for his own literary style. So
Shakespeare, at the end of the Renaissance, praises Giulio Romano (and
himself), “who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his
work, would beguile Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape”
(The Winter’s Tale). It should be noted that neither Vasari, Boccaccio,
nor Shakespeare endorses realistic style as a summum bonum: realism is
rather the means for regaining touch with the sovereign creative
principle of Nature.
Humanism and the visual arts » Classicism
Like the humanists, Italian artists of the 15th century saw a profound
correlation between classical forms and realistic technique. Classical
sculpture and Roman painting were emulated because of their ability to
simulate perceived phenomena, while, more abstractly, classical myth
offered a unique model for the artistic idealization of human beauty.
Alberti, himself a close friend of Donatello and Brunelleschi, codified
this humanistic theory of art, using the fundamental principle of
mathematics as a link between perceived reality and the ideal. He
developed a classically based theory of proportionality between
architectural and human form, believing that the ancients sought “to
discover the laws by which Nature produced her works so as to transfer
them to the works of architecture.”
Humanism and the visual arts » Anthropocentricity and individualism
Humanism and Italian art were similar in giving paramount attention to
human experience, both in its everyday immediacy and in its positive or
negative extremes. The religious themes that dominated Renaissance art
(partly because of generous church patronage) were frequently developed
into images of such human richness that, as one contemporary observer
noted, the Christian message was submerged. The human-centredness of
Renaissance art, moreover, was not just a generalized endorsement of
earthly experience. Like the humanists, Italian artists stressed the
autonomy and dignity of the individual. High Renaissance art boasted a
style of portraiture that was at once humanely appreciative and
unsparing of detail. Heroes of culture such as Federico da Montefeltro
and Lorenzo de’ Medici, neither of whom was a conventionally handsome
man, were portrayed realistically, as though a compromise with strict
imitation would be an affront to their dignity as individuals.
Similarly, artists of the Italian Renaissance were, characteristically,
unabashed individualists. The biographies of Giotto, Brunelleschi,
Leonardo, and Michelangelo by Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) not only describe
artists who were well aware of their unique positions in society and
history but also attest to a cultural climate in which, for the first
time, the role of art achieved heroic stature. The autobiographical
writings of the humanist Alberti, the scientist Gerolamo Cardano
(1501–76), and the artist Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) further attest to
the individualism developing both in letters and in the arts; and
Montaigne dramatized the analogy between visual mimesis and
autobiographical realism when he said, in the preface to his Essays,
that given the freedom he would have painted himself “tout entier, et
tout nu” (“totally complete, and totally nude”).
Humanism and the visual arts » Art as philosophy
Italian Renaissance painting, especially in its secular forms, is alive
with visually coded expressions of humanistic philosophy. Symbol,
structure, posture, and even colour were used to convey silent messages
about humanity and nature. Renaissance style was so articulate, and the
Renaissance sense of the unity of experience so deeply ingrained, that
even architectural structures could be eloquently philosophical. Two
features of Federico’s palace at Urbino exemplify the profound
interrelationship between humanistic principle and Renaissance art. The
first feature is architectural. On the ground floor of the palace two
private chapels, of roughly the same dimensions, stand side by side. The
chapel at the left is a place of Christian worship, while that at the
right is dedicated to the pagan Muses. Directly above these chapels is a
study, the walls of which are covered with representations (in intarsia)
of assorted humanistic heroes: Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil,
Seneca, Boethius, St. Augustine, Dante, Petrarch, Bessarion, and
Federico’s revered teacher Vittorino, among others. The message conveyed
by the positioning of the three rooms is hard to ignore. Devotion to the
opposed principles of Christianity and earthly (pagan) beauty is
rendered possible by a humanistic learning (represented by the study) so
generous and appreciative as to comprehend both extremes.
The second feature is iconographic—a portrait of Federico and his son
Guidobaldo (probably by Pedro Berruguete) that occupies a central
position on the wall of the study. It depicts the Duke, his full coat of
armour partly covered by a courtly robe, sitting and reading. The son
stands beside his father’s chair, gazing out of the picture toward the
viewer’s left. An abbot’s mitre rests on a shelf in the upper left,
while the Duke’s helmet sits on the floor in the lower right. Here also
a typically humanistic message is evident. The Duke’s scholarly attitude
and curious attire suggest his triple role as warrior, ruler, and
humanist. The two main axes of the picture—the line between mitre and
helmet and the line between father and son—converge at the book,
symbolizing the central role of humanistic learning in reconciling the
concerns of church and state and in conveying humanistic virtue from
generation to generation. The boy’s outward gaze implies the
characteristic direction of humanistic learning: into the world of
action. The scope and organic wholeness of Federico’s humanistic
iconography are so striking as to rival great expressions of religious
faith. The private heart of his palace concealed, like a genetic code,
the principle that had given shape to the edifice and informed the
state.
Humanism, art, and science
It is impossible to speak knowledgeably about Renaissance science
without first understanding the Renaissance concept of art. The Latin
ars (inflected as artis) was applied indiscriminately to the verbal
disciplines, mathematics, music, and science (the “liberal arts”), as
well as to painting, sculpture, and architecture; it also could refer to
technological expertise, to magic, and to alchemy. Any discipline
involving the cultivation of skill and excellence was de facto an art.
