Humanism

Humanism first achieved public visibility through Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch; 1304–1374) whose achievements impressed his humanist contemporaries. His immediate disciples were Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) and Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), both Florentines. Salutati, as chancellor (chief administrative officer) of the city from 1375 until his death, did much to encourage the growth of humanism, especially employing humanists and bringing Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1353–1415) to Florence, where he taught Greek for three years (1397–1400) and left behind a group of scholars competent to continue Greek studies on their own. From its center in Florence, humanism spread rapidly throughout Italy during the fifteenth century and established itself as the most defining intellectual movement of the Renaissance (1350–1600). Its spread always involved the establishment of schools. Three influential pedagogues were Gasparino Barzizza (1360–1430), the most outstanding scholar of Cicero in his generation, who taught in Venice, Bologna, and Padua; Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446), a student of Barzizza's who taught in Padua and Venice and established a school in Mantua; and Guarino da Verona (Guarino Veronese; 1374–1460), who taught in Venice, Verona, and Florence, and established a school in Ferrara. All three had illustrious students, some of whom became rulers of city-states, others reputable scholars and teachers.

During the second half of the fifteenth century the movement also established itself in Spain, France, Germany, the Low Countries, and England, as well as in eastern Europe as far as Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. But during the second generation of its expansion outside Italy, the Reformation in Germany and then elsewhere absorbed a good deal of humanist energy. The influence of humanism on the religious disputes of the sixteenth century was great, in large part because the Bible and the church fathers came so centrally into play. But its influence extended to other areas as well: to art, politics, philosophy, medicine, law, and mathematics. Humanism began to merge into other intellectual movements after 1600, though its program of education remained central in western Europe and the United States until the twentieth century.