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{{Short description|Revival in the study of Classical antiquity}}
{{About-distinguish-text|the study of the humanities during the Renaissance|the broader human-centered philosophy, [[Humanism]]|the specifically religious approach, [[Christian humanism]]}}

[[File:Da Vinci Vitruve Luc Viatour.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|[[Leonardo da Vinci]]'s ''[[Vitruvian Man]]'' ({{circa|1490}}) shows the correlations of ideal human [[body proportions]] with [[geometry]] described by the ancient [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] [[architect]] [[Vitruvius]] in his ''[[De Architectura]]''.
{{blockquote|"In his explicit turn back to an ancient model in search of knowledge and wisdom, Leonardo follows early humanist practice. What he finds in Vitruvius is a mathematical formula for the proportions of all parts of the human body, which results in its idealized representation as the true microcosmic measure of all things. [...]The perfection of this ideal human form corresponds visually to the early humanist belief in the unique central placement of human beings within the divine universal order and their consequent human grandeur and dignity, expressed in the philosopher [[Pico della Mirandola]]'s&nbsp;[[Oration on the Dignity of Man]]&nbsp;(1486), known as the manifesto of the Renaissance."|source=Anne Hudson Jones<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hudson Jones |first1=Anne |title=Neh Institute |url=https://uva.theopenscholar.com/neh-institute/leonardo-da-vinci-art-anatomy-and-humanism |website=uva.theopenscholar.com |language=en}}</ref>}}]]

{{Humanism}}
'''Renaissance humanism''' is a [[worldview]] centered on the nature and importance of humanity that emerged from the study of [[Classical antiquity]]. 

Renaissance humanists sought to create a [[Citizenship|citizenry]] able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity, and thus capable of engaging in the [[Civic engagement|civic life]] of their communities and persuading others to [[Virtue|virtuous]] and [[Prudence|prudent]] actions. Humanism, while set up by a small elite who had access to books and education, was intended as a [[cultural movement]] to influence all of society. It was a program to revive the cultural heritage, literary legacy, and moral philosophy of the [[Greco-Roman civilization]]. 

It first began [[Italian Renaissance|in Italy]] and then spread across [[Western Europe]] in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ({{langx|it|umanista}}) referred to teachers and students of the [[humanities]], known as the {{lang|la|[[studia humanitatis]]}}, which included the study of [[Latin language|Latin]] and [[Ancient Greek language|Ancient Greek]] literatures, [[grammar]], [[rhetoric]], [[history]], [[poetry]], and [[moral philosophy]]. It was not until the 19th century that this began to be called ''humanism'' instead of the original ''humanities'', and later by the [[retronym]] ''Renaissance humanism'' to distinguish it from later humanist developments.<ref>The term ''la rinascita'' (rebirth) first appeared, however, in its broad sense in [[Giorgio Vasari]]'s ''[[Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani]]'' (The Lives of the Artists, 1550, revised 1568) [[Erwin Panofsky|Panofsky, Erwin]]. ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art'', New York: Harper and Row, 1960.
"The term ''umanista'' was used in fifteenth-century Italian academic slang to describe a teacher or student of classical literature and the arts associated with it, including that of rhetoric. The English equivalent 'humanist' makes its appearance in the late sixteenth century with a similar meaning. Only in the nineteenth century, however, and probably for the first time in [[Humanism in Germany|Germany]] in 1809, is the attribute transformed into a substantive: ''humanism'', standing for devotion to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and the humane values that may be derived from them" Nicholas Mann "The Origins of Humanism", ''Cambridge Companion to Humanism'', Jill Kraye, editor [Cambridge University Press, 1996], p. 1–2). The term "[[Middle Ages]]" for the preceding period separating classical antiquity from its "rebirth" first appears in Latin in 1469 as ''media tempestas''.  For ''humanities'' as the original term for Renaissance humanism, see James Fieser, Samuel Enoch Stumpf "Philosophy during the Renaissance", ''Philosophy: A Historical Survey with Essential Readings'' (9th ed.) [McGraw-Hill Education, 2014]</ref> 

During the [[Renaissance period]] most humanists were [[Christian humanism|Christians]], so their concern was to "purify and renew [[Christianity]]", not to do away with it. Their vision was to return ''[[ad fontes]]'' ("to the pure sources") to [[Gospel|the Gospels]], the [[New Testament]] and the [[Church Fathers]], bypassing the complexities of [[History of Christian theology|medieval Christian theology]].<ref>{{cite book |author-link=Alister McGrath |last=McGrath |first=Alister |date=2011 |title=Christian Theology: An Introduction |edition=5th |location=Oxford |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=978-1-4443-3514-9 |page=30}}</ref>

==Definition==

[[File:Giorgio Vasari - Six Tuscan Poets - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|252x252px|[[Italy in the Middle Ages|Medieval]] and [[Italian Renaissance|Renaissance]] Italian writers portrayed by [[Giorgio Vasari]] in ''[[Six Tuscan Poets]]'' (1544). From left to right: [[Cristoforo Landino]], [[Marsilio Ficino]], [[Francesco Petrarca]], [[Giovanni Boccaccio]], [[Dante Alighieri]], and [[Guido Cavalcanti]].<ref>{{cite web |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |date=2023 |title=Six Tuscan Poets, Giorgio Vasari |url=https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1850/six-tuscan-poets-giorgio-vasari |url-status=live |website=collections.artsmia.org |location=[[Minneapolis, Minnesota]] |publisher=[[Minneapolis Institute of Art]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230617020304/https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1850/six-tuscan-poets-giorgio-vasari |archive-date=17 June 2023 |access-date=28 August 2023}}</ref>]]