To the Renaissance, moreover, all arts were “liberal” arts in their
capacity to “free” their practitioners to function effectively in
specific areas. The art of rhetoric empowered the rhetorician to
convince; the art of perspective empowered the painter to create visual
illusion; the art of physics empowered the scientist to predict the
force and motion of objects. “Art,” in effect, was no more or less than
articulate power, the technical or intellectual analogy to the political
power of the monarch and the divine power of the god. The historical
importance of this equation cannot be overestimated. If one concept may
be said to have integrated all the varied manifestations of Renaissance
culture and given organic unity to the period, it was this definition of
art as power. With this definition in mind, one may understand why
Renaissance humanists and painters assigned themselves such
self-consciously heroic roles: in their artistic ability to delight, to
captivate, to convince, they saw themselves as enfranchised directors
and remakers of culture. One may also understand why a
humanist-artist-scientist like Alberti would have seen no real
distinction between the various disciplines he practiced. As profoundly
interconnected means of understanding nature and humanity, and as media
for effective reform and renewal, these disciplines were all components
of an encompassing art. A similar point may be made about Machiavelli,
who wrote a book about the “art” of warfare and who used history and
logic to develop an art of government, or about the brilliant polymath
Paracelsus, who spent his whole career perfecting an art that would
comprehend all matter and all spirit. With the equation of art and power
in mind, finally, one may understand why a revolutionary scientist like
Galileo (1564–1642) put classical and medieval science through a
winnowing fan, keeping only such components as allowed for physically
reproducible results. Since every Renaissance art aimed for a dominion
or conquest, it was completely appropriate that science should leave its
previously contemplative role and focus upon the conquest of nature.
Humanism benefited the development of science in a number of more
specific ways. Alberti’s technological applications of mathematics, and
his influential statement that mathematics was the key to all sciences,
grew out of his humanistic education at Padua. Vittorino, another
student at Padua, went on to make mathematics a central feature of his
educational program. Gerolamo Cardano, a scholar of renowned humanistic
skills, made major contributions to the development of algebra. In
short, the importance of mathematics in humanistic pedagogy and the fact
that major humanists like Vittorino and Alberti were also mathematicians
may be seen as contributing to the critical role mathematics would play
in the rise of modern science. Humanistic philology, moreover, supplied
scientists with clean texts and clear Latin translations of the
classical works—Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, and even
Ptolemy—that furthered their studies. The richness of the classical
heritage in science is often underestimated. Galileo, who considered
Archimedes his mentor, also prized the dialogues of Plato, in particular
the Meno. The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer has demonstrated the
likelihood that Galileo was fond of the Meno because it contained the
first statement of the “hypothetical” method, a modus operandi that
characterized Galileo’s own scientific practice and that would come to
be known as one of the chief principles of the New Science. Humanism may
also be seen as offering, of itself, methods and attitudes suitable for
application in nonhumanistic fields. It might be argued, for example,
that the revolutionary social science of Machiavelli and Juan Luis Vives
(1492–1540) was due in large measure to their application of humanistic
techniques to fields that lay outside the normal purview of humanism.
But most of all it was the general spirit of humanism—critical,
questing, ebullient, precise, focused on the physical world, and
passionate in its quest for results—that fostered the development of the
scientific spirit in social studies and natural philosophy.
Humanism and Christianity
Though much humanistic activity was specifically Christian in intention,
and though the majority of humanists made firm avowals of faith, the
relationship between Christianity and humanism is complex and not wholly
untroubled. First, humanists from Petrarch onward recognized that the
classical (pagan) direction of humanism necessarily constituted, if not
a challenge to Christianity, at least a breach in the previous totality
of Christian devotion. The Christian truth that had been acknowledged as
comprehending all phenomena, earthly or heavenly, now had to coexist
with a classical attitude that was overwhelmingly directed toward
earthly life. Humanistic efforts to resolve the contradictions implied
by these two attitudes were, if one may judge by their variety, never
wholly successful. In particular, the extent to which humanistic inquiry
led scholars toward the secular realm, and the extent to which
humanistic pedagogy concentrated on secular subjects, suggest erosions
of the domain of faith. Coluccio Salutati, who urged the young Poggio
not to let humanistic enthusiasm take precedence over Christian piety,
thereby acknowledged a dualism implicit in the humanistic program and
never wholly absent from its historical development.
