FRANCESCO PETRARCA (1304-1374):
"Father of Humanism"
Family: White Guelfs
exiled from Florence in 1302; born in Arezzo 1304,
father: notary at Papal court
in Avignon, interest in classics, Cicero
Studies law at Montpellier, Bologna;
returns to Avignon in 1326, takes
minor orders to qualify for
church office; patron Cardinal Colonna;
1337: establishes residence in
Vaucluse, rural retreat for study
1353: dislike of Avignon leads
to move to Italy; accepts patronage of
Visconti in Milan,
Republic of Venice, Carrara of Padua (d. 1374)
Poetry: Canzoniere,
Rime = 366 poems in Italian, including 317 sonnets to
Laura in courtly love
tradition: seen 1327 Church of St. Claire, Avignon
identity unclear: daughter of Provencal
nobleman, Audibert de Noves
married 1325 to Hugues
de Sade (!); mother of several children; d. 1348
1341 crowned Poet Laureate on
Capitoline Hill in Rome: sponsored by King
Robert of Naples to whom he dedicates
Latin epic poem Africa (on Scipio Africanus)
Italia
mia: poem to the princes for unification &
pacification of Italy
through
a revival of ancient Roman virtue (virtus Romana)
Humanist
scholar:
personally begins revival of Latin literature (not Greek)
manuscript hunting: desire to
go ad fontes (to the sources) by searching
manuscript
collections: Montecassino,
owns &
treasures manuscripts of Homer, Plato, but cannot read Greek
Latin
edition of Livy's History of Roman Republic (1st, 3rd-4th Decades)
De Viris
Illustribus (Concerning Illustrious Men):
biographies of famous
Roman men presented as model for corrupt
present; emulate past virtue
moralizing purpose of classical learning &
of humanist view of history
Letters to Famous Men:
sense of classical authors as individual humans
started in 1345: finds Cicero's
"Letters to Atticus" in Verona,
shocked to see Cicero as petty, ambitious,
gossiping politician
Familiar Letters:
publishes his own correspondence with contemporaries
(including Cola di
Rienzo, Emperor Charles IV) = imitation of Cicero
Polemic
against scholasticism
(tension between intellect vs
will):
1368
treatise On His Own Ignorance and That of Many Others: polemic against
scholastics of Padua who call him a
"good man but of little learning"
embraces the charge of "good man"
(wants to be moral), displaying his
classical Latin learning, ridiculing
scholastic knowledge as useless,
because focused on God & creation
(nature), not on man
Relationship
betw Classicism (Cicero) & Christianity (Augustine) [cf Dante]
Ascent of Mt. Ventoux: :
Burckhardt section on "The Discovery of
the World and of Man":
Petrarch as first modern man; climbs
mountain "to see the view"
Note allegorical aspects of the ascent; takes
Augustine's Confessions
with him, opens it
as top; ends on strongly Christian note
Secretum
(The Secret Book) = dialogue with St. Augustine over fame, love
internal struggle between pursuit of fame,
love and Christian goals
Petrarch's
Politics:
context of collapse of Guelf Alliance in 1340's
COLA
DI RIENZO
Roman notary; pursues classical history, Roman archeology
1342: sent to Avignon:
delegation from city of Rome urges Pope's return
Petrarch hears Cola speak before Clement VI,
title "municipal notary"
1347: ROMAN REPUBLICAN
REVOLUTION under Cola, who becomes
"Tribune of Freedom,
Peace & Justice; Liberator of the Holy Roman Republic"
Conference in Rome of Guelf city states: Cola is Knighted, made Tribune
proclaims Roman
jurisdiction over entire world (grandiose claims)
1348 overthrown by Roman nobility,
prisoner of Charles IV, then Pope
escapes, returns to Rome as Senator; speeches
on "Age of Holy Spirit",
Charles IV as Emperor of the Last Days = Joachite themes; executed 1354
Petrarch
on Cola: extensive correspondence; supports revival Roman Republican
liberty, effort to drive out
German barbarians; but turns agst him as tyrant
Poem: "Spirito Gentil" - lament on
the decline of
RENAISSANCE
HUMANISM Revival of classical literature and
learning:
defined as
literary, cultural, and educational movement based on
recovery of classical Latin, then Greek texts
(14-15th C.): e.g.
14th c: Tacitus, Cicero's letters; 15th C:
Plato, Greek philosophy
social context: rise of interest in classical Latin literature among
literate laymen, notaries (ars dictaminis = letter writing),
lawyers
= first intellectual movement
dominated by laymen, rather than clerics
New
curriculum: use classical texts for study of human life, morality
* studia
humanitatis: study of things human (i.e. not
divine, not natural)
= grammar (Latin),
rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy
compare medieval
scholastic curriculum of seven liberal arts:
trivium: grammar quadrivium:
arithmetic astronomy
rhetoric geometry music
logic (& dialectics) = (natural
philosophy)
What
did Renaissance Humanists learn from their classical studies?
classical Latin literature as
moralizing, practical, this-worldly virtues
aim to teach good
conduct, responsibilities in social relationships
eg:
Cicero De Officiis (On Duty); Seneca Epistles:
Stoic moral philosopher
context for pursuit and
definition of virtue is human life in this world,
not Christian context of eternal salvation or
damnation (as for Dante)
classical morality exists
independent of any religious context: traditional
Christian thinkers accuse humanists stressing
morality over salvation
Purpose
of knowledge:
scholasticism: 1) pursuit of
abstract, rational intellectual truth
about God,
creation (mankind as part of creation), Redemption
2) encyclopedic approach to knowledge sub specie
eternitatis
truth is ahistorical,
beyond time (under the eye of eternity)
eg Dante: subsumes
Virgil as human reason into Christian cosmos
humanism: 1)
moralizing, practical approach to knowledge as
useful to men, to
improve human nature, inculcate human virtues
* Petrarch: "It is better to will the
good than know the truth."
2) historical
approach to knowledge of the classics:
must study the
classics in their own historical context
eg: Petrarch sees
late
Roman Republican politics
Civic
Humanism & Florentine Politics: humanist learning in service of state
. Humanist careers as civil servants in
Republican context:
Coluccio Salutati: 1) lawyer, Florentine
Chancellor (1375-1406)
skills: formal Latin correspondence,
oratorical ability (rhetoric),
panegyrics
(speech in praise of city, ruler etc.), history
2)
role as humanist educator: defends curriculum
of studia humanitatis
against
Letter in
Defense of Liberal Studies (1390's) against Dominican
Giovanni Dominici's attack on study of classics as 'pagan' texts
.War
of Giangaleazzo Visconti of
Leonardo Bruni
(Chancellor) rhetorical defense of republic (Baron thesis)
In Praise of the City
of Florence 1400: republican liberty as
element distinguishing
History of the
City of Florence: humanist imitation of Roman history
Recovery
of Greek Learning:
1453 = fall of
Marsilio
Ficino (1433-1499) humanists under patronage of
Cosimo dei Medici
established in Villa Careggi
outside Florence, called "Platonic Academy"
1462: Ficino
begins translation of Plato's Dialogues
crucial moment in evolution of Renaissance
learning towards Greek
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
(1463-1494) Oration on the Dignity
of Man
high estimate of potential of human nature
(unlike trad'l Christian view)
recovery of all ancient texts as basis for
synthesis of all knowledge