HISTORY
ITALY
HUMANISM
BY LAURA AND GIULIIA G.
The term “humanism” is a broad cultural movement that began in the last decades of the fourteenth century and has as main feature the rediscovery of man through research and the literature of Greek and Latin classics.
This rediscovery is a cultural premise of the Renaissance, that separates the medieval world, which put God at the center of the Universe and humanism where the man is at the center of the universe and is master of his own destiny.
It spreads a great confidence in human intelligence; exalt the dignity of man, his natural superiority over other beings, his skills. It also affirms the concept of humanitas, understood as the desire for knowledge which distinguishes man from all other beings. The ‘humanism spreads in large noble courts, in particular the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici. During humanism renew the arts, sculpture and begin to appear some important characters such as Leonardo Da Vinci.
Humanism was named after the rediscovery of the cultural roots of Greek and Latin. As a result there was a new method, philological, which consists in searching and transcription of ancient manuscripts.
AUTHORS HUMANISTS:
The main humanist philosophers were Socrate, Zenone, founder of Stoicism and Protagora, who said that man is the foundation of the world.
LORENZO VALLA expresses a strong condemnation of the philosophy of time and launched a reform project. He argues that philosophy has lost the ‘love of wisdom and became a sort of profession. Changing the technical language of logic and metaphysics, on the basis of grammatical and linguistic correctness. Critical technology. Valla rejects the theological disputes typical of universities and formulates a theology that presents the Bible according to the new philological methods. Study the Bible without studying the philosophy of Aristotele says in fact that theology has no need of philosophy. Philosophy can not substitute for the Christian vision of the world, because it guarantees true happiness.