Humanism the Gateway to Individualism

515 Words2 Pages

The greatest and most influential intellectual movement of Renaissance Italy was humanism. The humanists believed that the Greek and Latin classics contained all the lessons one needed to lead a moral and effective life and were the best models for a person to live by. They developed a new kind of classical scholarship, with which they corrected and tried to understand the works of the Greeks and Romans, which was important to them. Both the republic elites of Florence and Venice, and the ruling families of Milan, Ferrara, and Urbino hired humanists to teach their children classical morality and to write elegant, classical letters, histories, and propaganda. The quest for education of this society allowed the concept of individuality to spread to all social classes. Through ideals laid by the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, and the Protestant Reformation, Italian Renaissance’s humanism nearly allowed for the modern concept of individuality. The classical literature, and the attempts among the philosophical elite to translate this literature, helped bring this "enlightening" knowl...

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