Renaissance Portraits
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Sometime in 1492, the Italian philosopher, Marsilio
Ficino (1433-1499),,
wrote a letter to his friend Paul of Middleburg. The letter is instructive
for what it says about Ficino's attitude toward his
own age as well as an age that has passed. Ficino
writes: If we are to call any age golden, it is beyond doubt that age which
brings forth golden talents in different places. That such is true of this
our age [no one] will hardly doubt. For this century, like a golden age, has
restored to light the liberal arts, which were almost extinct: grammar,
poetry, rhetoric, painting, sculpture, architecture, music . . . and all this
in Historians working on the problem of the Renaissance have never been able
to decide when the period began, or even when it ended, although they all
admit that a Renaissance did indeed occur. Some see its beginning in the 12th
century, while others, in the 14th century. An even larger question looms: if
there was such a thing as the Renaissance, regardless of when it began or
ended, for whom was the Renaissance, a Renaissance? Did it affect all people
at the same time? Or, was its impact felt only on a relatively small number
of people in Northern Italian city-states, And these questions raise other questions of interpretation. Did the Renaissance
give birth to modern man? If so, what is modern man? Did individualism make
its first appearance during the Renaissance? Was humanism the hallmark of
this period of rebirth? How do we reconcile an outburst of religious fervor
during this period, alongside an intense focus on things more worldly. Was the Renaissance "good"? Why did
Renaissance humanists, scholars and artists need to go back in time in order
to justify their present? Were they suffering some kind of collective
identity crisis? Does the fact that the humanist had to go back to the past
to find models for he present and future lessen our regard for the
Renaissance? So many questions. In 1860, the Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt
(1818-1897) published his two volume masterpiece, The
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. It was Burckhardt
who presented his 19th century audience with what has been regarded as the
classic interpretation of the Renaissance by arguing that the 14th and 15th
centuries witnessed the birth of modern man. For Burckhardt,
it was in the city-states of northern Italy during this time that a secular
concept of the state first appeared, a state in all respects modern (modern,
of course, for Burckhardt). He also identified the
code of chivalry and maintained that this code of honor and decorum was
indicative of the development of the individual. Lastly, he argued that in
was in the Renaissance that man was discovered. Italian society was characterized by a revival of antiquity --
specifically the classical world of In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness – that which was
turned within as that which was turned without -- lay dreaming or held awake
beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish
prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange
hues. Man was conscious of himself as a member of a race, people, party,
family, or corporation -- only through some general category. In This lecture will examine four representative figures of the Renaissance
in order to construct a composite picture of this age. We shall treat their
lives as windows into the past in order to see how much light they might shed
on our understanding of the Renaissance as a whole. These four men, all
humanists, are: Leonardo da
Vinci, 1452-1519 As you can see, all four men were contemporaries of one another. They
appear at the end of the Renaissance, the High Renaissance if you will. Their
lives coincide with the Age of Discovery as well as that great upheaval of
European civilization -- the Protestant Reformation .
In 1465, the 14 year old Leonardo was taken to Leonardo left Leonardo was a transitional figure in that he had a thirst for what was
new and innovative. He wanted to grasp man and nature through his senses and
not through books or reflection of philosophical displays of talent. With
this in mind, he moved to It's been said that Leonardo had a camera-eye for detail and it was with
this spirit that he observed the world around him. He wanted to observe,
discover and invent. And at Leonardo fled Leonardo kept numerous notebooks throughout his life (see, for example,
the Codex
Leicester). One curious detail is that the handwriting is backwards, that
is, to read them correctly they must be viewed in a mirror. This might tell
us something about Leonardo. Of greater importance, however, is that Leonardo
included the comment "Tell me if anything at all was done" on page
after page of these notebooks. Although he considered himself a failure, his
contemporaries did not think so. He was first, a boy genius -- a teenager who
entered the illustrious studio of Verrochio and
immediately surpassed the master's work. Leonardo embodied the Renaissance
idea that every individual has unlimited potential and requires not the
monastic life, but a proper environment in which, like a flower, he can
unfold. Leonardo was also a man of the people -- what he saw he saw for
himself and the benefit of his society. He took little interest in the
supposed wisdom of the ancients. The Greek and Roman texts told him nothing
-- everything could be discovered in Nature itself and it was in Nature that
Leonardo discovered meaning. He discovered that Nature speaks to man in
detail and through detail and structure, we can uncover Nature's grand
design, an ideal which would eventually become associated with the Scientific
Revolution to come . Before Copernicus, Leonardo accepted a sun-centered universe. He though of
sound in terms of waves. He understood, before Galileo, that perpetual motion
was impossibility. He read the rings in trees and understood the antiquity of
the fossil record. He left fewer than twenty paintings, no statue, no
machine, no book. What he did leave behind were 5000
pages of notes and drawings which remained unnoticed until the 18th century
when they were discovered. His way of painting had lasting influence -- his
machines perhaps none. Raphael learned from him, he was the friend of
Machiavelli and contemporary of both Martin Luther and Columbus. For the 15th
century, he was the prototype of the explorer of the unknown, a genius who
gazed at what seemed to be a new world.
