L'umanesimo italiano Book

A helpful book on the Renaissance thinkers, which I would definitely come back to if I were to explore them further.

The first few chapters show that the Renaissance humanists were the first in a long time to treat Plato, Aristotle, and authors as individual thinkers, subject to self-contradiction and development, rather than as authorities to be harmonized. This helped them to read texts in ways that we have lost, even today. It also helped establish the Grammatical-historical method, which we also have done our best to lose in Protestant Evangelical circles.

The chapter on civic life was inspiring: yes, we are humans and this means that we should have both an active and contemplative life, and our philosophy should be directed towards our actions! Three cheers for Renaissance humanism and boo to the stoics! Yes, human nature is vitally important! A lot of the ideas behind NSA actually found here. Good stuff.

I thought that the later chapters were weaker, and he's still not strong enough on Burckhardt (who saw the Renaissance as proto-secularism). He also seems to be one of those scholars who uses "clearly it must have been because..." and "surely he was thinking" to cover up weak points in his argument. I don't know, as a result, how much to trust his claim that later Renaissance figures were pessimistic about civic life and that they focused more on contemplation. Still, it gives a helpful explanation of Neoplatonism and the Renaissance which helps with regard to Spenser.

Good stuff.