T h e A m e r i c a n U n i v e r s i t y o f R o m e HST 201 - Survey of Western Civilization I

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T h e A m e r i c a n U n i v e r s i t y o f
R o m e HST 201 - Survey of Western
Civilization I
Session 18 The end of the Middle Ages Moving
towards Modernity How did the Western World
became Modern? What did it take?
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In the modern age history emerged as something it
never had been before...a man-made process, the
only all comprehending process which owed its
existence exclusively to the human race. Hannah
Arendt (1906 - 1975) German-born U.S. philosopher
and historian. In Between Past and Future Six
Exercises in Political Thought
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Coffin, WC, 14tth edition, website The idea that
our modern world shares a clear affinity with the
world of the European Renaissance was first
brought to light by the Swiss art historian,
Jacob Burckhardt. In 1860, Burckhardt wrote his
two-volume The Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy, an astounding work which in many ways has
done as much harm as it has good. The problem is
that Burckhardt colored our perception of this
period by leading us to believe that modern man
was born in the Renaissance. We all know that
the word renaissance means rebirth, but the big
question remains for whom was this rebirth
really a rebirth? That is, was the Renaissance a
phenomenon affecting all Europeans, or just a
select few? Answers to this question are not that
difficult but what makes the issue more
perplexing is that there is no specific
Renaissance "style" that we can identify. The
Renaissance was not a "school" or system of
thought and action-at the very least, it embraced
the work of thinkers and artists of very
different attitudes, achievements, and approaches.
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Coffin, WC, 14tth edition, website Beginning in
the city-states of northern Italy, the
Renaissance shed light on centuries of supposed
darkness. The civic humanists of Venice, Milan,
and Florence glorified the work of their
classical masters, hoping that the virtues of the
past would empower the civic virtues of the
present and future in Italy. Aristotle and
Aristotelian logic, that great mainstay of the
medieval world, was abandoned, and in its place
came Plato and the Neoplatonists, breathing new
life into the new world. The world of medieval
scholastic logic-chopping gave way to the
sometimes more mystical and clearly more human
endeavors of the humanists. In art, music,
philosophy, and political theory, the new
emphasis was on what was human, hence the word
humanism has come to describe much of the Italian
Renaissance.
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Coffin, WC, 14tth edition, website But there was
another renaissance at work as well. In northern
Europe, specifically the Low Countries, France,
and England, a Renaissance perhaps less concerned
with secular concerns burst forth. Its greatest
spokesmen, such as Erasmus and Thomas More,
mocked the worldly concerns of state and church,
and instead cautioned Europe that perhaps
something even more fundamental had been lost
from the historical past. Whereas the Italian
Renaissance looked to the past to understand the
present and move forward, the Christian humanists
of the northern Renaissance looked to the past in
order to mock and criticize the present. It was
Erasmus who, after all, once wrote, "St.
Socrates, pray for me."
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TB Questions gt How did Italian Renaissance
culture differ from the culture of the High
Middle Ages? gt Why did the Renaissance occur in
Italy? gt What were the principal characteristics
of Italian Renaissance art? gt Why did the
Renaissance decline around 1550? gt How did the
northern and Italian Renaissances differ from one
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Reformation (ca. 14501600) gt Gutenberg's
moveable type printing press (1450s) information
age and newspapers. gt Discovery of America
(1492) Age of Discovery, Age of Exploration gt
Machiavelli's Il Principe (The Prince) started to
circulate. gt Copernicus gt Martin Luther
challenges the Church on 31 October 1517 with the
95 Theses Reformation.
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Trade and Commerce,
Technology, Art, architecture
Politics of Nation States, new empires
Urban life, cities
Renaissance of art based on Observation
reinterpretation, Universities
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1510
Plato Aristoteles
Socrates
Zoroaster Rafael
Ptolemy Euclid
Epicurus
Averroes
Diogenes
Pythagoras
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Protestantism Martin Luther, 1517(the
intellectual context of it)gt 95 thesis against
indulgences, Wittenberg21. Therefore those
preachers of indulgences are in error, who say
that by the pope's indulgences a man is freed
from every penalty, and saved22. Whereas he
remits to souls in purgatory no penalty which,
they would have had to pay in this life.23. If
it is at all possible to grant to any one the
remission of all penalties whatsoever, it is
certain that this remission can be granted only
to the most perfect, that is, to the very
fewest.24. It must needs be, therefore, that the
greater part of the people are deceived by that
indiscriminate and highsounding promise of
release from penalty.25. The power which the
pope has, in a general way, over purgatory, is
just like the power which any bishop or curate
has, in a special way, within his own diocese or
parish.
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Volker Bornschier in The Civilizational Project
and Its Discontents p. 181 The Westernization of
the World and Cultural Heritage In the future,
when previous obstacles to development may become
less relevant, two questions will become
interesting (1) Will the West remain western?
(2) What consequences does competition have for
the relationship between core culture and
dissimilar cultures?