Very broadly, the project of the Italian Renaissance humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the ''studia humanitatis'': the study of the [[humanities]], "a curriculum focusing on language skills."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rummel |first1=Erika |title=Et cum theologo bella poeta gerit: The Conflict between Humanists and Scholastics Revisited |journal=The Sixteenth Century Journal |date=1992 |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=713–726 |doi=10.2307/2541729 |jstor=2541729 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2541729 |issn=0361-0160|url-access=subscription }}</ref> This project sought to recover the culture of ancient Greece and Rome through its literature and philosophy and to use this classical revival to imbue the ruling classes with the moral attitudes of said ancients—a project [[James Hankins]] calls one of "virtue politics."<ref name=":1">Hankins, James (2019). ''Virtue Politics: Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy.'' The Belknap Press of Harvard University.</ref> But what this ''studia humanitatis'' actually constituted is a subject of much debate. According to one scholar of the movement,
<blockquote>Early Italian humanism, which in many respects continued the grammatical and rhetorical traditions of the Middle Ages, not merely provided the old [[Trivium]] with a new and more ambitious name (''Studia humanitatis''), but also increased its actual scope, content and significance in the curriculum of the schools and universities and in its own extensive literary production. The ''studia humanitatis'' excluded logic, but they added to the traditional grammar and rhetoric not only history, [[Greek language|Greek]], and moral philosophy, but also made poetry, once a sequel of grammar and rhetoric, the most important member of the whole group.<ref>Paul Oskar Kristeller, ''Renaissance Thought II: Papers on Humanism and the Arts'' (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), p. 178. See also Kristeller's ''Renaissance Thought I'', "Humanism and Scholasticism In the Italian Renaissance", ''Byzantion 17'' (1944–45), pp. 346–74. Reprinted in ''Renaissance Thought'' (New York: Harper Torchbooks), 1961.</ref></blockquote>

However, in investigating this definition in his article "The changing concept of the ''studia humanitatis'' in the early Renaissance," Benjamin G. Kohl provides an account of the various meanings the term took on over the course of the period.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Kohl|first=Benjamin G.|date=1992|title=The Changing Concept of the "Studia Humanitatis" in the Early Renaissance |journal=Renaissance Studies|volume=6|issue=2|pages=185–209|doi=10.1111/1477-4658.t01-1-00116|issn=0269-1213 |jstor=24412493}}</ref> 
* Around the middle of the fourteenth century, when the term first came into use among Italian ''[[Intellectual|literati]]'', it was used in reference to a very specific text: as praise of the cultural and moral attitudes expressed in [[Cicero]]'s ''Pro Archia poeta'' (62 BCE). 
* Tuscan humanist [[Coluccio Salutati]] popularized the term in the 1370s, using the phrase to refer to culture and learning as a guide to moral life, with a focus on rhetoric and oration. Over the years, he came to use it specifically in literary praise of his contemporaries, but later viewed the ''studia humanitatis'' as a means of editing and restoring ancient texts and even understanding scripture and other divine literature. 
* But it was not until the beginning of the [[quattrocento]] (15th century) that the ''studia humanitatis'' began to be associated with particular academic disciplines, when [[Pier Paolo Vergerio]], in his ''De ingenuis moribus'', stressed the importance of rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy as a means of moral improvement. 
* By the middle of the century, the term was adopted more formally, as it started to be used in Bologna and Padua in reference to university courses that taught these disciplines as well as Latin poetry, before then spreading northward throughout Italy. 
* But the first instance of it as encompassing grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy all together only came when [[Pope Nicholas V|Tommaso Parentucelli]] wrote to [[Cosimo de' Medici]] with recommendations regarding his library collection, saying, ''"de studiis autem humanitatis quantum ad grammaticam, rhetoricam, historicam et poeticam spectat ac moralem"'' ("concerning studies of the humanities, insofar as they [consist of] grammar, rhetoric, history and poetry, and also ethics").<ref>Sforza, Giovanni (1884). "La patria, la famiglia e la giovinezza di papa Niccolò V". ''Atti della Reale Accademia Lucchese di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti''. '''XXIII''': 380.</ref> 
And so, the term ''studia humanitatis'' took on a variety of meanings over the centuries, being used differently by humanists across the various Italian city-states as one definition got adopted and spread across the country. Still, it has referred consistently to a mode of learning—formal or not—that results in one's moral edification.<ref name=":0" />

Under the influence and inspiration of the [[classics]], Renaissance humanists developed a new rhetoric and new learning. Some scholars also argue that humanism articulated new [[Moral philosophy|moral]] and [[Civic engagement|civic]] perspectives, and [[Value (ethics and social sciences)|values]] offering guidance in life to all [[Citizenship|citizens]]. Renaissance humanism was a response to what came to be depicted by later [[whig historians]] as the "narrow pedantry" associated with medieval [[scholasticism]].<ref>Craig W. Kallendorf, introduction to ''Humanist Educational Treatises'', edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London England: The I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2002) p. vii.</ref>

