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From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 7
STUDY OF GREEK IN ITALY
The renewed interest in Latin literature, due to Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others, was followed in the fifteenth century by the revival of Greek literature. In 1396 A.D. Chrysoloras, a scholar from Constantinople, began to lecture on Greek in the university of Florence. He afterwards taught in other Italian cities and further aided the growth of Hellenic studies by preparing a Greek grammar—the first book of its kind. From this time, and especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D., many learned Greeks came to Italy, thus transplanting in the West the culture of the East. "Greece had not perished, but had emigrated to Italy."
HUMANISM
To the scholars of the fifteenth century the classics opened up a new world of thought and fancy. They were delighted by the fresh, original, and human ideas which they discovered in the pages of Homer, Plato, Cicero, Horace, and Tacitus. Their new enthusiasm for the classics came to be known as humanism, [5] or culture. The Greek and Latin languages and literatures were henceforth the "humanities," as distinguished from the old scholastic philosophy and theology.
[5] Latin humanitas, from homo, "man."
SPREAD OF HUMANISM IN ITALY
From Florence, as from a second Athens, humanism spread throughout Italy. At Milan and Venice, at Rome and Naples, men fell to poring over the classics. A special feature of the age was the recovery of ancient manuscripts from monasteries and cathedrals, where they had often lain neglected and blackened with the dust of ages. Nearly all the Latin works now extant were brought to light by the middle of the fifteenth century. But it was not enough to recover the manuscripts: they had to be safely stored and made accessible to students. So libraries were established, professorships of the ancient languages were endowed, and scholars were given opportunities to pursue their researches. Even the popes shared in this zeal for humanism. One of them founded the Vatican Library at Rome, which has the most valuable collection of manuscripts in the world. At Florence the wealthy family of the Medici vied with the popes in the patronage of the new learning.
Cf. Jacob Burckhardt's, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy
