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| Coluccio Salutati |
The
history of the term humanism is
complex but enlightening. It was first employed (as humanismus) by 19th-century German scholars to
designate the Renaissance emphasis on classical studies in education. These studies were pursued and endorsed by
educators known, as early as the late 15th century, as umanisti—that is,
professors or students of Classical literature. The word umanisti derives from the studia humanitatis, a course of classical studies
that, in the early 15th century, consisted of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy. The studia humanitatis were
held to be the equivalent of the Greek paideia. Their
name was itself based on the Latin humanitas, an educational
and political ideal that was the intellectual basis of the entire movement.
Renaissance humanism in all its forms defined itself in its straining toward
this ideal. No discussion of humanism, therefore, can have validity without an
understanding of humanitas.
Humanitas meant the
development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent. The term
thus implied not only such qualities as are associated with the modern word humanity—understanding,
benevolence, compassion, mercy—but also such more aggressive characteristics as
fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour.
Consequently, the possessor of humanitas could
not be merely a sedentary and isolated philosopher or man of letters but was of
necessity a participant in active life. Just as action without insight was held
to be aimless and barbaric, insight without action was rejected as barren and
imperfect. Humanitas called for a fine balance of action
and contemplation, a balance born not of compromise but of complementarity. The
goal of such fulfilled and balanced virtue was political, in the broadest sense
of the word. The purview of Renaissance humanism included not only the
education of the young but also the guidance of adults (including rulers) via
philosophical poetry and strategic rhetoric. It included not only realistic
social criticism but also utopian hypotheses, not only painstaking
reassessments of history but also bold reshapings of the future. In short,
humanism called for the comprehensive reform of culture, the transfiguration of
what humanists termed the passive and ignorant society of the “dark” ages into
a new order that would reflect and encourage the grandest human potentialities.
Humanism had an evangelical dimension: it sought to project humanitas from
the individual into the state at large
