Download THE FOUNDATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

History of Europe
1
HISTORY
Subject
:
History
Paper No.
:
Paper - V
The Rise of Modern West
Topic No. & Title
:
Topic – 1
European Renaissance
(1330 AD – 1530 AD)
Lecture No. & Title
:
Lecture - 2
Humanism and Its Spread in
Europe
(For under graduate student)
Script
Humanism And Its Spread In Europe
Humanism was the single most important intellectual
movement of the Renaissance. It implied the dignity of
man and his privileged position in the world. The
Humanists praised man and defined him in terms of his
positive capacities generously granted by God when he
created man in his own image. Pico della Mirandolla in
his, ‘Oration to the Dignity of Man (1498) located human
dignity in man’s freedom from any fixed or static place in
the chain of being that links him to the angels and God
above him and to the animals, plants and other inert
matter below him. Since human nature is free, its
progress towards perfection is an offered choice. The
French humanist Charles de Bouvelles wrote in 1509,
our actions have three causes or principles: intelligence,
will and power. Through his intelligence man can know
what should be done; he can will to do what should be
done; and finally he has the power to act according to his
knowledge and desire because he is all things and can
become all things. Freedom is the harmonious union of
knowledge, capacity and will and this freedom is a human
conquest, the result of a gradual development through
education and a long series of appropriate choices, of the
habit of virtue. The identification of human dignity with
moral freedom suggested an ideal of man different from
those of the Middle Ages. Medievalists admired three
human types: the saint, the monk and the knight. The
humanist concept of an ideal man was noble but his
nobility unlike the knight’s was not based on birth but on
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virtue
and
3
his
virtue
was
not
solely
ascetic
or
contemplative as that of the monk. The humanist idea of
perfection included mind and body, contemplation and
action, the good of the soul and fortune i.e. wealth,
physical beauty and health. The humanists emphasized
the elegance of writing and speech as well as morality
which stressed the uniqueness of man, his feeling and his
potential. Humanism emerged as a broader intellectual
influence focusing attention in the nature, achievement
and potential of humanity rather than on the power and
mystery of divinity. Thus Humanism was a conceptual
and secular shift from religion to the potential of
humanity.
According to Peter Burke humanism is a somewhat elastic
term, with different meanings for different people. The
word ‘Humanism’ came into use in Germany in the early
nineteenth century to refer to the traditional type of
classical education, the value of which was beginning to
be questioned. While Mathew Arnold seems to have
been the first to use the term ‘humanism’ in English, the
word ‘humanist’ originated in the fifteenth century as a
student
slang
for
a
University
Teacher
of
the
‘humanities’. This was an ancient Roman phrase to
describe
an
academic
package
of
five
subjects
in
particular, grammar, rhetoric, poetry, ethics and history.
According to Leonardo Bruni, one of the leaders of the
movements, these studies were revived to ‘perfect man’.
But why should the study of these subjects be regarded
as an exercise in perfecting man? The fundamental idea
was that man differs from animals by their ability to
speak and therefore to distinguish right from wrong.
Hence the fundamental subjects of study were those
dealing with language or with both history and poetry
were regarded as kinds of applied ethics, teaching
students to follow good examples and avoid evil ones.
The basic assumptions of the humanists are neatly
illustrated in a diagram from an early sixteenth century
work by the French humanist Charles de Bouvalles.
According to this diagram, there are four levels of
existence. In ascending order, they are to exist like a
stone, to live like a plant, to feel like a horse and to
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understand like a man. There are four corresponding
kinds of human being, the sluggard, the glutton, the vain
person and the scholar. In other words, humanity is
perfectible, but only the humanist is truly human.
The diagram also implies that the life of contemplation is
superior to the life of action. There was in fact consensus
on this issue. Bruni, the chancellor of the Florentine
Republic suggested that a man could fulfill himself only
as a citizen, while Marsilio Ficino, a philosopher who
accepted the patronage of the Medici, preferred study
and contemplation. Other humanists were torn between
action and contemplation like Sir Thomas More of
England or Montaigne of France.
Hence it is obvious that the studies most emphasised by
the humanist movement did not include what we call
‘Science”. However, some leading humanists (Alberti, for
example) were interested in mathematics in particular.
Moreover, the ideas of ancient Greek and Roman writers
on mathematics, medicine, astronomy, astrology and on
magic were an indispensible part of the Renaissance
programme.
But
humanist
scholarship
was
based
primarily on the study of classics, history, art etc.
Humanism was based on scholarship. Pope Nicholas V
and his successors subsidized attempts to discover
important lost works of later antiquity and acquire copies
of Greek authors from the destroyed Byzantine world
and research was done in a systematic and organized
way. The interest in old manuscripts influenced the
princes and learned individuals to became collectors, and
to establish libraries (Pico della Mirandolla). The majority
of the new collectors were in Italy, especially the Vatican.
