HUMANISM

an attitude of mind attaching prime importance to human beings and human values, often regarded as the central theme of Renaissance civilization. Renaissance humanism is traceable to the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch, whose scholarship and enthusiasm for classic Latin writings (the humanities) gave great impetus to a movement that eventually spread from Italy to all of western Europe. The diffusion of humanism was facilitated by the use of Latin throughout Europe and by the invention of movable type. Although humanism gradually became identified with classroom studies of the classics, it more properly embraced any attitude that exalted man's relationship to God, his free will, and his superiority over nature. Philosophically, humanism made man the measure of all things. Excitement over Latin sources touched off a widespread search for ancient documents that led in time to Greek and Hebrew studies. Textual criticism and philology were born, and with them renewed interest in Aristotle and the Scriptures. The arts found patrons and flourished in conscious imitation of classical ideals and forms. In its return to antiquity, humanism found inspiration in man's personal quest for truth and goodness. Confining systems of philosophy, religious dogmas, and abstract reasoning were shunned in favour of human values. Though ceaseless efforts were made to relate Christian thought to the philosophies of the ancient world, seeds were likewise sown for the flowering of Reformation thought. In recent years the term humanism has often been used to refer to value systems that emphasize the personal worth of each individual but that do not include a belief in God. There is a certain segment of the Unitarian Universalist Association that is nontheistic and yet uses religious forms to promote distinctive human values. In the same vein the 19th-century French positivist Auguste Comte established a nontheistic religion of humanity designed to promote social reform. The American Humanist Association publishes a quarterly magazine, The Humanist, and propagates the humanist point of view. In addition to these nontheistic humanisms, there is some tendency among Christian theologians to refer to Christianity as humanistic. Karl Barth, a noted 20th-century Swiss Protestant theologian, affirmed that there is no humanism without the Gospel. Similarly, Roman Catholic theologians have claimed that Roman Catholic Christianity is humanistic in that it emphasizes the uniqueness of man as a being created in the image of God. term freely applied to a variety of beliefs, methods, and philosophies that place central emphasis on the human realm. Most frequently, however, the term is used with reference to a system of education and mode of inquiry that developed in northern Italy during the 14th century and later spread through Europe and England. Alternately known as Renaissance humanism, this program was so broadly and profoundly influential that it is one of the chief reasons why the Renaissance is viewed as a distinct historical period. Indeed, though the word Renaissance is of more recent coinage, the fundamental idea of that period as one of renewal and reawakening is humanistic in origin. But humanism sought its own philosophical bases in far earlier times and, moreover, continued to exert some of its power long after the end of the Renaissance. Additional reading General treatments The three general studies most helpful in approaching the phenomenon of humanism are Eugenio Garin, Italian Humanism: Philosophy and Civic Life in the Renaissance, trans. from the Italian (1965, reprinted 1975); Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (1979); and Charles Trinkaus, The Scope of Renaissance Humanism (1983). Garin's book is probably the most unified and incisive treatment of Italian humanism yet produced, while Kristeller and Trinkaus offer extremely well-documented analyses of major issues in the history and historiography of humanism. Other valuable readings include Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny, rev. ed. (1966); Quirinus Breen, Christianity and Humanism: Studies in the History of Ideas (1968); Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Period of the Renaissance in Italy: An Essay (1878; originally published in German, 1860), available in later English-language editions; Douglas Bush, The Renaissance and English Humanism (1939, reprinted 1972); Ernst Cassirer, The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (1964, reprinted 1972; originally published in German with appendices, 1927); Jack D'amico, Knowledge and Power in the Renaissance (1977); Myron P. Gilmore, The World of Humanism, 14531517 (1952; reprinted 1983); Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in Its Historical Background, 2nd ed. (1977); Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Concepts of Man, and Other Essays (1972); Edward P. Mahoney (ed.), Philosophy and Humanism (1976); Robert