Renaissance humanism

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This article is about the study of the humanities during the Renaissance. Not to be
confused with the broader human-centered philosophy, Humanism.

Frontispiece depicting Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio with the arms of the Medici-Toledo family on top.

Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in

Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th
centuries. During the period, the term humanist (Italian: umanista) referred to
teachers and students of the humanities, known as the studia humanitatis, which
included 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. [1] During the Renaissance period
most humanists were 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
sources") to the simplicity of the New Testament, bypassing the complexities of
medieval theology.[2]
Under the influence and inspiration of the classics, humanists developed a new
rhetoric and new learning. Some scholars also argue that humanism articulated
new moral and civic perspectives and values offering guidance in life. Renaissance
humanism was a response to what came to be depicted by later whig historians as
the "narrow pedantry" associated with medieval scholasticism.[3] Humanists sought
to create a citizenry able to speak and write with eloquence and clarity and thus
capable of engaging in the civic life of their communities and persuading others
to virtuous and prudent actions. Humanism, whilst set up by a small elite who had
access to books and education, was intended as a cultural mode to influence all of
society. It was a program to revive the cultural legacy, literary legacy, and moral
philosophy of classical antiquity.
There were important centres of humanism
in Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino.

Contents

 1Definition
 2Origin
 3Paganism and Christianity in the Renaissance
o 3.1Description
o 3.2Epicureanism
o 3.3Neo-Platonism
 4Evolution and reception
o 4.1Widespread view
o 4.2Sixteenth century and beyond
 5Historiography
o 5.1The Baron Thesis
o 5.2Garin and Kristeller
 6Humanist
 7See also
 8Notes
 9Further reading
 10External links

Definition[edit]
Very broadly, the project of the Italian Renaissance humanists of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries was the studia humanitatis: the study of the humanities.
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".[4] But what this studia humanitatis actually constituted is a
subject of much debate. According to one scholar of the movement,
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, and
moral philosophy, but also made poetry, once a sequel of grammar and rhetoric,
the most important member of the whole group.[5]
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: [6]
Around the middle of the fourteenth century, when the term first came into use
among Italian 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 (fifteenth
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 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" ("one sees
of the study of humanity [the humanities] that it is so much in grammar, rhetoric,
history and poetry, and also in ethics"). [7] 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. [6]

Origin[edit]
Renaissance
 The School of Athens (1509–11) by Raphael

Topics

 Humanism
 Age of Discovery
 Architecture
 Dance
 Fine arts
 Literature
 Music
 Philosophy
 Science
 Technology
 Warfare

Regions
 England
 France
 Germany
 Italy
 Poland
 Portugal
 Spain
 Scotland
 Northern Europe
 Low Countries

Criticism
 Criticism

 v
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 e

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.[8]
By the 14th century some of the first humanists were great collectors of
antique manuscripts, 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.[4] He also had a very impressive library, of which many manuscripts did
not survive.[citation needed] Many worked for the Catholic Church and were in holy orders,
like Petrarch, while others were lawyers and chancellors 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 classes had received humanist educations,
possibly in addition to traditional 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 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[9] one of whom, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II),
was a prolific author and wrote a treatise on The Education of Boys.[10] These
subjects came to be known as the humanities, and the movement which they
inspired is shown as humanism.
The migration waves of Byzantine Greek scholars and émigrés in the period
following the Crusader sacking of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine
Empire in 1453 was a very welcome addition to the Latin texts scholars like
Petrarch had found in monastic libraries[11] for the revival of Greek literature and
science via their greater familiarity with ancient Greek works. [12][13] They
included Gemistus Pletho, George of Trebizond, Theodorus Gaza, and John
Argyropoulos.
The Italian humanism spread northward to 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 philological methods of Italian
humanism to the study of antique coinage and to legal history, composing a
detailed commentary on Justinian's Code. Budé was a royal absolutist (and not
a republican like the early Italian umanisti) who was active in civic life, serving as
a diplomat for François I and helping to found the Collège des Lecteurs
Royaux (later the Collège de France). Meanwhile, Marguerite de Navarre, the
sister of François I, was a poet, novelist, and religious mystic[14] 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[edit]

