Abstract

The period from 1350 to 1600 is often referred to as “the Renaissance”. It should be kept in mind, however, that the Renaissance was rather a movement, starting in Italy (no country but a cultural area at the time) around 1350, spreading to northern Europe around 1500 (being transformed in the process), and that even from the perspective of thought and culture it was only part of the story.In any case, an important aspect of the Renaissance movement was the appearance of Humanism, interest in Latin (and, when it became possible in the 15th century, and to a much more restricted extent, Greek) letters. The core of the Humanist educational programme was correct and elegant use of Latin, learned through Latin poetry, rhetoric and historiography. Since large sections of the Italian urban population had learned to read and write, large-scale vernacular writing took off at the same time, and a number of Humanists engaged in the task of making the vernacular fit also for culturally prestigious purposes.Humanism rejected continuity with the via moderna current, and Humanists' polemics show that they did not understand what they rejected. However, the scholastic tradition did not disappear – it was indeed carried into the 17th century by universities. In general it was not very creative, but some scholastic thinkers were, and fully at the level of Humanists even in domains which Humanists would consider their own.Shared by many Humanists and thinkers outside that current was a strong interest in magical thought, among Humanists in the garb of Neoplatonism. Around the mid-16th century the conviction was spreading that modern thought, though highly respectful of Antiquity, could do even better. That led to epoch-making discoveries in astronomy (Copernicus, Tycho Brahe) and anatomy (Vesalius), but also inaugurated the beginning of modern natural history and the idea that insight in nature can be used technologically – the “natural-scientific Renaissance”.A first group of texts illustrates Humanism proper and the development from ideology, on one hand to dishonest criticism, on the other to competent text criticism. Two texts exemplify 14th-century vernacular writing, one on traditional and sociologically informed historiography, one the new culture of commercial mathematics. Another group comprises texts illustrating Humanistically informed political science and philosophy, yet another the many facets of Renaissance occultism. The last group (Vesalius, Copernicus, and others) illustrates the “natural-scientific Renaissance”.