The new attitude of the humanists was antiquarian in its
devotion to classical models of style and conflict but
original in its critical, detached and impartial interest in
the human mind and body and the world around it.
Humanism found literary expression both in the study of
classical and religious tenets in the original composition
of new works in the vernacular. In art men initiated
Greek and Roman styles but at the same time they
stressed on individual differences and eccentricities of
form in sculpture and painting. Humanism thus meant an
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educational and cultural interest based on the study of
classics. It was a basic source of inspiration for all. It
greatly influenced literature, history, painting, sculpture
and political ideas in the Renaissance era.
Geographically humanism originated in Italy, spreading
from Florence to Europe beyond the Alps, new ideas
spreading
through
Italian
ecclesiastical
legates,
diplomats, traders and professors travelling to the North.
There was a corresponding flow from Florence, Germany
and England to Italy as well. Italian humanism gradually
combined with indigenous intellectual development to
produce
regional
and
natural
variations,
the
main
exponents being Lefevre d’Etaples and Bodin in France,
Agricola, Lettis, Reuchlin and Von Hutten in Germany;
Xinienes in Spain; Colet and Thomas More in England and
towering above them all was Desiderius Erasmus from
Netherlands who influenced his contemporaries
and
expressed many of their most important and typical
aspirations
to
a
degree
and
with
a
lucidity
comprehensiveness unmatched before Voltaire.
and
The Italian humanists and artists seem to have gone
abroad in two separate waves. The humanists went first.
The real humanist brain drain seems to have taken place
between the 1430s and 1520s with the late fifteenth
century as the period when humanist emigration was at
its largest. Italian scholars went to France, to Poland, to
Hungary, England, Spain and Portugal. The artists went a
little later in the early sixteenth century. The largest
cluster of émigré humanists were to be found in France.
Francois I, the great patron of the Northern Renaissance
invited the painters Rosso and Primaticcio, the goldsmith
Benvenuto Cellini, the architect Sebastiano Serlio and
Leonardo da Vinci to France.
But why did they go abroad? Some artists and humanists
left Italy for reasons which had little to do with the
Renaissance. A few like Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later
Pope Pius II) and Castiglione (ended his life as a papal
nuncio in Spain) went on diplomatic missions. Others
were
exiles
for
political
or
other
reasons.
Filippo
Callimaco, for example, a man who made an important
contribution to the development of humanism in Poland
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History of Europe
fled
after
9
an
unsuccessful
conspiracy
that
he
had
hatched. The religious exiles like Lelio and Fausto Sozzini
for example were scholars from Siena who left Italy to
escape the Inquisition, because they did not believe in
the doctrine of the Trinity. Vasari tells us that the
sculptor, Pietro Torrigiani of Florence had to leave after a
quarrel with Michelangelo. Some Italians went abroad
because they had been invited by royal patrons such as
Francois I or by local aristocrats with literary or artistic
interests.
But
how
did
the
locals
respond
to
these
Italian
immigrants, their ideas and their skills? Some of them
received an extremely warm welcome abroad like the
Lombard humanist Pietro Martine d’Anghiera when he
visited Salamanca in 1488 to deliver a lecture. There
were so many people in the audience that he couldn’t
enter the lecture hall. However, all Italians didn’t enjoy
this same kind of reception. The experience of Girolamo
Balbo
and
Jacepo
Publicio
are
such
example.
Comparatively minor figures in Italy went abroad in
search of name and fame like Antonio Boufim, a
schoolmaster of the small town of Recanati who went on
to become the court historian to the Matyas of Hungary.
There were many visitors to Italy also who came and
imbibed the humanist culture.
Students from outside
Italy came to the two Italian universities of Padua and
Bologna to study law and medicine, not a part of studies
of humanities, but they were gradually transformed
under the influence of humanism. Artists went to Italy to
study the new style of painting or the remains of classical
sculpture and architecture. Scholars went to Italy to learn
about
texts
and
approaches
unavailable
at
home.
Copernicus who came from Poland, studied at the
universities of Bologna, Padua and Ferrara at the end of
the fifteenth century and his studies influenced his major
work, ‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs’ which
argued that the sun was at centre of the universe.
Vesalius who came from Flanders went to Padua to
study medicine including anatomy, the subject of his
famous book on the ‘Fabric of the Human Body’,
published in 1543.
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Humanists, like-all men of their age, were affected by the
heightened
religious
tension
of
these
times.
They
attempted to propose solutions which would lead to
peace of mind. Thus concern for religions is markedly
evident in the humanism that developed in the sixteenth
century. Humanism assumed two different forms –
secular humanism which exerted a powerful influence on
historians, and Christian humanism, in which learning
was synthesized with the basic Christian belief.
The beginning of the humanist movement with Petrarch
and Boccaccio, brought about a growth in the sense of
history. Roman literature was inspected for the meaning
it could provide to legal terminology. The same attitude
characterized the approach to ancient art. There was a
determination to reach back into the past to recreate
these forms of thought and expression which had been
most characteristic of it. There was a repetitive imitation
of the art and poetry of the ancient world, classical
philosophy provided the basis for the creation of new
artistic forms. According to Burckhardt it was not the
Renaissance in Italy alone but its union with the genius of
the Italian people that achieved the consequent of the
Western world.