Mandrou, From Humanism to Science, 1480 to 1700 (1979; originally published in French, 1973); Heiko A. Oberman and Thomas A. Brady, Jr. (eds.), Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of Its European Transformations (1975); Charles B. Schmitt, Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science (1981); John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy, 7 vol. (187586, reprinted 197172); Guisseppe Toffanin, History of Humanism (1954; originally published in Italian, 1933); Berthold L. Ullman, Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 2nd ed. (1975); and Roberto Weiss, The Spread of Italian Humanism (1964). For classical and medieval backgrounds, see Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (1973; originally published in German, 1948); Moses Hadas, Humanism: The Greek Ideal and Its Survival (1960, reprinted 1972); and Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, 2nd ed., 3 vol. (1965; originally published in German, 1934). Specific topics T.W. Baldwin, William Shakspere's Small Latine and Lesse Greeke (1944, reprinted 1966); Hans Baron, From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni: Studies in Humanistic and Political Literature (1968); Gene Brucker, Renaissance Florence (1969, reprinted 1983); Ernst Cassirer, Galileo's Platonism, in M.f. Ashley Montagu (ed.), Studies and Essays in the History of Science and Learning, pp. 277297 (1946; reprinted 1975); Joan Gadol, Leon Battista Alberti (1969); Eugenio Garin, Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance (1969, reissued 1978; originally published in Italian, 1965; 4th Italian ed., 1980); Paul Oskar Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener (eds.), Renaissance Essays (1968); Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 13901460 (1963); James J. Murphy (ed.), Renaissance Eloquence: Studies in the Theory and Practice of Renaissance Rhetoric (1983); Irwin Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art, 2 vol. (1960, reissued in 1 vol, 1969); J.H. Plumb (ed.), Renaissance Profiles (1965); Pasquale Rotondi, The Ducal Palace of Urbino: Its Architecture and Decoration (1969; originally published in Italian in 2 vol., 195051); Charles B. Schmitt, Aristotle and the Renaissance (1983); Charles Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, 2 vol. (1970), and The Poet as Philosopher: Petrarch and the Formation of Renaissance Consciousness (1979); Berthold L. Ullman, The Humanism of Coluccio Salutati (1963); William Harrison Woodward, Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators (1897, reissued 1970), and Studies in Education During the Age of the Renaissance, 14001600 (1906, reissued 1967); and G.F. Young, The Medici, 2 vol. (1909, reissued in 1 vol., 1933). Works of the humanists Works by the later humanists (c. 1500 and after) and the English poet-humanists mentioned in the article, including Castiglione, Cellini, Elyot, Erasmus, Jonson, Machiavelli, Montaigne, More, Pico della Mirandola, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, Tasso, and Vasari, are readily available in many modern English editions. For the writings of the earlier humanists, see Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, trans. by Rene Neu Watkins (1969); Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. by Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella (1982), and Boccaccio on Poetry, 2nd ed., ed. and trans. by Charles G. Osgood (1956, reprinted 1978), a translation of the preface and books 14 and 15 of his De genealogia deorum gentilium; biographies of Dante by Boccaccio and Leonardo Bruni in The Earliest Lives of Dante, trans. by James Robinson Smith (1901, reprinted 1976); letters by Poggio Bracciolini in Two Renaissance Book Hunters, trans. by Phyllis Walter Goodhart Gordan (1974); and works by Petrarch, including The Life of Solitude, trans. by Jacob Zeitlin (1924, reprinted 1978); On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others, trans. by Hans Nachod in Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr. (eds.), The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (1948, reprinted 1971); and Petrarch's Secret; or, The Soul's Conflict with Passion, trans. by William H. Draper (1911, reprinted 1978). William Harrison Woodward, op. cit., contains valuable translations of works by Vergerio, Bruni, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pius II), and Battista Guarino. Sixteenth-century writings that reflect the breadth and vitality of humanistic attitudes are Juan Luis Vives, On Education, trans. by Foster Watson (1913, reprinted 1971); Girolamo Cardano, The Book of My Life, trans. by Jean Stoner (1930, reprinted 1962); Torquato Tasso, Tasso's Dialogues, trans. by Carnes Lord and Dain A. Trafton (1982); and Paracelsus, Selected Writings, trans. by Norbert Guterman, 2nd rev. ed. (1958; reissued with a new bibliography, 1969; originally published in German, 1942, ed. by Jolande Jacobi). Robert Grudin