Second, the humanistic philology that meticulously compared ancient
sources and “cleaned up” the texts of important Christian writings was a
serious challenge to the authority of the church. With new authorities
or refined texts in hand, humanists found fault with established
commentaries and questioned traditional interpretations. Valla’s
arraignment of the Donation of Constantine and Bessarion’s discovery
that the supposed Dionysius the Areopagite (later called
Pseudo-Dionysius) had borrowed some of his material from Plato exemplify
the uneasy relationship between humanism and Catholic dogma. Third, the
independent and broadly critical attitude innate to humanism could not
but threaten the unanimity of Christian belief. Intellectual
individualism, which has never been popular in any church, put
particular stress on a religion that encouraged simple faith and alleged
universal authority. Finally, humanism repeatedly fostered the impulse
of religious reform. The humanistic emphasis on total authenticity and
direct contact with sources had, as its religious correlative, a desire
to obliterate the medieval accretions and procedural complexities that
stood between the worshiper and his god. The reform-mindedness of such
humanists as Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus, and Rabelais was balanced on
the religious side by reformers such as Calvin and Melanchthon, who
employed humanistic techniques in their own cause. And the reform
movement, while it may have modernized and thus preserved Christianity,
rang the death knell for a medieval culture whose essential
characteristic had been participation in a universal church.
Later fortunes of humanism
Shakespeare may be seen as the last major interpreter of the humanistic
program. Sir Francis Bacon and John Milton, though formidably adept at
humanistic techniques, diverged in their major work from the central
current of humanism, Bacon toward natural science, Milton toward
theology. If Bacon’s rationalism may be seen as a link between humanism
and the Enlightenment, his strong emphasis on nature (rather than
humanity) as subject matter presaged the permanent separation of the
sciences from the humanities. In Milton’s theocentricity, on the other
hand, lay the Christian distrust (going back, perhaps, to Luther) of
humanistic secularism. These epochal divergences, moreover, were
complemented by a series of rifts and ramifications within the
humanistic movement. The split between philosophy and letters was, over
future generations, to be compounded by the development of countless
discrete specialties within both fields. Philosophers came more and more
to define themselves within narrow boundaries. Creative writers and
“critics” took up distinct positions and assumed adversarial
relationships. The profound loss of coherence in humane letters was
furthered by the gradual decline of Latin as the lingua franca of
European intellectuals and the consequent separation of national
traditions.
By the 19th century, humanism was such a lost art as to have to be
reassembled, like a disjointed fossil, by careful historians. Of course
there were exceptions. Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) reasserted humanistic
values in a broad-based attack on contemporary institutions, and in
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) can be found the serious intention
and multifarious curiosity that characterized humanism at its best.
Strong humanistic motives may be found in Germany at the turn of the
19th century, particularly in the work of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
(1729–81), Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805), and Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831); while Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749–1832) was perhaps the last individual whose breadth of achievement
and sense of the unity of experience lived up to the ideal established
by Alberti.
More recently, the mode of inquiry and interpretation developed by
the political philosopher Leo Strauss (1899–1973) showed strong signs of
the humanistic spirit. But in general the traces of the original program
have been scattered. To the modern mind, a “humanist” is a university
scholar, walled off from the interdisciplinary scope of the original
humanistic program and immune to the active experience that was its
basis and its goal. This decline is easy enough to explain. Had there
been nothing else, one external factor would have made the cultivation
of humanitas, as originally practiced, more and more difficult from the
beginning of the 16th century on. The proliferation of published work in
all fields, and the creation of many new fields, made increasingly
impracticable the development of the comprehensive learning and
awareness that were central to the original program. In 1500 the major
texts constituting a humanistic education, though numerous, could still
be counted; by 1900 they were legion, and people had long ceased
agreeing about exactly which ones they were. But problems implicit in
the movement were equally responsible for its demise. The characteristic
emphases on rhetoric and philology, which gave the humanistic movement
vitality and made it available to countless students of moderate gifts,
also betokened its impermanence. Weak in dialectic or any other
comprehensively analytic method, the movement had no instrument for
self-examination, no medium for self-renewal. By the same token, neither
had humanism any valid means of defense against the
attackers—scientists, fundamentalists, materialists, and others—who
camped in ever larger numbers on its borders. Lacking an integral
method, finally, humanism in effect lacked a centre and became prey to
an endless series of ramifications. While eloquent humanists rambled
through Europe and spread the word about the classics, the method that
might have unified their efforts lay, available but unheeded, in texts
of Plato and Aristotle. Given this core of rigorous analysis, humanism
might (all other challenges notwithstanding) have retained its basic
character for centuries. But ironically it might also have failed to
attract followers.
Conclusion
Though lacking permanence itself, humanism in large measure established
the climate and provided the medium for the rise of modern thought. An
impressive variety of major developments in literature, philosophy, art,
religion, social science, and even natural science had their basis in
humanism or were significantly nourished by it. Important spokesmen in
all fields regularly made use of humanistic eloquence to further their
causes. More generally, the so-called modern awareness—that sense of
alienation and freedom applied both to the individual and to the
race—derives ultimately, for better or worse, from humanistic sources.
But with humanism, as with every other historical subject, one should
beware lest valid concern about changes, crises, sources, and influences
obscure the even more important issues of human continuity and human
value. Whatever its weaknesses and inner conflicts, the humanistic
movement was heroic in its breadth and energy, remarkable in its
aspirations. For human development in all fields, it created a context
of seldom-equaled fertility. Its characteristic modalities of thought,
speech, and image lent themselves to the promptings of genius and became
the media for enduring achievement. Its moral program formed the basis
for lives that are remembered with admiration.
Robert Grudin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
