During the Cultural, artistic and scientific renaissance that took place in Italy in the fourteenth century, the Humanism gained prominence among renaissance thinkersmainly because it is characterized as an intellectual movement that turned its interests to the philosophical, literary and scientific works of Classical Antiquity (Greece and Rome).
Interest in Classical Antiquity did not reveal a desire to return to the past (nostalgic desire). Medieval men were aware that they lived and had other social and cultural values, that is, they were men different from the men of Classical Antiquity. Arevaluation of science, art and classical philosophy was needed to adapt them to the new historical context.
The return to the works of classical thinkers began with the Scholastic Philosophy. The main representative of this philosophical current was Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church. Saint Thomas believed that reason, the human intellect, was not to be feared – he regarded reason as another path to God. Scholasticism adapted the teachings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle the religion. The philosopher’s ideas were used to clarify and explain the teachings of religion through logical concepts and principles.
Humanist thinkers and intellectuals are usually confused with anti-religious, but we cannot perpetuate this misinterpretation, since humanists wanted to maintain a relationship with God and the natural world. Human investigation would be privileged, man would rationalize through his thoughts the investigation of the various natural, social, cultural and mythical phenomena.
Don’t stop now… There’s more after the publicity 😉
Through Humanism, man came to be seen as the image and likeness of his creator God, becoming the measure of all things. Humanists broke with Theocentrism (the idea that God was the center of the entire universe and of all human life) and the idea of Anthropocentrism (man at the center of the universe and human life) began to prevail.
Humanism led to reforms in the teaching of European universities and there was an appreciation of the humanities (human sciences today), which favored the teaching and study of Poetry, Philosophy and History. The humanists intended to introduce critical methods in the reading and interpretation of works and wanted to reconstruct the original texts to correct errors, omissions and modifications made by medieval copyist monks.
An important fact that happened in the fifteenth century was the creation of the printing press, or press, by Johann Gutemberg. The invention revolutionized the production of books, which no longer needed to be handwritten by copyists, a process that demanded a lot of time. With the creation of Gutemberg – metallic movable type (press) –, the book production process decreased, thousands of works being printed in a few years, which facilitated the contact of readers with humanist ideas and authors, or that is, the invention provided a greater dissemination of knowledge.
Humanism, as seen, was the theoretical and philosophical basis of the Renaissance movement, influencing the artistic, cultural and scientific Renaissance.
Leandro Carvalho
Master in History