The Prince is a short work that Machiavelli intended as a guide to
political power. However, unlike political philosophers of the past, he did
not argue his case from the standpoint of what should be but instead
described what is. In other words, The Prince is no blueprint for a
future society. He did not describe the best way for a prince to behave, but rather,
the way society is run and how people do behave. I suppose you could say he
was in the business of "telling it like it is." As Machiavelli
himself put it: My intention being to write something of use to those who understand,
it appears to me more proper to go to the real truth of the matter than to
its imagination; and many have imagined republics and principalities which
have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far
removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done from
what ought to be done, will rather learn to bring about his own ruin than his
preservation. With this in mind, Machiavelli believed that man's nature was both good
and evil, but for the purposes of discussing politics, he argued that human
nature was essentially evil. Perhaps this says something to us? After all, he
was discussing human behavior in the here and now, not in some future state
of affairs. Machiavelli introduced a secular concept of the state -- a state divorced
from its theological implications. He was not anti-religious but he was
anti-clerical. He regarded the Church as a social force, thus neglecting its
spiritual force. Machiavelli would have agreed with Karl Marx when he wrote
that "religion is the opiate of the people." Napoleon would have
agreed as well. The Church hindered the strong by preaching to them to be
meek and mild. Machiavelli turned away from morality, religion and the papacy and
believed that the state was a work of art -- the deliberate artistic creation
of men. In advising the prince, Machiavelli believed that he was also
advising the state since the interests of the prince are the same as the
interests of the state. For Machiavelli, this secular belief showed that the
intervention of God or And so Machiavelli's book advised the prince how to make his country
maintain power at all costs. Because the prince is identified with the state,
the ordinary principles of morality do not apply to him. Anything may be
done, in other words, if it promotes the common good by maintaining the power
of the prince. For Machiavelli, the existence of the state and its acquisition
of power, were ends in themselves. In other words, power is an end in itself.
Or, as Machiavelli would have it, "the end justifies the means. A prince
must be entitled to do whatever he wants provided it is for he satisfaction of the community as a whole and not for
personal gain. A corollary of this way of thinking is the idea that in warm,
the chief aim is the complete destruction of the enemy -- and to realize that
aim, anything is possible. The prince should not hesitate to fool and deceive his people. Above all,
the prince ought to be a good propagandist. People are easily fooled -- it is
to the prince's advantage to spread false doctrines among the people. Why?
Because these lies and deceptions preserve the state from upheaval and insure
tranquility and stability. Just the same, Machiavelli argued that the prince
should not commit himself to useless cruelty -- useful cruelty, I suppose,
was okay. In general, the prince ought to be feared rather than loved --
feared, but not hated. This would avoid conspiracies. He also cautioned the
prince to respect women and property -- attacks on either would decrease
popular support for the prince. Machiavelli was a practicing politician and a diplomat as well. He
understood the nature of Florentine politics extremely well. But, he was also
a humanist and this made him think of politics as a secular affair, divorced
from religious or theological implications. After all, religion meant little
more to him than the cement which held society together. Finally, he was also
a scientist -- the first political scientist.
