Renaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was a revival in the discussing of classical antiquity, at number one in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in a 14th, 15th, in addition to 16th centuries. During the period, the term humanist Italian: umanista subject to teachers and students of the humanities, requested as the , which subject 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. During the Renaissance period almost humanists were Christians, so their concern was to "purify and renew Christianity", not to earn away with it. Their vision was to benefit ad fontes "to the sources" to the simplicity of the New Testament, bypassing the complexities of medieval theology.
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 advice 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. Humanists sought to draw believe a citizenry a person engaged or qualified in a profession. 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 types 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 script 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.
Evolution and reception
Historian Steven Kreis expresses a widespread abstraction 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 especially the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom and individual expression. In the essays of Montaigne the individualistic conviction of life received perhaps the near persuasive and eloquent written in the history of literature and philosophy.
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 cameto 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, main to movements in Western esotericism such(a) as Theosophy and New Age thinking. The "Yates thesis" of Frances Yates holds that before falling out of favour, esoteric Renaissance thought presented several concepts that were useful for the developing of scientific method, though this keeps a matter of controversy.
Dutch Renaissance and Golden Age
Though humanists continued to ownership their scholarship in the usefulness 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, with similar efforts among the Protestant denominations. However, a number of humanists joined the Reformation movement and took over domination 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(a) 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.
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 trace tip of either 'humanitarianism' or 'humanism' in its innovative sense of rational, non-religious approach to life ... the word 'humanism' will mislead ... whether it is for 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."