Discuss the principle features of humanism in the period of the European

Renaissance.

Renaissance humanism was a European intellectual movement that was a

crucial component of the Renaissance, beginning in Florence in the last years of
the 14th century. The humanist movement developed from the rediscovery by
European scholars of classical Latin and later Greek texts. Initially, a humanist
was simply a scholar or teacher of Latin literature.The term “middle ages” is
first encountered in scattered references by 15th century humanist.By the mid-
15th century humanism described a curriculum — the studia humanitatis —
comprising grammar, rhetoric, moral philosophy, poetry and history as studied
via classical authors.The Humanists aspired and strove for rebirth of ancient
and classical languages,education,science ,art and the church. Humanists mostly
believed that, although God created the universe, it was humans that had
developed and industrialized it. Beauty, a popular topic, was held to represent a
deep inner virtue and value, and an essential element in the path towards God.
By the end of this essay I would draw the readers closer to the progress in the
movement and would like to familiarize the reader with different
authors,scholars work during this period of time.

The Renaissance Humanism movement started first in Florence.The feudal and

the agrarian region was the greatest barrier to the development of an
intellectual movement.The Italian state had a large urban population consisting
of educated laymen,lawyers and civil servants.It was this class of people which
promoted the idea of humanism.The Italian humanists used their knowledge of
classical literature to raise the standard of eloquence.There were numerous
centres of humanist learning all over Italy in 14th century,such as
Florence,Padua,Vicenza and Verona. The rise of Humanism during the
Renaissance of the 14th-15th century Europe aimed at ending scholasticism,
scientism and the dominance of logic in thought; it sought to bring about a
reversion to rhetoric and ethics in the public domains and in intellectual
discourse.

The humanists were often opposed to philosophers of the preceding movement

of Scholasticism, the "schoolmen" of the universities of Italy, Paris, Oxford and
elsewhere. The scholastics' methodology was also derived from the classics,
especially Thomas Aquinas' synthesis of the thought of Aristotle, and a classical
debate which referred back to Plato and the Platonic dialogues was revived.
Humanism propounded the dignity of man; it highlighted man’s uniqueness vis-
à -vis his surroundings. Through man’s writing and speech, his intellect and
potential, Humanism sought a shift from the mystery of divinity to the
potentiality of humanity. It espoused freedom of will, or free-will in all of man’s
facets—pleasure, virtue, health, beauty—and sought to achieve a climax of
man’s potential through a full enjoyment of his many facets.

Humanism was influenced by the study of the classics. Its proponents, among
others included Erasmus, Petrarch, Van Hutter, Thomas More, Colet, de Groot,
Pascal, da Vinci, Alberti, Machiavelli, Ximenes, Botticelli etc. Consequently,
major influences of humanism were seen in most human endeavours—
literature, art, history, poetry, painting, politics, architecture, science,
technology etc. Humanism, at its core, criticised the medieval conception that
antiquity was unenlightened, coarse, condemned. Rather, Humanists regarded
the medieval ages as the dark age, by using the classics of antiquity in their
original form to aid this conception. A distinctive method of intellectual
procedure in this time was not so much a rediscovery of the classics; rather, it
was a new historical perspective in which the classics were now being viewed.

The most intellectual figure to emerge out of this period was Francesco
Petrarch,often described as the father of humanism. He was a great admirer of
Dante Alighieri,the famous poet and scholar ,author of extraordinary work ,
Divine Comedy.He represented the transition in literature from the medieval to
the renaissance period.Petrach prompted a secular word and remained active
in public life as a politician and diplomat.He is known for his vernacular poetry
and his great sonnets,the Canzoniere.His reputation as a humanist rests on his
Latin work.He showed the way to others by highlighting the value of classical
literatre as a vehicle of reforms.His programme of reforms consisted of firstly
reconstruction of classical culture followed by a careful understanding and
imitation of the classical hertitage.Finally instead of merely copying ancient
values and styles ,he suggested a series of changes and reforms.His
programmews became popular amng the wealthy oligarchs of Florence.The
humanist led by Petrarch gave importance to rhetoric or beauty of
language.The subsequent generation of humanists continued to attack
scholasticism.Giovanni Baccaccio was another important humanist and was
known for his workthe Decameron.He knowledge on greek was great.He
considered poetry to be a vehicle through which truths could be presented
symbolically. Cicero also served as a source of inspiration in the development of
civic humanism.Leonardo Bruni recreated history of the Roman republic in his
writings and suggested hat the virtue of the Roman state should be adopted by
Florence.Although civil humanism originated in Florence,it soon emerged in
other parts of Europe.It reflected the value of an urban society