==History==
{{Renaissance}}
[[File:Fiorenza Frontispiece.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Frontispiece depicting [[Dante Alighieri]], [[Giovanni Boccaccio]], and [[Francesco Petrarca]] with the coat of arms of the [[Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany|Medici]]–[[Eleanor of Toledo|Toledo]] family on top]]

In the last years of the [[13th century]] and in the first decades of the [[14th century]], the cultural climate was changing in some European regions. The rediscovery, study, and renewed interest in authors who had been forgotten, and in the classical world that they represented, inspired a flourishing return to linguistic, stylistic and literary models of antiquity. There emerged a consciousness of the need for a cultural renewal, which sometimes also meant a detachment from contemporary culture. Manuscripts and inscriptions were in high demand and graphic models were also imitated. This "return to the ancients" was the main component of so-called "pre-humanism", which developed particularly in [[Tuscany]], in the [[Veneto]] region, and at the papal court of [[Avignon]], through the activity of figures such as [[Lovato Lovati]] and [[Albertino Mussato]] in Padua, [[Landolfo Colonna]] in Avignon, [[Ferreto de' Ferreti]] in Vicenza, [[Convenevole from Prato]] in Tuscany and then in [[Avignon]], and many others.<ref>{{cite web|date=|publisher=Latin Paleography|title=Return to the style of the ancients and the anti-gothic reaction|url=https://spotlight.vatlib.it/latin-paleography/feature/18-return-to-the-style-of-the-ancients-and-the-anti-gothic-reaction|website=[[www.vatlib.it]]}}</ref>

By the 14th century some of the first humanists were great collectors of antique [[manuscript]]s, including [[Petrarch]], [[Giovanni Boccaccio]], [[Coluccio Salutati]], and [[Poggio Bracciolini]]. Of the four, Petrarch was dubbed the "Father of Humanism," as he was the one who first encouraged the study of pagan civilizations and the teaching of classical virtues as a means of preserving Christianity.<ref name=":1" /> He also had a [[Petrarch's library|library]], of which many manuscripts did not survive.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=January 1981|author=Fredi Chiappelli|title=Petrarch and Innovation: A Note on a Manuscript|journal=MLN |volume=96 |issue=1 |pages=138–143 |doi=10.2307/2906433 |jstor=2906433 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2906433|url-access=subscription }}{{Retrieved|access-date=2023-02-14}}</ref>{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} Many worked for the [[Catholic Church]] and were in [[Holy orders in the Catholic Church|holy orders]], like Petrarch, while others were [[lawyer]]s and [[chancellor]]s of Italian cities, and thus had access to book copying workshops, such as Petrarch's disciple [[Salutati]], the [[Chancellor of Florence]].

In Italy, the humanist educational program won rapid acceptance and, by the mid-15th century, many of the [[upper class]]es had received humanist educations, possibly in addition to traditional [[Scholasticism|scholastic]] ones. Some of the highest officials of the Catholic Church were humanists with the resources to amass important libraries. Such was Cardinal [[Basilios Bessarion]], a [[Religious conversion|convert]] to the Catholic Church from [[Greek Orthodoxy]], who was considered for the [[papacy]], and was one of the most learned scholars of his time. There were several 15th-century and early 16th-century humanist Popes<ref>They include [[Innocent VII]], [[Nicholas V]], [[Pius II]], [[Sixtus IV]], [[Alexander VI]], [[Julius II]] and [[Leo X]]. Innocent VII, patron of Leonardo Bruni, is considered the first humanist Pope. See [https://books.google.com/books?id=BLgfAAAAIAAJ&dq=renaissance+Humanist+popes&pg=PA49  James Hankins, ''Plato in the Italian Renaissance'' (New York: Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 1990), p. 49]; for the others, see their respective entries in Sir John Hale's ''Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance'' (Oxford University Press, 1981).</ref> one of whom, [[Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini]] (Pope Pius II), was a prolific author and wrote a treatise on ''The Education of Boys''.<ref>See ''Humanist Educational Treatises'', (2001) pp. 126–259. This volume (pp. 92–125) contains an essay by [[Leonardo Bruni]], entitled "The Study of Literature", on the education of girls.</ref> These subjects came to be known as the humanities, and the movement which they inspired is shown as humanism.

The migration waves of [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance|Byzantine Greek scholars]] and émigrés in the period following the Crusader [[Sack of Constantinople (1204)|sacking of Constantinople]] and the [[fall of Constantinople|end of the Byzantine Empire]] in 1453 was a very welcome addition to the Latin texts scholars like Petrarch had found in monastic libraries<ref>{{Cite web|last=Cartwright|first=Mark|date=|publisher=The Classical Ideal|title=Renaissance Humanism|url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Renaissance_Humanism/#:~:text=Renaissance%20Humanism%20was%20a%20movement,it%20is%20to%20be%20human|access-date=March 23, 2021|website=[[World History Encyclopedia]]}}</ref> for the revival of [[ancient Greece|Greek]] literature and science via their greater familiarity with ancient Greek works.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/late/laterbyz/harris-ren.html |title=Byzantines in Renaissance Italy |access-date=2016-03-28 |archive-date=2018-08-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831071900/https://www.the-orb.net/encyclop/late/laterbyz/harris-ren.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>[http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/polyglots/greeks-in-italy.html Greeks in Italy]</ref> They included [[Gemistus Pletho]], [[George of Trebizond]], [[Theodorus Gaza]], and [[John Argyropoulos]].

