The Importance Of Civic Humanism In The Renaissance

According to Nicholas Mann, "Humanism is that concern with the legacy of antiquity, and in particular but not exclusively with its literary legacy... it involves above all the rediscovery and study of Greek and Roman texts, the restoration and interpretation of them, and the assimilation of the ideas and values they contain." The Studia Humanitatis (Studies of Humanity) is a Latin term used by Roman writers describing a cycle of studies in the humanities including, grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. Francesco Petrarch, an Italian scholar and poet of the fifteenth century, is considered by many to be the father of humanism. Petrarch 's influential texts had circulated widely throughout Florence and made their way into the government. Thus, humanist learning began to shape political ideologies in Florence. By inspiring humanist philosophy, Petrarch helped pave the way for the start of the Renaissance.

It spread with the humanist movement throughout the cities and courts of Italy breathing a new ethos into an old world." Civic humanism found expression in art, religion, history, education, and science. Rabil expanded on the popularity of civic humanism comparing humanism to an alliance between the man of thought and the man of action which found its fullest expression in Florence where "scholarship was joined by with a republican civic spirit...this civic humanism spread throughout the cities of Italy during the Quattrocento and...as it did so it profoundly affected the attitudes and developments in the arts and