Humanists proposed solutions for peace of mind and tranquillity in an

otherwise increasingly conflictual time of religious, spiritual and political
upheaval. There was a growing sense of time and history (Petrarch’s Letters of
the Ancient Dead), an awareness of one’s position in time. There was a rampant,
reinvigorated interest in archaeology; religious symbols were being understood
and appreciated as they appeared. Humanists thinkers, unlike the medievalists,
were not men of the church; they were lay folk, trying to understand their own
time and place in history, and their own potentialities that nature had endowed
them with. These men were teachers and civil servants, authors and thinkers.

Humanists placed a heavy emphasis on the study of primary sources rather

than the study of the interpretations of others. This is reflected in their motto of
ad fontes, or "to the sources" which informed the search for texts in the
monastery libraries of Europe. .Early 15th-century humanists were interested
in classical Latin and not in Medieval Latin, which was a different and more
developed language with many neologisms. Petrarch, sometimes called the
father of Renaissance humanism in Italy, called the Latin of the middle Ages
"barbarous;" when he collected his "Familiar Letters" his model was Cicero and
his model for Latin was that used by Virgil, who was emerging from the persona
as a magus that had accrued in the middle Ages. This new interest in the
classical literature led to the scouring of monastic libraries across Europe for
lost texts. One such hunt by Poggio Bracciolini, who was credited with the
discovery of the complete works of fifteen different authors, turned up
Vitruvius' work on art and architecture, allowing for the completion of the
Duomo of Florence by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Under Erasmus, a distinct movement, the “Devotio Moderna” was expounded.

Dovotio Moderna proclaimed the primacy of Christian life and Christian
doctrines. Devotio Moderna, or Modern Devotion, was a religious movement of
the Late Middle Ages. It came into being at the same time as Christian
Humanism, a meshing of Humanism and Christianity. Christian Humanism
advocated studying the fundamental texts of Christianity to come to one's own
relationship with God. The book “The Imitation of Christ,” written by Thomas
Kempis, a Brother of the Common Life, outlines the concepts of Modern
Devotion, based on personal connection to God and the active showing of love
towards Him (e.g., in the blessed sacrament of the altar or during mass). (The
15th century laity were able to study the scriptures by the advent of the
printing press.)

Practitioners of the Devotio Moderna emphasized the inner life of the individual
and promoted meditation according to certain strictures. With the ideals of
Christian Humanism, Devotio Moderna recommended a more individual
attitude towards belief and religion and was especially prominent in cities in
the Low Countries during the 14th and 15th centuries. It is regarded sometimes
as a contributing factor for Lutheranism and Calvinism. The origins of the
movement are bound up with the career of Geert Groote of Deventer
(Netherlands). From his work two kinds of communities formed, the Brethren
of the Common Life, consisting mainly of laymen, as well as monasteries in the
area of Windesheim near Zwolle. Devotio Moderna sought to display and
prescribe that the Christian way of life, with its emphasis on hard work, mercy
and simplicity was the best template to realise the human potential that so
fascinated the humanists. This was devotion, for and by the modern times.

The printing press played an important role in the spread of the new
learning.From the 1450’s there rose a ‘print culture’ in Europe .Johann
Guttenber had developed a printing press at Mainz in Germany and printed
about 200 copies of the Bible in 1452-3.The technology of the printing press
began to spread in several parts of Europe and it is estimated that by 1500
there were over 1000 printing presses.The impacting of printing was felt
everywhere in Europe and print shops became popular and important vehicle
of cultural exchange and communication.Aldus Manutius inVenice and Johannes
Froben in Basle were closely associated with the humanists activists.Multiple
copies of texts of even rare texts were made available and the printing press
acted as an important tool of the humanist propaganda.

