Christian Humanism: Models, Crisis, and Development
Over time, the world around us is increasingly breaking down, and the humanist dream of changing the world is disappearing. The ideals of human omnipotence become paralyzed, and there is a change in the meditation of human knowledge, a human being aware of the divinity.
It created three basic models of Christianization of humanism:
Leisure-Worthy Model
A person who retires to the quiet to meditate and study on the human condition, in solitude, but connected to others, surrounded by nature and beauty. It is important to the idea of communication and transmission of ideas.
Humanist-Political Model
Represented by the foreign ministers of the Florentine Republic in the early fifteenth century, such as Alberti. The idea is that humans are an integral part of society, family, and state. As such social beings, human beings have to engage in public activity and must serve the needs of the state. It combines thought and political activity, continuing the tradition of Cicero and Dante.
This humanism is in crisis, and there is a new quest to change the world and the organization of society. The critical moment consists of a sequence of events: the Italian Wars (the invasion of France and Spain) and the Protestant Reformation. The political humanism idealism is lost, and another alternative is further search of ideals:
- The loss embodies Machiavelli, enemy of the Medici and author of The Prince (published in 1513). It leads to a separation between morality and politics, where politics is necessary to morality. Taking not only to ancient authors, but history, even contemporary history, looking for human models in contemporary history.
- People like Erasmus and Thomas More, given a model based on the moralization of politics, modeled on the Christian model of the Gospels. This model will have a strong impact, but will be abandoned.
- The third model is the humanist courtier, not in service but as the courtier. Humanism serves as a model for the education of the court. That is the Courtier Castiglione’s model, which is related to the model of dialogue and expressed as the humanistic model can be found in court.
The religion of beauty is but the reworking of the Platonic ideas of love in the Platonic Academy of Florence. No single treaty in the field courtier but also mixed with Christianity and Judaism, which developed the Dialogues d’amore by L. Ebreo. The idea is that if one aspires to attain the highest good, which is the contemplation of the divinity, that path upward may develop from human love which is linked to enjoyment and participation in the beauty of the land, and in this case the beauty of the beloved. This participation of beauty leads to compression of the conception of beauty goes beyond the earthly beauty, and that means that souls are mixing and rising, led to happiness. The Florentine Platonic thought it was achievable in the models yet courtiers thought it was an excuse for cutting attentions were disguised as philosophical ideas.
Important foci for the development of humanism, that although the force arising are losing importance and disappear without passing the baton to others:
- Italy, with deep roots in the fourteenth century, and very strong during the XV, mostly to the Florence, with foreign ministers civic humanists and policy guidance, as heirs of the Roman Republic. From here radiate to other European locations, and highlight where the poet Poliziano.
Crisis of the 1492-1994 outbreak between the death of Lorenzo and the entry of the French king, disappears as the head of humanism Florence.