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What are some major features of Renaissance Humanism?
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Renaissance Humanism was a cultural movement focused on the revival of classical Greek and Latin culture, emphasizing human beings over divine themes. It sought to recover original texts and engage in meticulous editing to restore their meanings. This period saw a shift in art, literature, and science, with figures like Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare exploring human nature. Humanists valued classical Latin and Greek, promoting a return "ad fontes" to original sources, influencing various intellectual fields.
The main distinction between the humanist movement in the Renaissance and the previous intellectual conversation is aptly described in the name: humanism focused on the exploration of human beings, as opposed to exploring the nature of God and religion. One can see this in the difference between Renaissance paintings and medieval paintings. In medieval paintings, God, Jesus, and the saints take up most of the canvas, with ordinary people painted very small at the bottom. In the Renaissance, ordinary people began to take up more of, or even became the focus of, these paintings. Art, both painting and sculpture, was a big part of the humanist movement—people like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonnaroti are examples of great Renaissance artists.
This focus on the human both came from Greek and Roman influences and led to greater interest in them. The movement began in Italy and then spread to other parts...
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of Europe over time. The Renaissance is called the Renaissance—French for "rebirth"—because Renaissance humanists brought back texts and interests that scholars hadn't focused on for centuries. They learned Greek and Latin and began to translate important pieces of literature such asThe Iliad, The Odyssey, and the works of the great Greek playwrights. These epics and plays explored human nature for its own sake as well as in relationship to the divine. Writers like Shakespeare emulated classical literature by placing great men at the center of their works and looking at how humans behave in challenging situations.
The sciences gained new energy from humanism as well. The interest in the human led to closer examinations of the body, as anatomists like Andreas Vesalius began to describe the workings of the human frame more accurately than medieval scientists had done. In architecture, Filippo Brunelleschi began to use innovative techniques based on those of the Romans. Nicolaus Copernicus theorized the heliocentric model—that the earth goes around the sun rather than the opposite—and Galileo Galilei invented the telescope in order to investigate heavenly bodies more closely.
In every arena of human knowledge, the study of classical texts brought new ideas and new energy to the work of scholars and creators.
Renaissance Humanism was an international movement in European culture. Its major focus was on revival of classical Greek and Latin culture, in opposition to the scholasticism of the late middle ages. The humanists advocated a return "ad fontes" (to the sources). This meant a concerted effort to find original Greek manuscripts of both the Bible and ancient literary, scientific, and philosophical texts and to engage in meticulous editing to recuperate the original phrasing and meaning.
While scholastic philosophy was very technical and scientific, accessible only to specialists, the humanists had a greater appreciation for what we now would consider belles lettres, essayistic writing aimed towards a general educated audience. The humanists were especially interested in letter writing and saw Cicero's letters as models for emulation.
Latin was the international language of humanism. In a rebellion against what they considered the barbaric nature of Church Latin, humanists attempted to revive classical traditions of Latin vocabulary, syntax, and pronunciation, increasing the divide between the Latin in general use and emerging vernaculars.