AP EH The Intellectual Renaissance in Italy

○ Bruni

________ was one of the first Italian humanists to gain a thorough knowledge of Greek.

■ Leonardo Bruni

________ (1370- 1444), a humanist, Florentine patriot, and chancellor of the city, wrote a biography of Cicero titled The New Cicero, in which he waxed enthusiastic about the fusion of political action and literary creation in Ciceros life.

Florentine Platonic Academy

HUMANISM AND PHILOSOPHY ● In the second half of the fifteenth century, a dramatic upsurge of interest in the works of Plato occurred, especially evident among the members of an informal discussion group known as the ________.

RENAISSANCE HERMETICISM ● Hermeticism

________ was another product of the Florentine intellectual environment of the late fifteenth century.

● Petrarch

________ did more than any other individual in the fourteenth century to foster the development of Renaissance humanism.

○ He

________ was the first intellectual to characterize the Middle Ages as a period of darkness, promoting the mistaken belief that medieval culture was ignorant of Classical antiquity.

○ Cicero

________ served as the inspiration for the Renaissance ideal that intellectuals had a duty to live an active life for their state.

■ Valla

________ was brought up in Rome and educated in both Latin and Greek.

■ Ficino

________ dedicated his life to the translation of Plato and the exposition of the Platonic philosophy known as Neoplatonism.

● In Italy, the most prominent magi in the late fifteenth century were Ficino and his friend and pupil, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463

1494)

■ In the Oration, Pico offered a ringing statement of unlimited human potential

"To him it is granted to have whatever he chooses, to be whatever he wills."

individualism

the habit or principle of being independent and self-reliant

secularism

the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions

humanism

an intellectual movement based on the study of the Classical literary works of Greece and Rome

hermeticism

product of the Florentine intellectual environment of the late fifteenth century

pantheism

saw divinity embodied in all aspects of nature and in the heavenly bodies as well as in earthly objects