Another intellectual movement, that of “NeoPlatonism” sought to, by analysing

the classical age, encourage man’s endeavour of seeing and coming into contact
with the divine, by utilising the faculties that he had been endowed with. Many
scholars argued that the renaissance was an age of Platonism whereas the study
of Aristotle was confined to the period of scholasticism.The Platonic Academies
that developed in the fifteenth century in Florence made significant
contribution to ideas and activities in the public sphere.They helped to
legitimize the position of the Medicis and offered justification for the increasing
professionalism in government.They also placed great stress on education and
search for knowledge

Neoplatonists believed human perfection and happiness were attainable in this

world, without awaiting an afterlife. Perfection and happiness— seen as
synonymous— could be achieved through philosophical contemplation. They
did not believe in an independent existence of evil. They compared it to
darkness, which does not exist in itself but only as the absence of light. So too,
evil is simply the absence of good. Things are good insofar as they exist; they
are evil only insofar as they are imperfect, lacking some good that they should
have. It is also a cornerstone of Neoplatonism to teach that all people return to
the Source. The Source, Absolute, or One is what all things spring from and, as a
super-consciousness (nous), is where all things return. It can be said that all
consciousness is wiped clean and returned to a blank slate when returning to
the Source. All things have force or potential (dynamis) as their essence. This
dynamis begets energy (energeia). When people return to the Source, their
energy returns to the One, Monad, or Source and is then recycled into the
cosmos, where it can be broken up and then amalgamated into other things.

The Neoplatonists believed in the pre-existence, and immortality of the soul.

The human soul consists of a lower irrational soul and a higher rational soul
(mind), both of which can be regarded as different powers of the one soul. It
was widely held that the soul possesses a "vehicle", accounting for the human
soul's immortality and allowing for its return to the One after death. After
bodily death, the soul takes up a level in the afterlife corresponding with the
level at which it lived during its earthly life. The Neoplatonists believed in the
principle of reincarnation. Although the most pure and holy souls would dwell
in the highest regions, the impure soul would undergo a purification, before
descending again, to be reincarnated into a new body, perhaps into animal
form. A soul which has returned to the One, achieves union with the cosmic
universal soul, and does not descend again, at least, not in this world period.

Although the founder of Neoplatonism is supposed to have been Ammonius

Saccas, the Enneads of his pupil Plotinus are the primary and classical document
of Neoplatonism. The philosophers called Neoplatonists did not found a school
as much as attempt to preserve the teachings of Plato. They regarded
themselves as Platonists. Neoplatonism was revived in the Italian Renaissance
by figures such as Nicholas Cusanus, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio
Ficino, the Medici, Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli and later Giordano
Bruno.Famous humanists intellectuals such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni
Mirandola helped Cosimo de Medici in Florence to set up the Platonic Academy.
Platonism in the Renaissance was a major force in European cultural life.

The central feature of humanism in this period was the commitment to the idea
that the ancient world (defined effectively as ancient Greece and Rome, which
included the entire Mediterranean basin) was the pinnacle of human
achievement, especially intellectual achievement, and should be taken as a
model by contemporary Europeans. According to this view of history, the fall of
Rome to Germanic invaders, in the fifth century, had led to the dissolution and
decline of this remarkable culture; the intellectual heritage of the ancient world
had been lost—many of its most important books had been destroyed and
dispersed—and a thousand years later, Europeans were still living in the
ghetto. The only way in which Europeans could expect to pull themselves out of
this intellectual catastrophe was to attempt to recover, edit, and make available
these lost texts, which included, among others, almost all the works of Plato. (In
the process, Greek texts had to be translated into Latin, the language of
intellectuals and the learned.) This enterprise, launched through the
reintroduction of Greek to Italy by Manuel Chrysoloras, generated enormous
enthusiasm, and the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were devoted to this
project.

France was more familiar with the ideas of the Italian renaissance and its
scholary artistics work than any other part of Europe.This was mainly due to
the French military invasions of Italy which brought thousands of French men
in direct contact with Italy.Though French humanism of the Italian
states,French literature proved more receptive to the Italian influence.Importnt
humanist figues in France are Lefevre d’Etaples,Gullaume Bude,teh greatest
French poet of the renaissance time was Rabelais.Spain also had its own
contribution in the movement.The humanist movement in Spain remained
orthodox form of Christian humanism was led by Cardinal Ximenes de
Cisneros.Humanism was primarily used to improve the content of education of
church officials to restore the prestige of the church andto improve the
intellectual calibre of the priests.The greatest work from Portugal in this period
was the Lusiads,an epic poem by Luis Vaz de Camoes.It was form of an epic
poem.

