Early Renaissance has known the concept of suffering through the teaching of the catholic

church, especially in the Italian city states, where its influence was stronger than the other zone
in Europe.

One of the primordial element of suffering in the Renaissance period philosophy could be both
found in Petrarca and Dante Aligheri and that is the seven deadly sins. According to the
theological teachings, these sins: Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Wrath, Greed, and Sloth; were the
cause of human suffering. It harmed the soul and threw it into damnation.1

Like so much else in the Renaissance, the revival of Stoicism began with the Italian humanist
Petrarch (1304–74). His best-selling moral encyclopedia, Remedies for Good and Bad Fortune
(1366), helped to transmit many Stoic ethical doctrines: that emotions are mental illnesses; that
virtue is the only good and vice the only evil, so that physical pain, for instance, no matter how
severe, cannot be considered an ill;

Molina was the author of a treatise De iustitia et iure (‘‘On Justice and Right’’), which is
important for its criticism of Portuguese conduct in Africa, and for its castigation of the black
slave trade. Similar castigation may be found in the work of the Brazilian Jesuit, Antonio Vieira
(1608–97), who, preaching in Portuguese, compared the sufferings of black slaves to those of
Christ and threatened slaveholders with eternal damnation. 2

1
https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Seven_Deadly_Sins.pdf 06.06.2018/11:15
2
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY-2007- James Henkings