Unlike either Leonardo or Machiavelli, Thomas More was a profoundly
religious man. His most famous book Utopia was inspired
by the Sermon on the Mount. In Utopia More writes of an island in
which all goods are held in common, there is no money and people spend their
days doing good deeds for one another. But More's Utopia
was something more than just wishful thinking, the sort that Machiavelli
condemned in The Prince. More found the cause of social evil not in God, fate
or Original Sin. Man was not by nature evil. On the other hand, More located
evil in the social structures created by man. He wanted to construct a city
of man on earth, a city he believed would be
pleasing in the eyes of God. The Utopia was written at the same time
as Machiavelli's Prince and was composed in Latin and later translated
into English in 1556, years after More's death in
1535. Utopia was inspired by More's chance
meeting with a Portuguese sailor who had sailed with Amerigo
Vespucci on the last of three of his four
voyages. Utopia is a short book in two parts. In the first part, More
describes the current state of Utopia was also written in response to which giveth great fees and rewards to
gentlemen, as they call them, and to goldsmiths, and to such other, which be
either idle persons, or else only flatterers, and devisers of vain pleasures;
and of the poor ploughmen, colliers, labourers,
carters, ironsmiths, and carpenters: without whom no commonwealth can
continue? But after it hath abused the labours of
their lusty and flowering age, at the last when they be oppressed with old
age and sickness, being needy, poor, and indigent of all things, then
forgetting their so many painful watchings, not
remembering their so many and so great benefits, recompenseth
and acquitteth them most unkindly with miserable
death. And yet besides this the rich men not only by private fraud, but also
by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the poor some part of
their daily living. So whereas it seemed before unjust to recompense with
unkindness their pains that have been beneficial to the public weal, now they
have added to this their wrong and unjust dealing given the name of justice,
yea, and that by force of law. Therefore when I consider and weigh in my mind
all these commonwealths, which nowadays anywhere do
flourish, so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of
rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the
commonwealth. More writes of the English enclosure movement in which the peasant's land
-- given to them in common by the grave of God -- has been taken away by the
lords so that they may cultivate a new cash crop: sheep. And the sheep,
formerly meek and tame, "now eat up and swallow down the very men
themselves." Against the new economics of enclosure, commerce and the
exploitation of the poor for the benefit of the rich, More proposed his Utopia.
Taking literally the maxim that "the love of money is the root of all
evil," More eradicated gold from his ideal community. As a man, More was a devout Catholic with a strong ascetic bent. Even
after he had established himself as a successful lawyer and statesman, he
continued to wear a hair shirt and slept on a plank with a log for a pillow.
But, he eventually married (twice) and had an intelligent daughter from his
first marriage. Rather than enter monastic orders, More treated the world as
his monastery. He sought to fulfill God's purpose by doing good works in this
world -- in this way he foreshadowed the Puritans of the 17th century. In his Utopia, More criticized his own world. What bothered him the
most, I suppose, was that the Christian ideals that were supposedly the
foundation of his age, were in fact absent. For More, Utopia became an
egalitarian society in which everyone works, prays and studies. There were no
artisans, warriors or scholars for there was no longer any division of labor.
The In 1516, while More was writing Utopia, he was invited to enter
government service as an advisor to Henry VIII (1491-1547,
r. 1509-1547). More flatly refused. He knew that a king and a philosopher
could never work together. In the end, however, More entered the government
feeling he could better carry out justice as a judge. This was in 1517 or
1518. He served as speaker for the House of Commons in 1523 and found
himself, quite unwillingly, deeply involved in the government. He also found
himself in the midst of a struggle that would cost his life. Henry had married Catherine who, through successive attempts, produced one
stillborn child after another. There was no male heir to the throne of More has come to represent the symbol of the intellectual who holds fast
to his beliefs rather than succumb to more powerful forces. More was a
Renaissance scholar devoted to the New Learning. He was also a successful
lawyer who emerged from the rising middle class. Caught between the currents
of his own time, More entered the service of the state while retaining his
old Christian loyalties. He perished at the hands of his executioner, a
symbol of the triumph of stronger and more brutal ideas than his own.