Unlike humanism in England,France and Spain where it remained

basically a movement for a new learning and educational reform s and was led
by important scholars and readers to church German humanism assumed a
distinct character .In Germany it developed an anti –Roman character.Germany
lacked an effective central authority.The universities had developed a strong
scholastics tradition that influenced intellectual and religious life .

The status of an upper class women seemed to have declined during this
period.There was open denying of the usefulness of the education.Throughout
the women in Europe got very little chance to contribute in this movement but
Princess Mary Tudor and Elizabeth of England,Marguerite of Navarre and
Catherine de Medici of France were the participants of this movement.The
Italian humanists prohibited women,including the rulers ,to study rhetoric and
other humanists subjects .They believed that all studies should stop once a
women was married.Some famous intellectuals are Christine de Pizan ,Isotta
Nogarola of Verona,daughters of Thomas More.

Renaissance humanist believed that the liberal arts (art, music, grammar,
rhetoric, oratory, history, poetry, using classical texts, and the studies of all of
the above) should be practiced by all levels of "richness". They also approved of
self, human worth and individual dignity. They hold the belief that everything in
life has a determinate nature, but man's privilege is to be able to choose his own
nature.Visual art was popular in renaissance Italy.

In architecture ,Filippo Brunelleschi of Florence initiated a new style of

architecture.The straight and plain line of the ancient Greek temple or the
elegant curve of the roman dome was substituted for the fanciful lofty Gothic.A
rounded arch replaced the pointed flying buttresses.Another place of emphasis
were the sculptors,Donatello was the greatest Florentine sculptor.He also
developed a three dimensional conceived sculptor.Michelanglo was also
celebrated for his sculpture as for his architecture and painting.The head of
David by him is a master piece.Artists used te religious theme as the most
popular vehicle for their idealism and the typical subjects included the
Crucifixtion,Resurrection,and the Ascension,and the Madonna and the
child.Painting during the 13th century was dominated by Greek
influence.Masaccio was an important artists.His frescos at the Santa Maria
Novella and in the Brancacci Chapel show that he was among the first to employ
he new discovery of prospective.Leonardo da Vinci ,Michelangelo,Raphael and
Titan were famous all over Europe for their respective master pieces in art. Pico
della Mirandola wrote the following concerning the creation of the universe and
man's place in it:

“But when the work was finished, the Craftsman kept wishing that there were
someone to ponder the plan of so great a work, to love its beauty, and to wonder
at its vastness. Therefore, when everything was done... He finally took thought
concerning the creation of man... He therefore took man as a creature of
indeterminate nature and, assigning him a place in the middle of the world,
addressed him thus: "Neither a fixed abode nor a form that is thine alone nor any
function peculiar to thyself have we given thee, Adam, to the end that according
to thy longing and according to thy judgement thou mayest have and possess
what abode, what form and what functions thou thyself shalt desire. The nature of
all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of law. Thou shalt
have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou
shalt have the power, out of thy soul's judgement, to be born into the higher
forms, which are divine." (Pico 224-225)”

Humanists believe that such possibilities lead to the diverse ways of human
development. Value is given to this uniqueness and encourages individualism. A
few of Christ’s teachings were deliberately forwarded to push for this view of
Christian Humanism during the Renaissance:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” -- Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke
10:27.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my
Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.
For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was
a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me
clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry
and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and
show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see
you sick or in prison and visit you?’“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth,
when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were
doing it to me!’” -- Matthew 25:34-40

The program of Christian Humanism was built on a conviction of the

importance of the rational faculties of man and it exalted the role of an
intellectual aristocracy. It emphasized nature rather than grace, ethics rather
than theology and action rather than contemplation.

As we come to the end of the essay,we do realize the importance of this

movement in the lives of the humans.At the heart of the renaissance philosophy
of man was an assertion of human dignity.There are some extraordinary pieces
of art created during this period of time in literature,visual
art,poetry,music,architecture as well as sculpture.And during the course of this
movement we do see that even though the movement started in Florence,Italy it
spread to other parts of Europe in no time and in a big fashion.At the end of this
essay I personally could pen down that may be its this period of time that man
has started believing in his own capabilities.And therefore humans as a specie
have come a long way in terms of inventions,achievements as well as
interaction.

Bibliography

1:Sinha,Arvind;Europe In Transition.

2:meenakshi phukan; Rise Of The Modern West.

3:reformation