There were important centres of Renaissance humanism in [[Bologna]], [[Ferrara]], [[Florence]], [[Genoa]], [[Livorno]], [[Mantua]], [[Padua]], [[Pisa]], [[Naples]], [[Rome]], [[Siena]], [[Venice]], [[Vicenza]], and [[Urbino]].

Italian humanism spread to [[Spain]], with [[Francisco de Vitoria]] becoming its first great exponent.{{sfnp|Frayle Delgado|2004|p=28-29}} His work on the rights of the Spanish subjects in America, which became seminal, earned him being called the father of modern [[international law]].{{sfnp|Scott|2000|p=163-173}} He founded the [[School of Salamanca]], of which [[Antonio de Nebrija]] became one of its main members. A circle of humanists also formed around King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]], with names like [[Alfonso de Valdés|Alfonso]] and [[Juan de Valdés]], [[Juan Luis Vives]] and [[Luisa Sigea de Velasco|Luisa Sigea]].<ref>Jones, Richard O., ''El Renacimiento en España: ideas y actitudes'', in Historia de la literatura española, vol. 2: Siglo de Oro: prosa y poesía., Barcelona, Ariel, 2000 (14ª ed. rev.), chap. 1, pgs. 17-54</ref> Charles appointed another noted humanist, [[Mercurino di Gattinara]], as his chancellor.{{sfnp|Callado Estela|2022|p=58-59}} The Valdés brothers, Gattinara and [[Antonio de Guevara]] were proponents of working towards the restoration of a [[Christian]], [[universal monarchy|universal]] [[Roman Empire]], an idea originally inspired by [[Dante Alighieri]] in his ''[[Monarchia]]''.{{sfnp|Callado Estela|2022|p=97-99}} Spain's perennial state of war, in conflicts like the [[Italian Wars]] and the [[Ottoman–Habsburg wars|Ottoman-Habsburg Wars]], favored a militant conception of humanism known as ''[[las armas y las letras]]'' ("the weapons and the letters"), first codified in Charles' court by [[Baldassare Castiglione]].{{sfnp|García Gibert|2010|p=35-36}}<ref>Fernández Hoyos, M. A. (1998). ''Las armas y las letras en Felipe II''. "Felipe II (1598-1998), Europa dividida, la monarquía católica de Felipe II", Vol. 4, ISBN 84-8230-025-3, págs. 117-132</ref>

Humanism also spread northward to [[Humanism in France|France]], [[Germany]], the [[Low Countries]], Poland-Lithuania, Hungary and [[England]] with the adoption of large-scale printing after 1500, and it became associated with the [[Reformation]]. In France, pre-eminent humanist [[Guillaume Budé]] (1467–1540) applied the [[philology|philological]] methods of Italian humanism to the study of antique [[coin]]age and to [[legal history]], composing a detailed commentary on [[Corpus Juris Civilis|Justinian's Code]]. Budé was a [[Absolute monarchy|royal absolutist]] (and not a [[republicanism|republican]] like the early Italian ''umanisti'') who was active in civic life, serving as a [[diplomat]] for [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] and helping to found the [[Collège de France|Collège des Lecteurs Royaux]] (later the {{lang|fr|Collège de France|italic=no}}). Meanwhile, [[Marguerite de Navarre]], the sister of Francis I, was a [[poet]], [[novelist]], and [[religious mystic]]<ref>She was the author of ''Miroir de l'ame pecheresse'' (''The Mirror of a Sinful Soul''), published after her death, among other devotional poetry. See also "Marguerite de Navarre: Religious Reformist" in Jonathan A. Reid, [http://www.brill.nl/print.aspx?partid=210&pid=18212   ''King's sister--queen of dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549) and her evangelical network''] {{dead link|date=June 2018|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} (''Studies in medieval and Reformation traditions, 1573–4188''; v. 139). Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009. (2 v.: (xxii, 795 p.) {{ISBN|978-90-04-17760-4}} (v. 1), 9789004177611 (v. 2)</ref> who gathered around her and protected a circle of vernacular poets and writers, including [[Clément Marot]], [[Pierre de Ronsard]], and [[François Rabelais]].

==Paganism and Christianity in the Renaissance==

Many humanists were churchmen, most notably Pope Pius II, [[Pope Sixtus IV|Sixtus IV]], and [[Pope Leo X|Leo X]],<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|first=Klemens|last=Löffler|title=Humanism|encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia|volume=VII|pages=538–542|publisher=Robert Appleton Company|location=New York|year=1910}}</ref><ref>See note two, above.</ref> and there was often patronage of humanists by senior church figures.<ref>Davies, 477</ref> Much humanist effort went into improving the understanding and translations of Biblical and early Christian texts, both before and after the Reformation, which was greatly influenced by the work of non-Italian, Northern European figures such as [[Erasmus]], [[Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples]], [[William Grocyn]], and Swedish Catholic Archbishop in exile [[Olaus Magnus]].

