Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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In Reply to: PLEASE POST YOUR SECOND REQUIRED POSTING AS FOLLOWUPS TO THIS POST posted by Tom Bacig on January 13, 1999 at 21:59:54:
An ideal Renaissance person excels in every area of life. They have a love of all forms of art, and they are intelligent in areas of math and science. These are the views presented by many thinkers in the age
of the Renaissance.
A true Renaissance person must be able to see beauty and show beauty through the arts; music, poetry, sculpture, and paintings. They must also contribute to the sciences and makes strides in the areas of
mathematics.
Alberti's worst fear was of idleness. He strongly believed that one must oppose laziness. In Castiglione's "The Courtier" this idea was demonstrated. "I wish him to exercise vigor; and let him be know among the others as bold, energetic, and faithful to whomever he serves."
One can not be a true Renaissance person and practice works of art and science if they are not willing to practice and to work at their studies, this idea was also stressed in "The Courtier."
Machiavelli's "The Prince" follows a similar belief. Machiavelli compares a praiseworthy prince with a bad prince. He compares cruelty to compassion, hard to easy and religious to unbelieving. He thinks
that the praiseworthy prince contains only good qualities, whatever they might be.
One large difference in Machiavelli's views, however, is that he believes that even if one does not have all the best qualities, he still must work to keep his state. "But because they can neither be entirely possessed nor observed, for human conditions do not permit it, it is necessary for him to be sufficiently prudent that he may know how to avoid the reproach of those vices which would lose him his state."
While many Renaissance thinkers were determined to find perfection, and many believed they had reached it, Machiavelli strove only to be good enough to hold onto his powers.
In class we have discussed all of necessity for Renaissance people to be perfect. They had to contain so much learning and perfection, it is something that our society today can hardly even begin to imagine. All of that knowledge and beauty forming in one time period is truly an act of God. Our society today feels pressure and stress, but it is nothing compared to the pressure that was put on people of this time period. It was, however, just the elite that had the ability to cope with the requirement to be part of this society of perfection.