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I. Individualism and Secularism
- a. Two characteristics of Italian Renaissance
- b. Italian culture matured
- c. Italy= cultural leader of Europe
- i. Product of wealthy urban lay society
- d. Most important literary movement associated with Renaissance was humanism
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
- a. Renaissance humanism= intellectual movement based on study of Classical literary works of Greece and Rome
- i. Humanists examined the studia humanitatis—grammar, rhetoric, poetry, moral philosophy or ethics, and historyà humanities
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
Central importance of literary preoccupations
- a. Central importance of literary preoccupations in Renaissance humanism evident in professional status or occupations of humanists
- i. Some teachers of humanities and gave lectures and held permanent positions as professors
- ii. Others secretaries in chancelleries of Italian city-states or at courts of princes or popes
- iii. All occupations=m secular
- iv. Most humanists= laymen
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
Petrarch
- a. father of Italian renaissance humanism
- i. Rejected dad’s desire to become lawyerà literary career
- ii. Lived in Avignon, but spent last decades in Italy as guests of princes and governments
- iii. First intellectual to characterize Middle Ages as dark, promoting mistaken belief that medieval culture was ignorant of Classical antiquity
- iv. Interests in classics led him on quest for forgotten Latin manuscrips and set in motion ransacking of monastic libraries throughout Europe
- 1. Inaugurated humanist emphasis on use of pure Classical Latin
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
Humanism in 15th C. Italy
In Florence
- i. In Florence, humanist movement took new direction at beginning of fifteenth century when closely tied to Florentine civic spirit and prideà civic humanism
- 1. 14th c humanists (Petracrch) said intellectual life lonely
- a. Rejected family and life of action inc ommunity
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
Civic World of Florence
- i. In civic world of Florence, intellectuals began to take a new view of their role as intellectuals.
- 1. Classical Roman Cicero became model
- a. Leonardo Bruni, a humanist, Florentine patriot, and chancellor of the city, wrote a biography of him (The New Cicero)
- i. Waxed enthusiasm about fusion of political action and literary creation in Cicero’s life
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
What was considered inspiration for Renaissance ideas
1. From Bruni’s time on, Cicero= inspiration for Renaissance ideal that was duty of intellectual to live active state life
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
Civic humanism
- i. Civic humanism reflected values of urban society of Italian Renaissance
- ii. Humanists believed that study of humanities should be put to service of state
- 1. Chancellors, councilors, advisors
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
a. Growing Interest in Classical Greek civilization
- i. One of first to gain knowledge of Greek= Bruni, who was pupil of Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras, who taught in Florence from 1396 to 1400
- ii. Humanists perused works of Plato and Greek poets, dramatists, historians, orators, etc.
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
a. 15th century: consciousness of being humanists: Lorenzo Valla
- 1. Brought up in Rome and educated in Latin and Greek
- 2. Became papal secretary
- 3. The Elegances of the Latin Language
- a. Tried to purify medieval Latin and restore Latin to proper positon over vernacular
- b. Examined proper use of Classical Latin and created new literary standard
- i. Early humanists: took any author before the 7th c. asClassical model
- ii. Valla identified different stages in development of Latin language and accepted only Latin of last century of Roman Republic and first century of empire
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I. Italian Renaissance Humanism
a. Humanism and Philosophy: 2nd half of 15th c./ Cosimo
- i. Second half of 15th c.: dramatic upsurge of interest in Plato occurred
- 1. Florentine Platonic Academy
- ii. Cosimo de’ Medici: de facto ruler of Florence
- 1. Became Platonic Academy patron and commissioned translation of Plato’s dialogues by Marsilio Ficino, one of the academy’s leaders
- a. Dedicated life to translation of Plato and exposition of the Platonic philosophy known as Neoplatonism
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Italian Renaissance Humanism a. Humanism and Philosophy: Ficino
- 1. In two major wokers, undertook the synthesis of Christianity and Platonism into single system
- 2. Neoplatonism based on two ideas:
- a. Neoplatonic hierarchy of substances
- b. Theory of spiritual love
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a. Neoplatonic hierarchy of substances
- i. Postulated idea of hierarchy of substances from lowest (plants) to purest spirit (God)
- 1. Humans link between material and spiritual world and their highest duty was to ascend toward that union with God that was the ture end of human existence
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a. Theory of spiritual love
i. Just as all people bound together by love, so too are parts of universe
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a. Renaissance Hermeticism
- i. Another product of Florentine intellectual environment of late 15th century
- ii. At request of Cosimo de’ Medici, Ficino translated into Latin the Greek Corpus Hermeticum
- 1. Hermetic manuscrips contained two kinds of writings
- a. Stress on occult sciences
- i. Emphasis on astrology, alchemy, and magic
- b. Other focu on theological and philosophical beliefs nad speculations
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Pantheism
1. Some Hermetic writings espoused pantheism, seeing divinity embodied in all aspects of nature nad in the heavenly bodies as well as earthly objects
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i. For Renaissance intellectuals, the Hermetic revival offered new view of humankind
- 1. Belief that humans created as divine beings with divine creative power but who had freely chosen to enter material world
- a. They could recover divinity through regenerative experience or purification of soul
- i. Regeneratedà true sages or magi who had knowledge of God and truth
- 1. In regaining divinity, they reacquired intimate knowledge of nature and ability to employ powers of nature for beneficial purposes
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i. Italy’s most prominent magi were __and __
- Ficino
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
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Pico
- 1. Pico produced Oration on the Dignity of Man
- a. Looked at many philosophical works of different backgrounds for common truth that he believed to be part of God’s revelation to humanity
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