===Description===
''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'' describes the [[rationalism]] of ancient writings as having tremendous impact on [[Renaissance]] scholars:

{{blockquote|Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophised on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Humanism|encyclopedia=[[The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy]], Second Edition|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1999}} p.397 quotation: {{blockquote|The unashamedly humanistic flavor of classical writings had a tremendous impact on Renaissance scholar.}}</ref>}}

In 1417, for example, [[Poggio Bracciolini]] discovered the manuscript of [[Lucretius]], ''[[De rerum natura]]'', which had been lost for centuries and which contained an explanation of [[Epicureanism|Epicurean doctrine]], though at the time this was not commented on much by Renaissance scholars, who confined themselves to remarks about Lucretius's grammar and [[syntax]].

Only in 1564 did French commentator Denys Lambin (1519–72) announce in the preface to the work that "he regarded Lucretius's Epicurean ideas as 'fanciful, absurd, and opposed to Christianity'." Lambin's preface remained standard until the nineteenth century.<ref>See Jill Kraye's essay, "Philologists and Philosophers" in the ''Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism'' [1996], p. 153.)</ref> Epicurus's unacceptable doctrine that pleasure was the highest good "ensured the unpopularity of his philosophy".<ref>(Kraye [1996] p. 154.)</ref> [[Lorenzo Valla]], however, puts a defense of epicureanism in the mouth of one of the interlocutors of one of his dialogues.

===Epicureanism===
Charles Trinkhaus regards Valla's "epicureanism" as a ploy, not seriously meant by Valla, but designed to refute Stoicism, which he regarded together with epicureanism as equally inferior to Christianity.<ref>See Trinkaus, ''In Our Image and Likeness'' Vol. 1 (University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 103–170</ref> Valla's defense, or adaptation, of Epicureanism was later taken up in ''The Epicurean'' by [[Erasmus]], the "Prince of humanists:"

{{blockquote|If people who live agreeably are [[Epicureans]], none are more truly [[Epicurean]] than the righteous and godly.  And if it is names that bother us, no one better deserves the name of Epicurean than the revered founder and head of the [[Christianity|Christian]] philosophy [[Christ]], for in Greek ''epikouros'' means "helper".  He alone, when the [[law of Nature]] was all but blotted out by sins, when the [[law of Moses]] incited to lists rather than cured them, when [[Satan]] ruled in the world unchallenged, brought timely aid to perishing humanity.  Completely mistaken, therefore, are those who talk in their foolish fashion about Christ's having been sad and gloomy in character and calling upon us to follow a dismal mode of life.  On the contrary, he alone shows the most enjoyable life of all and the one most full of true pleasure.<ref name="Lepage2012">{{cite book|author=John L. Lepage|title=The Revival of Antique Philosophy in the Renaissance|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xb2uw2LQjPQC&pg=PA111|date=5 December 2012|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-28181-4|page=111}}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>}}

This passage exemplifies the way in which the humanists saw pagan [[Ancient Greek literature|classical works]], such as the philosophy of [[Epicurus]], as being in harmony with their interpretation of [[Christianity]].

===Neo-Platonism===
[[Platonism in the Renaissance|Renaissance Neo-Platonists]] such as [[Marsilio Ficino]] (whose translations of Plato's works into Latin were still used into the 19th century) attempted to reconcile [[Platonism]] with Christianity, according to the suggestions of early Church Fathers [[Lactantius]] and [[Augustine of Hippo|Saint Augustine]]. In this spirit, [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola|Pico della Mirandola]] attempted to construct a [[syncretism]] of religions and philosophies with Christianity, but his work did not win favor with the church authorities, who rejected it because of his views on magic.<ref name="O'Callaghan2012">{{cite book|author=Daniel O'Callaghan|title=The Preservation of Jewish Religious Books in Sixteenth-Century Germany: Johannes Reuchlin's Augenspiegel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xt6b2Wi8kCQC&pg=PA43|date=9 November 2012|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-24185-5|pages=43–}}</ref>

== Evolution and reception ==
The historian of the Renaissance [[John Rigby Hale|Sir John Hale]] cautions against too direct a linkage between Renaissance humanism and modern uses of the term humanism: "Renaissance humanism must be kept free from any hint of either 'humanitarianism' or 'humanism' in its modern sense of rational, non-religious approach to life ... the word 'humanism' will mislead ... if it is seen in opposition to a Christianity its students in the main wished to supplement, not contradict, through their patient excavation of the sources of ancient God-inspired wisdom."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=dJc3cOUVIYMC&q=contradict Hale, 171.] See also Davies, 479–480 for similar caution.</ref>
===Individual freedom===
Historian Steven Kreis expresses a widespread view (derived from the 19th-century Swiss historian [[Jacob Burckhardt]]), when he writes that: <blockquote>The period from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth worked in favor of the general emancipation of the individual. The city-states of northern Italy had come into contact with the diverse customs of the East, and gradually permitted expression in matters of taste and dress. The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kreis|first=Steven|title=Renaissance Humanism|year=2008|url=http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/humanism.html|access-date=2009-03-03}}</ref></blockquote>
Two noteworthy trends in some Renaissance humanists were Renaissance Neo-Platonism and [[Hermeticism]], which through the works of figures like [[Nicholas of Kues]], [[Giordano Bruno]], [[Cornelius Agrippa]], [[Tommaso Campanella|Campanella]] and [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola]] sometimes came close to constituting a new religion itself.{{says who|date=September 2024}} Of these two, Hermeticism has had great continuing influence in Western thought, while the former mostly dissipated as an intellectual trend, leading to movements in [[Western esotericism]] such as [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|Theosophy]] and [[New Age]] thinking.<ref>Plumb, 95</ref> The "Yates thesis" of [[Frances Yates]] holds that before falling out of favour, esoteric Renaissance thought introduced several concepts that were useful for the development of scientific method, though this remains a matter of controversy.