As a humanist, Erasmus embraced an interest in the pagan literature of
classical The work which made Erasmus' fame, the Moriae
Encomium or The Praise
of Folly (1509), mocked the monastic life, indulgences and other
abuses of the Church. And what Erasmus had said about the Church in jest,
Luther soon said in seriousness, and with much greater implications. Like Leonardo, Erasmus was an illegitimate child
-- he too felt the pressures of being both unwanted and left to his
own making. In 1480, his father fell victim to the
plagues. In 1487 and at the age of 21, Erasmus reluctantly became a monk and
began to see the connections between classical and Christian virtues. Five
years later he was ordained and in 1495 he found himself at the For Erasmus, the classics seemed to be a natural gospel. He was literally
carried away when, after reading A heathen wrote this to a heathen, and yet his moral principles have
justice, sanctity, truth, fidelity to nature,
nothing false or careless in them. . . . When I read certain passages of these
great men I can hardly refrain from saying, Saint Socrates, pray for me. When he returned to They carry on the most sordid business and by the most corrupt methods.
Whenever it is necessary, they will lie, perjure themselves, steal, cheat,
and mislead the public. Nevertheless, they are highly respected because of
their money. There is no lack of flattering friars to kowtow to them, and
call them Right Honorable in public. The motive of the friars is clear
enough: they are after some of the loot. The philosophers are reverenced for their beards and the fur on their
gowns. They announce that they alone are wise. The fact that they can never
explain why they constantly disagree with each other is sufficient proof that
they do not know the truth about anything. They are ignorant even of
themselves. Perhaps it would be wise to pass over the theologians in silence. That
short-tempered crew is unpleasant to deal with. They will proclaim me a
heretic. With this thunderbolt they terrify the people they don't like. Their
opinion of themselves is so great that they behave as if they were already in
heaven: they look down pityingly on other men as so many worms. They are full
of big words and newly-invented terms. Next to the theologians in happiness are those who commonly call
themselves "the religious" and "monks." Both are complete
misnomers, since most of them stay as far away from religion as possible, and
no people are seen more often in public. They are so detested that it is
considered bad luck if one crosses your path, and yet they are highly pleased
with themselves. They cannot read, and so they consider it the height of piety
to have no contact with literature. Most of them capitalize on their dirt and
poverty by whining for food from door to door. These smooth fellows simply
explain that by their very filth, ignorance and insolence they enact the
lives of the Apostles for us. It is amusing to see how they do everything by
rule, almost mathematically. Any slip is sacrilege. Each shoe string must
have so many knots and must be of a certain color. They even condemn each
other, these professors of apostolic charity, making an extraordinary stir if
a habit is belted incorrectly or if its color is a shade too dark. The monks
of certain orders recoil in horror from money, as if it were poison, but not
from wine or women. They take extreme pains, not in order to be like Christ,
but to be unlike each other. Most of them consider one heaven an inadequate
reward for their devotion to ceremony and traditional details. They forget
that Christ will condemn all this and will call for a reckoning of that which
he has prescribed, namely, charity. Erasmus was speaking and writing about the discontent and hypocrisy of his
own age. The monks and theologians had ceased to be an intellectual or
spiritual force in the lives of the flock. They no longer reached the minds
or hearts of their audience. Instead, Erasmus mocks them for their attention
to shoe laces. In The Praise of Folly and in his other works, Erasmus
hoped to introduce a more rational conception of Christian doctrine and to
emancipate man's mind from the frivolous methods of the theologians. He tried
to make Christianity more human. Luther knew his Erasmus well, but the
situation in *
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*
* * Since the 1860s when Burckhardt published his Civilization
of the Renaissance in Italy, it has been the fashion to regard the
essence of the Renaissance as "the rediscovery of the world and of the
natural man." Those are Burckhardt's words.
This is far too simple, I think -- the reason being that any semi-intensive
study of the period known as the Renaissance reveals numerous intellectual
and cultural cross-currents that defy our penchant for pigeon-holing.
Humanistic values, Thomism, Augustinianism, paganism, mysticism and the new
science exist side by side with one another. But, I think the one value all
these currents perhaps share is an increasing individualism, an increasing
impatience with the older medieval forms of social organization. This
individualism was perhaps a natural reflex of an economy bursting forth from
its medieval limitations. Feudalism, at least in northern and western Europe,
sealed its own fate by its very existence. And the guild system, as I've
already mentioned, seemed to have dug its own grave. In the wake of economic
and social changes came changes in the way the individual thought about the
world. |
