CLASSICAL HUMANISM
From Philosopedia
CLASSICAL HUMANISM
At the end of the Middle Ages, or from the 14th to 16th centuries, a revival of letters commonly known as the Renaissance occurred. During this period a genuine desire arose among some scholars to bring about an emancipation of thought and education from what they considered to be excessive domination on the part of the medieval Church over their thoughts and actions. Such was the beginning of classical humanism, an interest in studia humanitatis, litterae humaniores, and so-called polite learning.
Although some of the classical humanists were anti-clerical and critical of the Church, such an attitude was not a prerequisite. What was wanted was not an elimination of control but rather a broadening of outlook on the part of the Church toward the development of individual learning and research. In fact, classical humanists often were supernaturalists and members of the Church. At least two—Nicholas V and Leo X—were Popes. After Pope Martin V in 1417, the papacy increasingly warmed to humanistic ideas, and a Vatican Library document defines Renaissance humanism as a “belief not in the unique value of the individual but in the transcendent value of scholarship.”
Whereas ancient humanism is, by definition, a thing of the past, classical humanism has persisted and is prevalent even today. Contemporary classical humanists, however, are not so concerned with theological criticism as were their historical namesakes, for most are educators interested in the problems of the humanities, as contrasted with the sciences. When, for instance, one sees titles such as “The Liberal Arts in Public Education,” “Scholarship and Humanism,” and “Humanism in Education,” classical humanism is being discussed.
The two greatest classical humanists of the Renaissance period in Italy were Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) and Giovanni Boccaccio. Both looked to the “humaner letter” for their mental salvation, and in so doing they dug up forgotten classics, helped restore the culture of the past, and assisted in recapturing some of the mighty spirit of early thinkers.
One of the most extensive lists of classical humanists is to be found in Paolo Giovio’s Elogia (published in Antwerp, 1557). Giovio included Pietro Pompanazzi, who championed a purified Aristotelianism, as against neo-Platonism, and brought about a new interest in the classics—somewhat of a typical classical humanist, he believed in the soul and the possibility of miracles; Gemisthos Pletho, the scholar who encouraged the study of Plato and neo-Platonism and whose aim seems to have been the substitution of a neo-Platonic mysticism for Christianity; Pico della Mirandola; Giordano Bruno, who was steeped in Platonic and Pythagorean speculations and was later to influence such philosophers as Spinoza, Leibniz, Descartes, and Schelling; Campanella, whose humanism was manifest in his belief that man can truly know only himself, that like can be known only by like, and that therefore man cannot know anything of the universe except through the medium of sense-perception; Pietro Bembo; Bruni; Trapozuntius the Cretan; Cardinal Bessarion; Valla, whose De Voluptate was an imitation of Cicero’s Tusculans; Beccadelli, sometimes called the poet of pornography; Enea Silvio dei Piccolomini; Platina; Michael Chrysoloras; Theodore Gaza; Johannes Argyropulos; Demetrius Chalcondylas; Musurus of Crete; Lascaris; Lorenzo de’ Medici; Ermolao Barbaro; Politian; and Savanarola.
Other classical humanists: Luigi Marsiglio, leader of the Florentine club of humanists; Coluccio Salutati, Chancellor of State whose letters set the pace for style at that time; Cosimo de’ Medici, founder of the Florentine Academy; Marsiglio Ficino; Estienne Dolet, champion of a Ciceronianism against Erasmus and, because he was burned in Paris for heresy, a martyr of the Renaissance; Adrien Turnebe, teacher who advanced Greek scholarship; Julius Caesar Scaliger, writer who attacked Erasmus; Robert Estienne, publisher with his brother, Henri Estienne, of numerous classical publications; Ludovico Vives and Telesio, who boldly criticized the strong entrenchments of Aristotelianism; and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, who favored Platonism to such an extent that he was finally brought under the ban of the Church.
Well-known French classical humanists were Michel de Montaigne and Rabelais. Also, there were the following: Jean de Montreuil, a disciple of Petrarch; Nicholas de Clemanges, known for his Ciceronian eloquence; John Lascaris, who taught Greek at the University of Paris; Jerome Aleander, who added the study of Hebrew at the University of Paris; Guillaume Budé, sometimes called the best Greek scholar of his day in Europe; Lefevrew d’Etaples, who translated the Bible; and Guillaume Farel.
German classical humanists included Johann Reuchlin; Ulrich von Hutten; Philip Melanchton; and the following: Alexander Hegius, one of Erasmus’s professors; Gregor von Heimburg, scholar of the Italian humanists though often repelled by them; Peter Luder, renowned student of his day; Mutianus Rufus, leader of the Erfurt group of humanists; Rudolf Agricola, leader of the Heidelberg group and of whom Erasmus said was “the first to bring us out of Italy a breath of higher culture”; Johann Eik, opponent of Luther at Ingolstadt; Urbanus Rhegius, zealous supporter of Luther; Wilibald Pirkheimer, leader of the Nuremberg group of humanists; Conrad Peutinger, an Augsburg humanist; Jacob Wimpfeling, a Strasbourg schoolmaster; and Sebastian Brant, satirist from Strasbourg.
Spanish humanists included Antonio Lebrixa and Cardinal Ximenes. Scottish thinkers in the same tradition were George Buchanan and Andrew Melville.
A hotbed for classical humanism in England was the Oxford Group, from which came such supporters as the four “Oxford reformers,” Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn, John Colet, and William Lyly. Generally considered to be the most important English humanist, however, was Sir Thomas More, a contemporary of the Dutch “humanist of humanists,” Erasmus. Additional English classical humanists included the following: Sir Thomas Elyot; Sir Thomas Smith and Sir John Checke, who established Greek at Cambridge; William Baldwin; John Leland; John Bale, John Stow; William Camden; Thomas Wilson; Richard Hooker; John Fisher; William Tyndale; William Latimer; and Roger Ascham, sometimes called “the last humanist” because his style was allegedly so perfect that it was no longer necessary for the English to travel abroad for a humanistic model.
The chief Italian collectors of manuscripts were Guarino Veronese and Poggio Bracciolini, ardent bibliophiles, along with Angelo Ambrogini and Francesco Filelfo.
But of all the classical humanists, Erasmus is the most famous, and his influence upon the Oxford Group and English classical humanists was considerable.
Erasmus, More, and Colet all remained in the Church, although never hesitating to offer what they considered to be constructive criticism. More’s Utopia, as well as Sir Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis and Campanella’s City of the Sun, advanced and furthered the principle that experiment and research with their resulting discoveries were to be used for human well-being, an idea which gave an added impetus to the natural sciences and the part they should play in assisting the improvement of material and social conditions of mankind.
{CE; ER; Warren Allen Smith, “The Seven Humanisms.”}