===Sixteenth century and beyond===
{{Reformationliterature |expanded=overview}}
Though humanists continued to use their scholarship in the service of the church into the middle of the sixteenth century and beyond, the sharply confrontational religious atmosphere following the Reformation resulted in the [[Counter-Reformation]] that sought to silence challenges to [[Catholic theology]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture: Humanism|publisher=The Library of Congress|url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/vatican/humanism.html|date=2002-07-01|access-date=2009-03-03}}</ref> with similar efforts among the [[Protestant denominations]]. Some humanists, even moderate Catholics such as [[Erasmus]], risked being declared heretics for their perceived criticism of the institutional church.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title=Humanism|encyclopedia=Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion|volume=F-N|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopedicdict0000meag/page/1733 1733]|publisher=Corpus Publications|year=1979|isbn=978-0-9602572-1-8|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopedicdict0000meag/page/1733}}</ref>

A number of humanists joined the Reformation movement and took over leadership functions, for example, [[Philipp Melanchthon]], [[Ulrich Zwingli]], [[Henry VIII]], [[John Calvin]], and [[William Tyndale]]. Others, like [[Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples]], were favorable to it although they remained Catholic.

With the Counter-Reformation initiated by the [[Council of Trent]] (1545–1563), positions hardened and a strict Catholic orthodoxy based on scholastic philosophy was imposed. However the education systems developed by Jesuits ran on humanist lines.

== Historiography ==

=== Baron thesis ===
[[Hans Baron]] (1900–1988) was the inventor of the now ubiquitous term "civic humanism." First coined in the 1920s and based largely on his studies of Leonardo Bruni, Baron's "thesis" proposed the existence of a central strain of humanism, particularly in Florence and Venice, dedicated to republicanism. 

As argued in his ''[[Masterpiece|chef-d'œuvre]]'', ''The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny'', the German historian thought that civic humanism originated in around 1402, after the great struggles between Florence and Visconti-led Milan in the 1390s. He considered Petrarch's humanism to be a rhetorical, superficial project, and viewed this new strand to be one that abandoned the feudal and supposedly "otherworldly" (i.e., divine) ideology of the Middle Ages in favour of putting the republican state and its freedom at the forefront of the "civic humanist" project.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hankins|first=James|date=1995|title=The "Baron Thesis" after Forty Years and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2709840|journal=Journal of the History of Ideas|volume=56|issue=2|pages=309–338|doi=10.2307/2709840|jstor=2709840|issn=0022-5037|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Already controversial at the time of ''The Crisis''<nowiki/>' publication, the "Baron Thesis" has been met with even more criticism over the years.

Even in the 1960s, historians [[Philip James Jones|Philip Jones]] and [[Peter Herde]]<ref>See Philip Jones, "Communes and Despots: The City-State in Late-Medieval Italy," ''Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'', 5th ser., 15 (1965), 71–96, and review of Baron's ''Crisis'' (2nd ed.), in ''History'', 53 (1968), 410–13; Peter Herde, "Politik und Rhetorik in Florenz am Vorabend der Renaissance," ''Archiv far Kulturgeschichte'', 50 (1965), 141–220; ''idem'', "Politische Verhaltensweise der Florentiner Oligarchie,1382–1402," in ''Geschichte und Verfassungsgefüge: Frankfurter Festgabe für'' ''Walter Schlesinger'' (Wiesbaden, 1973).</ref> found Baron's praise of "republican" humanists naive, arguing that republics were far less liberty-driven than Baron had believed, and were practically as undemocratic as monarchies. James Hankins adds that the disparity in political values between the humanists employed by oligarchies and those employed by princes was not particularly notable, as all of Baron's civic ideals were exemplified by humanists serving various types of government. In so arguing, he asserts that a "political reform program is central to the humanist movement founded by Petrarch. But it is not a 'republican' project in Baron's sense of republic; it is not an ideological product associated with a particular regime type."<ref name=":1" />

=== Garin and Kristeller ===
Two renowned Renaissance scholars, [[Eugenio Garin]] and [[Paul Oskar Kristeller]] collaborated with one another throughout their careers. But while the two historians were on good terms, they fundamentally disagreed on the nature of Renaissance humanism. 

