Expert: Maria - 2/22/2010

Question
Classical humanism helped cultivate a sense of civic pride. Renaissance humanists cultivated the notion of the good life. Are either or both of these notions part of contemporary humanism?

Answer
Hello,

Please note that this is the category Ancient/Classical History within which my field of expertise covers  Ancient Greek and Roman History(view my profile), i.e. a period between ca. 2500 BC and 476 AD, when the Western Roman Empire fell.

So, what Renaissance(Italian ‘Rinascimento’), i.e.  the rebirth  of classical learning and art, which began in Florence, Italy, from the early 14th century, and influenced other parts of Europe, from England to France and Germany, in a great variety of ways, has to do with the category Ancient/Classical History?

In short, this question is a matter for the category LITERATURE, not for Ancient/Classical History, of course.


Anyway, it’s true that classical humanism helped to cultivate a sense of civic pride and  Renaissance humanists cultivated the notion of the good life, since  the Italian Renaissance culture and society in Florence of the Medici family were the expression of a great blossoming of the human spirit, which led just to discover and affirm   the centrality of man in the world so that man replaced God as a centre of the world, while in the Middle Ages God was just the centre of the universe.

Finally, with regard to your question (“Are either or both of these notions part of contemporary humanism?”), I think that it’s quite problematic  to compare Renaissance humanism to the contemporary one and then such a comparison  cannot be proposed at all, as it is a bad comparison.

Regards,
Maria
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P.S. The term  “Rinascimento” - which became “Renaissance” in French and then in English -  was used first by Giorgio Vasari ( 1511-1574), Italian painter, architect, and writer, in his remarkable work " Vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architetti" [Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects] where he traces  the history of Renaissance art from Giotto to Michelangelo and then the revival of the arts.