Page 321 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

[A good prince is one] who holds the life of each individual dearer than his own; who works and strives night and day for just one end—to be the best he can for everyone; with whom rewards are ready for all good men ... for so much does he want to be of real help to his people, without thought of recompense, that if nec- essary he would not hesitate to look out for their wel- fare at great risk to himself; who considers his wealth to lie in the advantage of his country; who is ever on the watch so that everyone else may sleep deeply; who grants no leisure to himself so that he may spend his life in the peace of his country; who worries himself with continual cares so that his subjects may have
peace and quiet. . . . He does everything and allows everything that will bring everlasting peace to his coun- try, for he realizes that war is the source of all misfor- tunes to the state.
Q WhatdoesMachiavellihavetosayaboutbeing loved rather than feared? How does this view contrast with that of Erasmus on the characteristics of a good ruler? Which viewpoint do you consider more modern? Why? Which viewpoint do you think is correct? Why?
Sources: Machiavelli, The Prince (1513). From The Prince by Machiavelli, translated by David Wootton, pp. 51–52. Copyright a 1995 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Erasmus, Education of a Christian Prince (1516). From The Education of a Christian Prince, by Erasmus, translated by L. K. Born. Copyright a 1936 by Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
Petrarch (1304–1374), often called the father of Ital- ian Renaissance humanism, did more than any other individual in the fourteenth century to foster develop- ment of the movement. Petrarch’s interest in the classics led him on a quest for forgotten Latin manuscripts and set in motion a ransacking of monastic libraries through- out Europe. In his preoccupation with the classics and their secular content, Petrarch doubted at times whether he was sufficiently attentive to spiritual ideals. His qualms, however, did not prevent him from inaugurating the humanist emphasis on the use of pure classical Latin, making it fashionable for humanists to use Cicero as a model for prose and Virgil for poetry. Petrarch said, “Christ is my God; Cicero is the prince of the language.”
In Florence, the humanist movement took a new direction at the beginning of the fifteenth century when it became closely tied to Florentine civic spirit and pride, giving rise to what one modern scholar has labeled civic humanism. Fourteenth-century human- ists such as Petrarch had described the intellectual life as one of solitude, a rejection of family life and com- munity action. In the busy civic world of Florence, however, intellectuals began to take a new view of their role as intellectuals, and they took as their model the classical Roman statesman and intellectual Cicero. 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 Cicero’s life. From Bruni’s time on, Cicero served as the inspiration for the
Renaissance ideal that the study of the humanities should be put to the service of the state. An individual only “grows to maturity—both intellectually and morally—through participation” in the life of the state. This civic humanism reflected the values of an urban society. It is no accident that humanists served the state as chancellors, councillors, and advisers.
Also evident in the humanism of the first half of the fifteenth century was a growing interest in classical Greek civilization. Bruni, one of the first Italian human- ists to gain a thorough knowledge of Greek, became an enthusiastic pupil of the Byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysoloras (kris-uh-LOR-uss), who taught in Florence from 1396 to 1400. Humanists eagerly perused the works of Plato as well as Greek poets, dramatists, histor- ians, and orators such as Thucydides, Euripides, and Sophocles, all of whom had been ignored by the scholas- tics of the High Middle Ages as irrelevant to the theolog- ical questions they were examining.
HUMANISM AND PHILOSOPHY In the second half of the fifteenth century, a dramatic upsurge of interest in the works of Plato occurred. Cosimo de’ Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence, encouraged this develop- ment by commissioning a translation of Plato’s dia- logues by Marsilio Ficino (mar-SIL-yoh fee-CHEE-noh) (1433–1499), who dedicated his life to the transla- tion of Plato and the exposition of the Platonic phi- losophy known as Neoplatonism.
In two major works, Ficino undertook the synthesis of Christianity and Platonism into a single system. His
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