* Kristeller affirmed that Renaissance humanism used to be viewed just as a project of Classical revival, one that led to great increase in Classical scholarship. But he argued that this theory "fails to explain the ideal of eloquence persistently set forth in the writings of the humanists," asserting that "their classical learning was incidental to" their being "professional rhetoricians."<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Kristeller|first=Paul Oskar|title=Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance|date=1944|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44168603|journal=Byzantion|volume=17|pages=346–374|jstor=44168603|issn=0378-2506}}</ref> Similarly, he considered their influence on philosophy and particular figures' philosophical output to be incidental to their humanism, viewing grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and ethics to be the humanists' main concerns. 
* Garin, on the other hand, viewed philosophy itself as being ever-evolving, each form of philosophy being inextricable from the practices of the thinkers of its period. He thus considered the Italian humanists' break from Scholasticism and newfound freedom to be perfectly in line with this broader sense of philosophy.<ref name=":2">Hankins, James. 2011. "Garin and Paul Oskar Kristeller: Existentialism, Neo-Kantianism, and the Post-war Interpretation of Renaissance Humanism". In ''Eugenio Garin: Dal Rinascimento all'Illuminismo'', ed. Michele Ciliberto, 481–505. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.</ref>

During the period in which they argued over these differing views, there was a broader cultural conversation happening regarding Humanism: one revolving around [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] and [[Martin Heidegger]]. 
* In 1946, Sartre published a work called ''"L'existentialisme est un humanisme''," in which he outlined his conception of existentialism as revolving around the belief that "''existence'' comes before ''essence''"; that man "first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards," making himself and giving himself purpose.<ref>Sartre, Jean-Paul. "Existentialism Is a Humanism". In ''Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre'', tr. Walter Kaufmann, 287–311. New York: Meridian Books, 1956.</ref> 
* Heidegger, in a response to this work of Sartre's, declared: "For this is humanism: meditating and caring, that human beings be human and not inhumane, "inhuman", that is, outside their essence."<ref>Heidegger, Martin. "Letter on 'Humanism{{'"}}. In ''Pathmarks'', ed. William McNeill, 239–276. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.</ref> He also discussed a decline in the concept of humanism, pronouncing that it had been dominated by metaphysics and essentially discounting it as philosophy. He also explicitly criticized Italian Renaissance humanism in the letter.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Kakkori|first1=Leena|last2=Huttunen|first2=Rauno|date=June 2012|title=The Sartre-Heidegger Controversy on Humanism and the Concept of Man in Education|url=https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00680.x|journal=Educational Philosophy and Theory|volume=44|issue=4|pages=351–365|doi=10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00680.x|s2cid=145476769|issn=0013-1857|url-access=subscription}}</ref> 

While this discourse was taking place outside the realm of Renaissance Studies (for more on the evolution of the term "humanism," see [[Humanism]]), this background debate was not irrelevant to Kristeller and Garin's ongoing disagreement. Kristeller—who had at one point studied under Heidegger<ref>R. Popkin, ''The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle'' rev. ed. (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. viii.</ref>—also discounted (Renaissance) humanism as philosophy, and Garin's ''Der italienische Humanismus'' was published alongside Heidegger's response to Sartre—a move that Rubini describes as an attempt "to stage a pre-emptive confrontation between historical humanism and philosophical neo-humanisms."<ref>Rubini, Rocco (2011). "The Last Italian Philosopher: Eugenio Garin (with an Appendix of Documents)." ''Intellectual History Review''. '''21''' (2): 209–230. DOI: 10.1080/17496977.2011.574348</ref> Garin also conceived of the Renaissance humanists as occupying the same kind of "characteristic angst the existentialists attributed to men who had suddenly become conscious of their radical freedom," further weaving philosophy with Renaissance humanism.<ref name=":2" />

Hankins summarizes the Kristeller v. Garin debate as:
* Kristeller conceives of professional philosophers as being very formal and method-focused.<ref name=":2" /> Renaissance humanists, on the other hand, he viewed to be professional rhetoricians who, using their classically-inspired ''[[paideia]]'' or ''institutio'', did improve fields such as philosophy, but without the practice of philosophy being their main goal or function.<ref name=":3" />
* Garin, instead, wanted his "humanist-philosophers to be organic intellectuals," not constituting a rigid school of thought, but having a shared outlook on life and education that broke with the medieval traditions that came before them.<ref name=":2" />