Many humanists were churchmen, most notably Pope Pius II, Sixtus IV, and Leo X,
[15][16]
 and there was often patronage of humanists by senior church figures. [17] 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[edit]
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy describes the rationalism of ancient
writings as having tremendous impact on Renaissance scholars:
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. [18]
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 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.[19] Epicurus's unacceptable doctrine that pleasure was the
highest good "ensured the unpopularity of his philosophy". [20] Lorenzo Valla,
however, puts a defense of epicureanism in the mouth of one of the interlocutors of
one of his dialogues.
Epicureanism[edit]
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.[21] Valla's defense, or adaptation, of
Epicureanism was later taken up in The Epicurean by Erasmus, the "Prince of
humanists:"
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 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.[22]
This passage exemplifies the way in which the humanists saw pagan classical
works, such as the philosophy of Epicurus, as being in harmony with their
interpretation of Christianity.
Neo-Platonism[edit]
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 Saint Augustine. In this spirit, 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.[23]

Evolution and reception[edit]

Widespread view[edit]
Historian Steven Kreis expresses a widespread view (derived from the 19th-
century Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt), when he writes that:
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. [24]
Two noteworthy trends in Renaissance humanism were Renaissance Neo-
Platonism and Hermeticism, which through the works of figures like Nicholas of
Kues, Giordano Bruno, Cornelius Agrippa, Campanella and Pico della Mirandola
sometimes came close to constituting a new religion itself. 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 and New Age thinking.[25] 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[edit]
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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,[26] with similar
efforts among the Protestant denominations. However, a number of humanists
joined the Reformation movement and took over leadership functions, for
example, Philipp Melanchthon, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther, Henry VIII, John
Calvin, and William Tyndale.
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. Some humanists, even moderate Catholics such as Erasmus, risked
being declared heretics for their perceived criticism of the church. In 1514 he left
for Basel and worked at the University of Basel for several years.[27]
The historian of the Renaissance 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." [28]

Historiography[edit]
The Baron Thesis[edit]
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 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.[29] Already controversial at the time of The
Crisis' publication, the "Baron Thesis" has been met with even more criticism over
the years. Even in the 1960s, historians Philip Jones and Peter Herde[30] 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." [4]
Garin and Kristeller[edit]
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."[31] 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. [32]
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.[33] 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." [34] 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.[35] 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[36]—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."[37] 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. [32]
Hankins summarizes the Kristeller v. Garin debate quite well, attesting to
Kristeller's conception of professional philosophers as being very formal and
method-focused.[32] 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.[31] 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.[32]

Humanist[edit]
Main article: List of Renaissance humanists

See also[edit]
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 Christian humanism
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Notes[edit]
1. ^ 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) 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 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]
2. ^ McGrath 2011, p. 30.
3. ^ 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.
4. ^ Jump up to:a b c Hankins, James (2019). Virtue Politics:
Soulcraft and Statecraft in Renaissance Italy. The Belknap
Press of Harvard University.
5. ^ 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.
6. ^ Jump up to:a b Kohl, Benjamin G. (1992). "The Changing
Concept of the "Studia Humanitatis" in the Early
Renaissance".  Renaissance Studies. 6  (2): 185–
209. doi:10.1111/1477-4658.t01-1-00116.  ISSN  0269-1213.
7. ^ 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.
8. ^ "Return to the style of the ancients and the anti-gothic
reaction".  www.vatlib.it. Latin Paleography.
9. ^ 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 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).
10. ^ 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.
11. ^ Cartwright, Mark.  "Renaissance Humanism".  World History
Encyclopedia. The Classical Ideal. Retrieved March 23, 2021.
12. ^ "Byzantines in Renaissance Italy". Archived from the
original  on 2018-08-31. Retrieved  2016-03-28.
13. ^ Greeks in Italy
14. ^ 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, King's sister--queen of dissent:
Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549) and her evangelical
network[dead link] (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)
15. ^ Löffler, Klemens (1910). "Humanism".  The Catholic
Encyclopedia. Vol.  VII. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
pp. 538–542.
16. ^ See note two, above.
17. ^ Davies, 477
18. ^ "Humanism". The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy,
Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. 1999. p.397
quotation:
The unashamedly humanistic flavor of classical writings had a
tremendous impact on Renaissance scholar.

