7. Rome and Greece as the purest and most
philosophical eras
Sunday, September 23, 2012
8. Rome and Greece as the purest and most
philosophical eras
Growing interest in pre-Greek civilization
Hermetism
Mysticism, spiritualism
Sunday, September 23, 2012
9. Rome and Greece as the purest and most
philosophical eras
Growing interest in pre-Greek civilization
Hermetism
Mysticism, spiritualism
Scholarly movements:
Revival of Platonism
Renewed Aristotelianism (response)
Christian syncretism
Anti-intellectualism
Sunday, September 23, 2012
10. Rome and Greece as the purest and most
philosophical eras
Growing interest in pre-Greek civilization
Hermetism
Mysticism, spiritualism
Scholarly movements:
Revival of Platonism
Renewed Aristotelianism (response)
Christian syncretism
Anti-intellectualism
The university/education
Sunday, September 23, 2012
13. What Renaissance Humanism was NOT:
Move away from the Church
Humaneness (Machiavelli)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
14. What Renaissance Humanism was NOT:
Move away from the Church
Humaneness (Machiavelli)
Intense interest in human beings
Dignity of man (DaVinci, Michelangelo)
Individualism
Humanism (Erasmus, Montaigne, Thomas More)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
15. What Renaissance Humanism was NOT:
Move away from the Church
Humaneness (Machiavelli)
Intense interest in human beings
Dignity of man (DaVinci, Michelangelo)
Individualism
Humanism (Erasmus, Montaigne, Thomas More)
Skepticism (Montaigne, Bacon)
Towards intellectualism (Petrarch vs. philosophy)
Towards authority (Copernicus)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
16. What Renaissance Humanism was NOT:
Move away from the Church
Humaneness (Machiavelli)
Intense interest in human beings
Dignity of man (DaVinci, Michelangelo)
Individualism
Humanism (Erasmus, Montaigne, Thomas More)
Skepticism (Montaigne, Bacon)
Towards intellectualism (Petrarch vs. philosophy)
Towards authority (Copernicus)
Optimism
The idea of progress (Giovanni Pico)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
19. Man is born for a life of civility and cultivation,
bordering on the divine
Sunday, September 23, 2012
20. Man is born for a life of civility and cultivation,
bordering on the divine
Architecture as philosophical vision
Sunday, September 23, 2012
21. Man is born for a life of civility and cultivation,
bordering on the divine
Architecture as philosophical vision
The city as teacher and as moral agent
(Somewhat like the medieval city as fortress and protector)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
22. Man is born for a life of civility and cultivation,
bordering on the divine
Architecture as philosophical vision
The city as teacher and as moral agent
(Somewhat like the medieval city as fortress and protector)
Everything good and known is in the city:
Knowledge Art
Wealth Talent
Sunday, September 23, 2012
25. Gothic cathedral
Ambiguous &
ethereal character of a
Platonic idea
Free, “barbaric”
imperfections
Innocence
Christian system
(workman ≠ slaves)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
27. Renaissance basilica
Orderly
reasonableness of
Aristotle’s categories
Disciplined, line-and-
angle proportions
Vanity & pretense
Slave based systems
Sunday, September 23, 2012
28. 2 Factors accelerated the
spread of the Renaissance:
1.Economic Prosperity
2.The Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg
1452: began his famous
Bible project
1455: completed 200
copies
Stimulated the literacy of
lay people
Sunday, September 23, 2012
32. Reason (again)
Giovanni Pico
“If sensitive, he (man) will become brutish. If rational, he
will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an
angel and the son of God… Who would not admire this, our
chameleon?”
Sunday, September 23, 2012
33. Reason (again)
Giovanni Pico
“If sensitive, he (man) will become brutish. If rational, he
will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an
angel and the son of God… Who would not admire this, our
chameleon?”
Skepticism towards intellectualism
Petrarch
“He (Aristotle) knew absolutely nothing of true happiness
that any pious old woman, any faithful fisherman, shepherd
or peasant is… happier in recognizing it. He saw happiness
as much as the night owl does the sun.”
”It is one thing to know, another to love…”
Sunday, September 23, 2012
35. Hermeticism (< the Hermes myth)
The individual can command the supernatural forces
and share in the Cosmic spirit
Man is an agent of change, a rational-spiritual force
capable of changing the course of nature
Ficino:
“It is also obvious that he (man) is the god of the elements,
for he inhabits and cultivates all of them. Finally, he is the
god of all materials, for he handles, changes, and shapes all of
them. He who governs the body in so many and so important
ways, and is the vicar of the immortal God, he is no doubt
immortal.”
Sunday, September 23, 2012
37. The Restoration: A different view of Christianity
Luther:
Attack on Church corruption
Critical of reason/philosophy
Denied free will
Savonarola: “burning of the vanities” (symbols of
overly dignified man)
Erasmus: the voice of reason, a noble humanist
Calvin: echoes of the simple, righteous and sparse
life advocated by the Pythagoreans
Sunday, September 23, 2012
38. The witch trials
Malleus maleficarum
Is the will free or
can Satan claim it
for himself?
Possession vs.
heresy
Sunday, September 23, 2012
40. Literature
// Art: intense focus on
man, his emotions, his
psyche
Return of the tragedy
Shakespeare’s multiple
psychological types and
rich human analyses
“Anatomy of melancholy”
by Robert Burton (1621)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