===I. R. Grigulevich===
According to Russian historian and Stalinist assassin [[Iosif Grigulevich]] two characteristic traits of late Renaissance humanism were "its revolt against abstract, Aristotelian modes of thought and its concern with the problems of war, poverty, and social injustice."<ref>{{cite journal|author1-link=Benjamin Keen |last1=Keen |first1=Benjamin |title=The Legacy of Bartolomé de las Casas |journal=Ibero-Americana Pragensia |date=1977 |volume=11 |url=https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/sites/liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/files/history/ideas/the_legacy_of_bartolome_de_las_casas.pdf}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Christian humanism]]
* [[Greek scholars in the Renaissance]]
* [[Legal humanists]]
* [[List of Renaissance humanists]]
* [[New Learning]]
* [[Renaissance Latin]]
* [[Renaissance humanism in Northern Europe]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
* Bolgar, R. R. ''The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries: from the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance''. Cambridge, 1954.
* {{cite book|last=Callado Estela|first=Emilio|title=Tiempos de reforma: Pensamiento y religión en la época de Carlos V|date=2022|publisher=ESIC|isbn=9788411228411}}
* [[Ernst Cassirer|Cassirer, Ernst]]. ''Individual and Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy''. Harper and Row, 1963.
* Cassirer, Ernst (Editor), Paul Oskar Kristeller (Editor), John Herman Randall (Editor). ''The Renaissance Philosophy of Man''. University of Chicago Press, 1969.
* Cassirer, Ernst. ''Platonic Renaissance in England''. Gordian, 1970.
* Celenza, Christopher S. ''The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanism, Historians, and Latin's Legacy''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2004 {{ISBN|978-0-8018-8384-2}}
* Celenza, Christopher S. ''Petrarch: Everywhere a Wanderer''. London: Reaktion. 2017
* Celenza, Christopher S. ''The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance: Language, Philosophy, and the Search for Meaning''. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2018
* [[Desiderius Erasmus|Erasmus, Desiderius]]. "The Epicurean". In ''Colloquies''.
* {{cite book|last=Frayle Delgado|first=Luis|title=Pensamiento humanista de Francisco de Vitoria|date=2004|publisher=San Esteban|isbn=9788482601458}}
* [[Eugenio Garin|Garin, Eugenio]]. ''Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance''. New York: Doubleday, 1969.
* Garin, Eugenio. ''Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance.'' Basil Blackwell, 1965.
* Garin, Eugenio. ''History of Italian Philosophy.'' (2 vols.) Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2008. {{ISBN|978-90-420-2321-5}}
* {{cite book|last=García Gibert|first=Javier|title=La humanitas Hispana. Sobre el humanismo literario en los siglos de oro|year=2010|publisher=Universidad de Salamanca|isbn=9788478002023|language=Spanish}}
* [[Anthony Grafton|Grafton, Anthony]]. ''Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation''. Harvard University Press, 2004 {{ISBN|0-674-01597-5}}
* Grafton, Anthony. ''Worlds Made By Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West''. Harvard University Press, 2009 {{ISBN|0-674-03257-8}}
* [[John Rigby Hale|Hale, John]]. ''A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance''. Oxford University Press, 1981, {{ISBN|0-500-23333-0}}.
* Kallendorf, Craig W, editor. ''Humanist Educational Treatises''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2002.
* Kraye, Jill (Editor). ''The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism''. Cambridge University Press, 1996.
* [[Paul Oskar Kristeller|Kristeller, Paul Oskar]]. ''Renaissance Thought and Its Sources''. Columbia University Press, 1979 {{ISBN|978-0-231-04513-1}}
* [[Giovanni Pico della Mirandola|Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni]]. ''Oration on the Dignity of Man''. In Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall, eds. ''Renaissance Philosophy of Man''. University of Chicago Press, 1969.
* [[Quentin Skinner|Skinner, Quentin]]. ''Renaissance Virtues: Visions of Politics: Volume II''. Cambridge University Press, [2002] 2007.
* [[George Makdisi|Makdisi, George]]. ''The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West: With Special Reference to Scholasticism'', 1990: [[Edinburgh University Press]]
* McManus, Stuart M. "Byzantines in the Florentine Polis: Ideology, Statecraft and Ritual during the Council of Florence". ''[[Journal of the Oxford University History Society]]'', 6 (Michaelmas 2008/Hilary 2009).
* {{cite book | author=Melchert, Norman | title=The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy | url=https://archive.org/details/greatconversatio00norm | url-access=registration | publisher=McGraw Hill | year=2002 | isbn=978-0-19-517510-3}}
* Nauert, Charles Garfield. ''Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (New Approaches to European History).'' Cambridge University Press, 2006.
* [[John H. Plumb|Plumb, J. H.]] ed.: ''The Italian Renaissance'' 1961, American Heritage, New York, {{ISBN|0-618-12738-0}} (page refs from 1978 UK Penguin edn).
* [[Roberto Rossellini|Rossellini, Roberto]]. ''The Age of the Medici'': Part 1, ''Cosimo de' Medici''; Part 2, ''Alberti'' 1973.  (Film Series). Criterion Collection.
* {{cite book|last=Scott|first=James Brown|authorlink=James Brown Scott|title=The Spanish Origin of International Law - Francisco de Vitoria and His Law of Nations|year=2000|publisher=Lawbook Exchange|isbn=9781584771104}}
* [[John Addington Symonds|Symonds, John Addington]].''The Renaissance in Italy''. Seven Volumes. 1875–1886.
* {{cite book|url=http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaGenText/tei/DicHist4.xml;chunk.id=dv4-20 | contribution = Renaissance Idea of the Dignity of Man | title = Dictionary of the History of Ideas | access-date=2009-12-02 | last = Trinkaus | first = Charles | editor-last = Wiener | editor-first = Philip P | year = 1973 | publisher = Scribner | isbn = 978-0-684-13293-8}}
* Trinkaus, Charles. ''The Scope of Renaissance Humanism''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
* [[Edgar Wind|Wind, Edgar]]. ''Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance''. New York: W.W. Norton, 1969.
* Witt, Ronald. "In the footsteps of the ancients: the origins of humanism from Lovato to Bruni." Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2000
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101102042052/http://globaled.org/nyworld/materials/humanism/H1.html Humanism 1: An Outline by Albert Rabil, Jr.]
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p003k9ct Paganism in the Renaissance], BBC Radio 4 discussion with Tom Healy, Charles Hope & Evelyn Welch (''In Our Time'', June 16, 2005)

{{Philosophy topics}}
{{Humanities}}
{{Middle Ages}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Medieval philosophy]]
[[Category:Philosophical schools and traditions]]
[[Category:Renaissance|Humanism]]
[[Category:Renaissance humanism| ]]