The Humanist intellectuals were frequently Iay men, who
worked in secondary schools and printing offices, and
informal academics who were teachers, and civil servants
and independent men of the letters closely tied to the
rich and the powerful. It became the function of the
humanists to educate the ruling class of the Italian city
states
and
principalities
to
provide
them
with
a
philosophy of man in harmony with their needs and
aspirations. The humanist culture thus became the
highest
symbol
of
ability
and
statesmen,
and
businessmen began to gather works of art and books. By
the fifteenth century humanist culture became the norm
for the privileged classes in the cities of Northern Italy
and even in the socially backward regions like the
kingdoms of Naples and Rome.
There is a common view that the major difference
between
Renaissance
north
of
the
Alps,
and
the
movement in Italy itself was the rise of ‘Christian
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13
humanism’ associated with Erasmus in particular. But
this is a false assumption, as the leaders of the Italian
movement were concerned with divinity as well as with
humanities
and
harmonize
their
they
made
devotion
a
to
conscious
antiquity
effort
with
to
their
Christianity. North of the Alps the humanist movement
was more concerned with sacred studies. The difference
was partly a result of the different institutional bases of
the movement and partly because of the timing; which
coincided with the movement for the reform of the
Church, before as well as after Martin Luther.
Christian humanism was undoubtedly the mainstream of
Renaissance
thought.
The
Christian
Humanists
also
accepted the corpus of classical literature as containing
nothing that was on growth of secular tastes. Aristotle
was re-discovered, but he was shorn of his medieval
connection with Christian thought and treated like other
ancient
philosophers
and
this
meant
a
distinction
between reason and faith which Platonism seemed to
deny. But as humanism spread to the North it was
Platonism which became influential. However Northern
humanism was influenced by Neo-Platonism of the South
as well as Christian impetus which had its organisms in
the Netherlands. Christian life was more important than
Christian doctrine and the inspiration of this life were set
forth clearly in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
Neo-Platonism emerged in the C15th Italy and attempted
to
bypass
the
entire
edifice
of
Scholasticism
and
attempted to return to the idea of Plato in their pure
form. Since the hold of Christianity was strong NeoPlatonism assumed a religious tone. The emphasis was
on man’s endeavours to see God, the source of perfection
by developing the gifts – the faculty which he had been
given.
The secular humanism of the C15th and C16th Italy can
be described as civic humanism or the replacement of
asceticism by active involvement in civic affairs, as the
most worthwhile human endeavour. Humanists were
appointed as leading officials in town governments and
chanceries, in business transaction accumulating wealth
and property. New merchant princes and despots were
computing for the services of the great architects,
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sculptors, painters and scholars. The development of
C15th ecclesiastical architecture provides one of the
best examples of the interplay between the history of
ideas and the history of the plastic arts. Alberto, who was
experimenting with symmetrical circular churches, was
also influenced by the Platonic and neo-Platonic ideas
which emphasized mathematical harmonies. St. Peter’s
Church was built not only to magnify the glory of God but
also the dignity of man. The same fusion of Platonism
with the Christian tradition is apparent in the Sistine
Chapel by Michel Angelo.
Civic humanism contributed to a fundamental revision of
the approach to historical study. History was no longer
illustrative adjunct to theology. Leonardo Bruni, Flavio
Biondo in the C15th and Machiavelli’s and Guicciardini in
the early C16th helped history to emerge as discipline in
its own right. The artist of the Renaissance also benefited
from the humanist influence which greatly enhanced
accuracy and realism. Humanism made possible the rise
of a more fervent and entrance form of dissent and
criticism. It led indirectly to the Reformation and
Christianity became the focus of re-interpolation and
argument.
Humanism was
also responsible
for
the
eventual revival of the Church and the beginning of the
Catholic Reformation.
Humanism which had set out to re-vitalize both secular
life and the Church, after two or three centuries, became
the bulwark of an authoritarian and carefully orthodox
social and ecclesiastical order. Humanism which had
earlier influenced republics of Italy now was tamed into
conformity to the needs of Absolutist monarchies and
established churches. As humanists were never radical
reformers, it is difficult to say that humanism failed.
There
were
some
leading
successes
of
humanism.
Education became more literary and classical and less
dominated by dialectic than in the Middle Ages. The
ruling elite became less feudal and military and more
literate and literary in outlook. Religion was reformed
though at the cost of religious disunity. Each of the major
religious reformers – Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists and
Anglicans
were
greatly
influenced
by
Renaissance
humanism. The penetration of humanism in schools and
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universities led to graduates equipped with humanistic
knowledge and skills. The belief that humanist education
was essential for public offices grew and humanism
remained dominant in education till the end of the C19th.