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1350–1550 What new ideas were associated with the Renaissance? 51

Humanism Florence’s cultural elite; his lectures became known as
the Platonic Academy, but they were not really a school.
Giorgio Vasari was the first to use the word Renaissance Ficino regarded Plato as a divinely inspired precursor to
in print, but he was not the first to feel that something Christ. He translated Plato’s dialogues into Latin and
was being reborn. Two centuries earlier the Florentine wrote commentaries attempting to synthesize Christian
poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) and Platonic teachings. Plato’s emphasis on the spiri-
spent long hours searching for classical Latin manu- tual and eternal over the material and transient fit well
scripts in dusty monastery libraries and wandering with Christian teachings about the immortality of the
around the many ruins of the Roman Empire remain- soul. The Platonic idea that the highest form of love was
ing in Italy. He became obsessed with the classical past spiritual desire for pure, perfect beauty uncorrupted by
and felt that the writers and artists of ancient Rome bodily desires could easily be interpreted as the Christian
had reached a level of perfection in their work that desire for the perfection of God.
had not since been duplicated. Petrarch believed that For Ficino and his most gifted student, Giovanni
the recovery of classical texts and their use as mod- Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), both Christian and
els would bring about a new golden age of intellectual classical texts taught that the universe was a hierarchy
achievement, an idea that many others came to share. of beings from God down through spiritual beings to
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample.
Petrarch clearly thought he was witnessing the dawn- material beings, with humanity, right in the middle, as
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
ing of a new era in which writers and artists would recap- the crucial link that possessed both material and spiri-
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
ture the glory of the Roman Republic. Around 1350 he tual natures. Pico developed his ideas in a series of nine
proposed a new kind of education to help them do this, hundred theses, or points of argumentation, and offered
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
in which young men would study the works of ancient to defend them against anyone who wanted to come to
Roman authors, using them as models of how to write Rome. The pope declared some of the ideas heretical and
clearly, argue effectively, and speak persuasively. The study arrested Pico, though he was freed through the influence
of Latin classics became known as the studia humanitates of Lorenzo de’ Medici. At Lorenzo’s death, Pico became
(STOO-dee-uh oo-mahn-ee-TAH-tayz), usually trans- a follower of Savonarola, renounced his former ideas and
lated as “liberal studies” or the “liberal arts.” People who writings, and died of arsenic poisoning, perhaps at the
advocated it were known as humanists and their program hands of the recently ousted Medici family.
as humanism. Humanism was the main intellectual com- Along with Greek and Roman writings, Renaissance
ponent of the Renaissance. Like all programs of study, it thinkers were also interested in individual excellence.
contained an implicit philosophy: that human nature and Families, religious brotherhoods, neighborhoods, workers’
human achievements, evident in the classics, were worthy organizations, and other groups continued to have mean-
of contemplation. ing in people’s lives, but Renaissance thinkers increas-
Many humanists saw Julius Caesar’s transforma- ingly viewed these groups as springboards to far greater
tion of Rome from a republic into an empire as a individual achievement. They were especially interested
betrayal of the great society, marking the beginning of in individuals who had risen above their background to
a long period of decay that the barbarian migrations become brilliant, powerful, or unique. (See “Individu-
then accelerated. In his history of Florence written als in Society: Leonardo da Vinci,” page 52.) Such indi-
in 1436, the humanist historian and Florentine city viduals had the admirable quality of virtù (vihr-TOO),
official Leonardo Bruni (1374–1444) closely linked which is not virtue in the sense of moral goodness, but
the decline of the Latin language to the decline of the instead the ability to shape the world around according
Roman Republic: “After the liberty of the Roman peo- to one’s will. Bruni and other historians included biogra-
ple had been lost through the rule of the emperors . . . phies of individuals with virtù in their histories of cities
the flourishing condition of studies and of letters per- and nations, describing ways in which these people had
1
ished, together with the welfare of the city of Rome.” affected the course of history. Through the quality of their
In this same book, Bruni was also very clear that works and their influence on others, artists could also
by the time of his writing, the period of decay had exhibit virtù, an idea that Vasari captures in the title of his
ended and a new era had begun. He was the first to major work, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp-
divide history into three eras — ancient, medieval, and tors, and Architects. His subjects had achieved not simply
modern — though it was another humanist historian excellence but the pinnacle of excellence.
who actually invented the term Middle Ages.
In the fifteenth century Florentine humanists became
increasingly interested in Greek philosophy as well as
Roman literature, especially in the ideas of Plato. Under
the patronage of the Medici, the scholar Marsilio Ficino ■ humanism A program of study designed by Italians that
(1433–1499) began to lecture to an informal group of emphasized the critical study of Latin and Greek literature with
the goal of understanding human nature.
■ virtù The quality of being able to shape the world according to
one’s own will.

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