Posted: September 13th, 2017

Discuss how the values of Renaissance humanism are manifested in the work of Petrarch, Christine de Pisan, and a piece of Italian Renaissance art of your own choosing

Discuss how the values of Renaissance humanism are manifested in the work of Petrarch, Christine de Pisan, and a piece of Italian Renaissance art of your own choosing

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Discuss how the values of Renaissance humanism are manifested in the work of Petrarch, Christine de Pisan, and a piece of Italian Renaissance art of your own choosing. Define the Humanist values you wish to emphasize and trace those values through the texts and visual material. Be sure to provide a unifying argument; show how all three peices reflect a common intellectual and cultural enterprise.

Italian Humanism in the Renaissance

Social/ Political Roots

1.    Rise in commercial activity in Late Medieval Italy (after 1300)
2.    Nature of Italian politics: large number of city-states
3.    Rise of commercial and artisan classes in Italian cities
4.    Search for status in the city – lack of traditional noble status
5.    Conspicuous consumption as mark of status – lnks to patronage
6.    Identification of late medieval Italians with ancient Romans
7.    Roman Civitas (public service) seen as source of status in Italian cities
8.    Civitas or service expressed as service in government or military
9.    Civitas expressed as patronage of city, people, arts, humanities
10.     Self ruling Italian cities – importance of rhetoric in urban political life

Characteristics of Humanism

1.    Stress on rhetoric as a central discipline (as opposed to dialectic or logic)
2.    Stress on the Studias Humanitates  as opposed to the liberal arts  (grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, moral philosophy)
3.    Emphasis on classical role models for rhetoric
4.    Adoption of classical values, views of beauty, views of citizenship (rhetoric of visual expression
5.    Positive view of humanity – humanity as basically good, but fundamentally flawed (human sin).  Notion that humans share god-given human nobility – Greeks and Romans as examples.

Petrarch

1.    Italian, born in France (family exiled), clerical, very well-read
2.    Ascent of Mt Ventoux: mountain as an extended metaphor for life; examples of early Humanist rhetoric; stress on classical sources and allusions; notion that human self is worthy of examination and capable of improvement
3.    Great stress on rhetoric – Cicero as role model
4.    Notion of self improvement, rooted in Christian tradition (St. Augustine, St Francis) and in Classical tradition (Cicero, Ovid)
5.    Humanist rhetoric as a rival of scholastic logic – note his critique of logicians in his Disapproval of the Improper Use of Dialectic.

Development and Consequences of Humanist Activity in Italy (1350-1500)

1.    Humanist stress on rhetoric, classical values, and classical ideals
2.    Use of classical texts as role models for good Humanist Latin rhetoric
3.    Corrupted texts leads to search for multiple copies for clarification
4.    Philology – comparative textual studies – comparison of many different copies to remove errors and establish a “pure” text
5.    Search for multiple copies of knowl Latin works leads to rediscovery of lost Latin works: Cicero, Seneca, etc
6.    Discovery of lost Latin works leads to search for Greek works – in Italian libraries and beyond
7.    Recovery of many lost Greek works: Poetry, Drama, History, Philosophy, Mathematics, etc
8.    Knowledge of multiple classical philosophical traditions, many of which contradict, leads to growth of questioning and philosophical skepticism in Italian, and European, intellectual life.