“When investigating
truth, there is no harm in adding to the diligence of one’s predecessors.”
-Erasmus
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| The View From Mt. Ventoux |
Men like Erasmus took what was from the past and brought it
into a new world. Each genius shared
different ideas, some were scientific, others artistic, or perhaps religious,
all were literary. Though it seemed
untrue in geniuses like Leonardo Da Vinci and Brunelleschi, it held that, "Onc
ne furent a touts toutes graces donnees." ["All graces were never yet
given to any one man."] - La Brebis.
As these men had not all graces in one, they had to take their knowledge
and skill by following others.
“Stale water is a poor drink... Stale skill is worse. And
the man who walks in his own footsteps only ends where he began.”
-Loyd Alexander
When Brunelleschi built the dome of Florence he walked in
the footsteps of the ancient Romans, Luther in the footsteps of Erasmus,
Erasmus in the footsteps of Aldus Manutius, and Aldus in the footsteps of Petrarch. Petrarch, like Moses, walked up to the top of
a mountain, and there he found his own burning bush, and so he lead heroes,
valiant seekers of the new from the old into a promised land of free spreading
of ideas. However,
They fought the conservative powers of their time and also nature itself. We noted on Monday that to explore new worlds, be they worlds of thought or actual lands across the
sea, was dangerous. Men and women
mourned the death of Vasco da Gama before his ship even set sail to India,
fearing that he and his men would be lost.
Luther and the reformers were among the bravest of these
explorers. They turned from the universal
church and risked death so that the masses could take advantage of having God’s
word. These men fought for something
larger than themselves, and they argued for their discoveries and beliefs using
the words of the ancients. We see that:
“(As) robbers prove sometimes gallant soldiers, so soldiers
often prove brave robbers.” –Sir Thomas More
They were robbers of words and ideas, and, like Robin Hood,
they shared the spoils with the masses. When
Luther and Erasmus drew upon their humanistic education to debate the merits of
free will, when Machiavelli compiled his treatise on governing or when Montaigne
explored the merits of the African cannibal, they drew on past sources and let
those sources justify their views. These
views were then printed and spread far and wide. Their true level of education was exposed as each
wrote: “what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more” -Montaigne
Loyd Alexander stated that the three foundations of learning
are:
“See much, study much, suffer much.”
Who saw more than the explorers crossing the great
seas? Who studied more than Erasmus,
Guttenberg, Castiglione, or Michelangelo?
And who suffered more than John Calvin, Martin Luther, and John
Wycliffe? The price of the renaissance
was the price of knowledge in any time period.
Collaboration and competition of ideas, art and religion worked together
to create genius. Genius was the Renaissance.
I like how you showed that they all built on top of what others before them had done. I think that's a cool way to show how they remembered the past but stayed focused on the future and learning new things.
ReplyDeleteI feel similarly, the word Renaissance means "to return" in a sense, and yet it was an extremely progressive period in Europe, especially when compared to the centuries preceding it. And reading, writing and speaking really seemed to contribute to that quite meaningfully.
ReplyDelete