The+Intellectual+Renaissance+in+Italy

Elizabeth Masso The Intellectual Renaissance in Italy I. The emergence and growth of individualism and secularism are most noticeable in the intellectual realms of the Italian Renaissance.  A. Italian Renaissance Humanism 1. The emergence of humanism a. Petrarch is known as the father of humanism. He was the first intellectual to characterize the middle Ages as a period of darkness. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Revolved around the “liberal arts”- Grammar, rhetoric, poetry, moral philosophy or ethics, and history. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l11 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">2. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanism in fifteenth-century Italy <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Leonardo Bruni- wrote // New Cicero //in which he recorded the fusion of political action and literary creation in Cicero’s life. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Cicero- served as an inspiration for the Renaissance ideal that it was the duty of an intellectual to live an active life for one’s state. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">c. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There was a growing interest in Greek in the humanism of the first half of the fifteenth-century especially the works of Plato and Greek poets. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">d. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Lorenzo Valla- demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery written in the eighth century. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">e. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Poggio Bracciolini- was responsible for finding all of the writings of fifteen different authors. Wrote // Facetiae // a lighthearted collection of jokes. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">f. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanists wished to restore a simpler, purer, and more ethical Christianity. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l11 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">3. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanism and Philosophy <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Florentine Platonic Academy- was an informal discussion group. Cosimo de Medici became its patron and commissioned a translation of Plato’s dialogues by Marsilio Ficini. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Marsilio Ficini- restated the idea of a hierarchy of substances, or great chain of being, from the lowest form of physical matter to the purest spirit, in which humans occupied a central or middle position. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">c. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Hermeticism- they believed that human beings had freely chosen to enter the material world and could recover their divinity through a purification of the soul. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">d. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Giovanni Mirandola- wrote // On the Oration of the Dignity of Man // in which he proclaimed the unlimited potentiality of human beings. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 69.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">B. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Education in the Renaissance <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">1. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Renaissance humanists <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l9 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Believed that human beings could be changed by education. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l9 level1 lfo8; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Pietro Vergerio- wrote // Concerning Character // it stressed the importance of the liberal arts as the key to true freedom. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo7; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">2. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Liberal Education <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The purpose of a liberal education was to produce individuals who followed a path of virtue and wisdom and possessed the rhetorical skills to persuade others to follow it. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Stressed the need for physical education. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">c. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanist schools were mostly for the elite and very few females attended. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo9; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">d. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The aim of humanist education was to produce complete citizens who could participate in the civic life of their communities. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 69.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">C. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanism and History <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l7 level1 lfo10; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">1. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanists Historians <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo11; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Reduced or eliminated the role of miracles in historical interpretation because they took a new approach to sources. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo11; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Greater attention was paid to the political events and forces that affected their city-states. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo11; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">c. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Humanists deemphasized divine intervention in favor of human motives, stressing political forces or the role of individuals in history. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo11; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">d. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Francesco Guicciardini- wrote // History of Italy // and // History of Florence // to represent the beginning of “modern analytical historiography”. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 69.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">D. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">The Impact of Printing <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 87.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l4 level1 lfo12; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">1. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Development of Printing <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l12 level1 lfo13; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">a. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Johannes Guttenberg- Gutenberg’s bible was the first real book produced from movable type. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l12 level1 lfo13; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">b. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Printing presses established throughout the Holy Roman Empire. <span style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 105.0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l12 level1 lfo13; text-indent: -.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif;">c. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Printing facilitated cooperation among scholars and helped produce standardized and definite texts. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">