This book traces the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Italy, the area in which humanism began in the mid-thirteenth century, a century or more before exerting its influence on the rest of Europe. Covering a period of over four and a half centuries, this study offers the first integrated analysis of Latin writings produced in the area, examining not only religious, literary, and legal texts. Ronald G. Witt characterizes the changes reflected in these Latin writings as products of the interaction of thought with economic, political, and religious tendencies in Italian society as well as with intellectual influences coming from abroad. His research ultimately traces the early emergence of humanism in northern Italy in the mid-thirteenth century to the precocious development of a lay intelligentsia in the region, whose participation in the culture of Latin writing fostered the beginnings of the intellectual movement which would eventually revolutionize all of Europe.

The Two Latin Cultures and the Foundation of Renaissance Humanism in Medieval Italy

Literature & Fiction

Witt, Ronald G.

History & Criticism

Cambridge University Press

This introductory text presents an overview of the liberal arts--literature, art, music, philosophy, and history--with a particular emphasis on literature. The unique selection of works from each culture provides students with a global understanding of the humanities. Several pedagogical features of the Seventh Edition, such as chapter objectives, key terms, art images, and summary questions, help students understand the major concepts of the text. Each volume begins with a "Chronicle of Events" that provides a timetable of key events in world history. "Continuities" sections focus on the lasting contributions of each society.

The Humanities, Volume I

Tirro, Frank

Witt, Mary Ann Frese

Brown, Charlotte

Dunbar, Roberta

Arts & Photography

Wadsworth Publishing

The Humanities, Volume II

Houghton/Mifflin

Hercules at the Crossroads: The Life, Works and Thought of Coluccio Salutati (Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies)

Biographies & Memoirs

Duke Univ Pr

These essays are concerned with the nature of early renaissance political thought and the relationship between humanism and medieval rhetoric. One group traces the influence of medieval political thought on the rise of the modern conception of republicanism; others focus on the medieval art of letter writing and its place in the medieval cultural context; while still others analyse the often contradictory thought of the early humanist, Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), who struggled to reconcile his classical learning with his medieval allegiances. In the collection as a whole humanism emerges as a literary movement drawing as heavily on patristic and medieval culture as on antiquity. Awareness of its various debts permits recognition of what humanism itself contributed to the development of western thought and ethics.

Italian Humanism and Medieval Rhetoric (Variorum Collected Studies)

History

Europe

Routledge

At some point in January or early February of 1347, Petrarch briefly visited the remote Carthusian monastery of Montrieux, where, four years before, his beloved brother, Gherardo, had pledged himself to live in perpetuity as a renditus, one who took the same vows as a monk but who was not cloistered. In the day and night he spent at Montrieux, Petrarch spoke privately with Gherardo, had lively discussions with other residents, and attended religious services celebrated by the brothers with "angelic singing." Unwilling to disturb the rigid discipline of the monastery longer, he reluctantly departed the next morning accompanied by the prior and the brothers to the limits of their property and he imagined them continuing to watch him until he disappeared from view. Returning to the Vaucluse, still "mindful of that whole blessed sweetness which I drank in with you," and troubled that in the course of the hasty visit he had not been able to say many things that he would like to have said, he decided "to express in writing what I was not able to do in person." The body of the work that was to become the "De otio religioso" was composed sometime during Lent or between February 11 and March 29 of that year. Not untypically, however, Petrarch continued to add to the text as late as 1356, and the finished treatise was probably not dispatched to Gherardo until 1357. This first English translation by Susan S. Schearer faithfully and elegantly presents Petrarch's exordium to the life of contemplation and offers the reader a fresh view into the spiritual world of fourteenth-century humanism. Ronald G. Witt's introduction places the work into its historical and intellectual context, discusses its structure and development, and examines Petrarch's characteristic synthesis of Christian and classical sources. First English translation. Introduction, Notes, Bibliography, Index of Citations, General Index.

On Religious Leisure (De otio religioso)

Schearer, Susan S.

World

Italica Press

Il libro indaga l'elemento distintivo e caratterizzante della vita culturale italiana: la nascita della prima classe intellettuale laica dell'intera Europa e il fondamentale ruolo che i laici esercitarono sulla cultura. Coprendo un arco di tempo di oltre quattro secoli e mezzo, dalla conquista carolingia al Duecento, lo studio offre la prima analisi esaustiva degli scritti in latino prodotti nel regno d'Italia. Esaminando i testi religiosi, letterari e giuridici, ma non solo, Ronald G. Witt mostra come i cambiamenti presenti in questi testi siano il risultato dell'interazione del pensiero con le tendenze economiche, politiche e religiose della societa italiana, nonche con le influenze intellettuali provenienti dall'estero. Il punto di arrivo della ricerca e costituito dall'insorgere dell'Umanesimo nell'Italia settentrionale: proprio il precoce sviluppo di una classe intellettuale laica e la sua partecipazione alla cultura latina incoraggiarono infatti la nascita di quel movimento culturale che, da ultimo, avrebbe rivoluzionato l'intera Europa.

L'eccezione Italiana: L'intellettuale Laico Nel Medioevo E L'origine Del Rinascimento 800-1300 (Storia. Saggi, 8) (Italian Edition)

Viella - Liberia Editrice

This monograph demonstrates why humanism began in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century. It considers Petrarch a third generation humanist, who christianized a secular movement. The analysis traces the beginning of humanism in poetry and its gradual penetration of other Latin literary genres, and, through stylistic analyses of texts, the extent to which imitation of the ancients produced changes in cognition and visual perception.The volume traces the link between vernacular translations and the emergence of Florence as the leader of Latin humanism by 1400 and why, limited to an elite in the fourteenth century, humanism became a major educational movement in the first decades of the fifteenth. It revises our conception of the relationship of Italian humanism to French twelfth-century humanism and of the character of early Italian humanism itself.In the Footsteps of the Ancients is the recipient of the Jacques Barzun Prize 2000 in Cultural History of the American Philosophical Society.This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (Studies in Medieval & Reformation Thought)

Brill Academic Pub

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