Florentine Platonism and its Relations with Humanism and Scholasticism

Abstract

The early humanism in Italy from the second half of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, characterized by the discovery and revival of classical antiquity, was at the same time the first expression of modern ideals and feelings. Although it was in several points closely connected with the preceding age, it produced a lively reaction against the medieval civilization and its form of philosophical and scientific thought, scholasticism. Petrarch, the father of humanism, began the polemics against scholasticism which have remained since then a commonplace in the writings of his followers: according to him the scholastics wasted their time in subtle and useless disputations without resolving the basic questions of human life; their unpolished Latin style was a consequence of their barbarous thought; they could not be compared with the great writers and thinkers of classical antiquity whom they were not able to read or imitate; and even their chief authority, Aristotle, in many respects must be considered inferior to his greater master, Plato.