19. ^ See Jill Kraye's essay, "Philologists and Philosophers" in

the Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism [1996],
p. 153.)
20. ^ (Kraye [1996] p. 154.)
21. ^ See Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness Vol. 1 (University of
Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 103–170
22. ^ John L. Lepage (5 December 2012).  The Revival of Antique
Philosophy in the Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan.
p.  111. ISBN 978-1-137-28181-4.
23. ^ Daniel O'Callaghan (9 November 2012). The Preservation of
Jewish Religious Books in Sixteenth-Century Germany:
 Johannes Reuchlin's Augenspiegel. BRILL. pp. 43–.  ISBN  978-
90-04-24185-5.
24. ^ Kreis, Steven (2008).  "Renaissance Humanism".
Retrieved  2009-03-03.
25. ^ Plumb, 95
26. ^ "Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture:
Humanism". The Library of Congress. 2002-07-01.
Retrieved  2009-03-03.
27. ^ "Humanism". Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion. Vol.  F–N.
Corpus Publications. 1979. pp. 1733.  ISBN  978-0-9602572-1-8.
28. ^ Hale, 171. See also Davies, 479-480 for similar caution.
29. ^ Hankins, James (1995).  "The "Baron Thesis" after Forty Years
and Some Recent Studies of Leonardo Bruni". Journal of the
History of Ideas.  56  (2): 309–
338. doi:10.2307/2709840. ISSN 0022-5037.  JSTOR  2709840.
30. ^ 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 (Wies- baden,
1973).
31. ^ Jump up to:a b Kristeller, Paul Oskar (1944). "Humanism and
Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance".  Byzantion.  17: 346–
374. ISSN 0378-2506.  JSTOR  44168603.
32. ^ Jump up to:a b c d 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.
33. ^ Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism Is a Humanism.”
In Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, tr. Walter
Kaufmann, 287–311. New York: Meridian Books, 1956.
34. ^ Heidegger, Martin. "Letter on 'Humanism.'" In Pathmarks, ed.
William McNeill, 239–276. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.
35. ^ Kakkori, Leena; Huttunen, Rauno (June 2012). "The Sartre‐
Heidegger Controversy on Humanism and the Concept of Man
in Education". Educational Philosophy and Theory.  44  (4): 351–
365. doi:10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00680.x.  ISSN  0013-1857. 
S2CID 145476769.
36. ^ R. Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to
Bayle rev. ed. (Oxford University Press, 2003), p. viii.
37. ^ 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

Further reading[edit]
 Bolgar, R. R. The Classical Heritage and Its
Beneficiaries: from the Carolingian Age to the End of
the Renaissance. Cambridge, 1954.
 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
 Erasmus, Desiderius. "The Epicurean". In Colloquies.
 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
 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
 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.
 Kristeller, Paul Oskar. Renaissance Thought and Its
Sources. Columbia University Press, 1979 ISBN 978-
0-231-04513-1
 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.
 Skinner, Quentin. Renaissance Virtues: Visions of
Politics: Volume II. Cambridge University Press,
[2002] 2007.
 Makdisi, George. The Rise of Humanism in Classical
Islam and the Christian West: With Special Reference
to Scholasticism, 1990: Edinburgh University Press
 McGrath, Alister (2011). Christian Theology: An
Introduction, 5th edn. Oxford: Wiley-
Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4443-3514-9
 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).
 Melchert, Norman (2002). The Great Conversation: A
Historical Introduction to Philosophy. McGraw
Hill. 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.
 Plumb, J. H. ed.: The Italian Renaissance 1961,
American Heritage, New York, ISBN 0-618-12738-
0 (page refs from 1978 UK Penguin edn).
 Rossellini, Roberto. The Age of the Medici: Part
1, Cosimo de' Medici; Part 2, Alberti 1973. (Film
Series). Criterion Collection.
 Symonds, John Addington.The Renaissance in Italy.
Seven Volumes. 1875–1886.
 Trinkaus, Charles (1973). "Renaissance Idea of the
Dignity of Man". In Wiener, Philip P (ed.). Dictionary of
the History of Ideas. ISBN 978-0-684-13293-8.
Retrieved 2009-12-02.
 Trinkaus, Charles. The Scope of Renaissance
Humanism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1983.
 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

External links[edit]
 Renaissance Humanism - World History Encyclopedia
  Humanism 1: An Outline by Albert Rabil, Jr.
 "Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance
Culture: Humanism". The Library of Congress. 2002-
07-01
 Paganism in the Renaissance, BBC Radio 4
discussion with Tom Healy, Charles Hope & Evelyn
Welch (In Our Time, June 16, 2005)
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