Humanism destroyed barriers that once stood strong. Its new philosophy provided individuals with their own fate, the ability to decide what their life would be. Its ideas first emerged in Ancient Greece where the Greek city-states, poleis, flourished in the Golden Age around the 400s BCE. Later, after the near collapse of civilization, the aforementioned philosophies reemerged in Italy during the Renaissance of the 1400s CE. The two philosophies relate so similarly, in that, during the rebirth of literature, the Italian philosophers were basing their ideas off of the Greek philosophers. Pericles, an Athenian politician, and Bruni, a Florentine philosopher, use almost the exact same techniques in showing how magnificent and humanistic their
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Bruni uses the the funeral as an opportunity to speak about Florence and the ideal man of the Renaissance instead of the deceased. He discusses the desired characteristics for a proper man and how Florence is the center of this prosperity and home to a popular, of the people, government. During his oration, he specifically mentions how Florentine men “require virtue and honesty,…raise themselves and surge upward, [and]…have vivacity and industry and alacrity and agility in acting with a greatness of spirit equal to all challenges” (Bruni, 273). This shows Bruni’s idea of a perfect man in the Renaissance, what he believed a civic humanist should be: someone who is self-made, loyal to their city, hard working, and rises to all challenges brought forth to the individual; all characteristics similar to Pericles’s model …show more content…
Throughout western civilization, humanism presented itself to the people, whether in Golden Age Athens or Renaissance Florence. Humanists were the group that tore away from the dominant force of Christianity and the after life and instead focused on this life and what the human could do, not the gods or God. Even eighteen hundred years apart, with Pericles and Bruni spreading humanistic lifestyles, the ideals of humanism stay consistent and appear when life for individuals is prosperous. Humanism is the returning force throughout civilization, the force that lasts over a millennium; it is the outlook that humans decide their own fate, make their own life the best it can be, and don’t rely on a divine figure to bless them with
Bruni uses the the funeral as an opportunity to speak about Florence and the ideal man of the Renaissance instead of the deceased. He discusses the desired characteristics for a proper man and how Florence is the center of this prosperity and home to a popular, of the people, government. During his oration, he specifically mentions how Florentine men “require virtue and honesty,…raise themselves and surge upward, [and]…have vivacity and industry and alacrity and agility in acting with a greatness of spirit equal to all challenges” (Bruni, 273). This shows Bruni’s idea of a perfect man in the Renaissance, what he believed a civic humanist should be: someone who is self-made, loyal to their city, hard working, and rises to all challenges brought forth to the individual; all characteristics similar to Pericles’s model …show more content…
Throughout western civilization, humanism presented itself to the people, whether in Golden Age Athens or Renaissance Florence. Humanists were the group that tore away from the dominant force of Christianity and the after life and instead focused on this life and what the human could do, not the gods or God. Even eighteen hundred years apart, with Pericles and Bruni spreading humanistic lifestyles, the ideals of humanism stay consistent and appear when life for individuals is prosperous. Humanism is the returning force throughout civilization, the force that lasts over a millennium; it is the outlook that humans decide their own fate, make their own life the best it can be, and don’t rely on a divine figure to bless them with