Type "renaissance man"

For the great mass of the population of those times, the cultural and artistic flourishing that characterized the Renaissance did not produce any change in the way of life or representation of the world. Referring, however, to the small number of personalities in different fields of creation, we can say today that the new spiritual horizons and the liberalization of morality have created a certain type of "Man of the Renaissance" ( "Homo universalis renascentista").), characterized by sharp understanding, open to any idea, special sense of beauty, desire for assertion and fame, individualism with possibilities for multilateral development, opponent of dogmas and preconceived ideas. In his aspiration for universality, he removes any barrier that stands in his way, he shows himself brave in his projects and full of strength in action. He is a friend and connoisseur of the arts, he sings - without difficulty - philosophy and literature, he replaces moral laws with aesthetic ones. The "Renaissance Man" is, first and foremost, a humanist with a broad spirit of tolerance .

In contrast, the fanatics do not disappear, the supporters of a single idea, who see in each representative of a contrary opinion, not an opponent of ideas, but a personal enemy that must be annihilated.

Decline Renaissance

Like any socio-cultural movement, the Renaissance, after a period of apogee, knows a decline, in which innovative ideas are missing and the epigones perform, at best, works of imitation.

The decline of the Renaissance was favored and accelerated by two circumstances:

• Economic and political decay of Italy , already from the first half of the sixteenth century, haunted by endless wars, which culminated in the looting of Rome ( "Sacco di Roma" , 1527 ) by mercenaries by Charles V . This led to the weakening of the power and prestige of the papacy, to the decline of city-states such as Florence and Milan . The discovery of a new road to India , around the Cape of Good Hope , substantially weakens the economic situation of Venice and Genoa .

• In response to the religious Reformation initiated in Germany by Martin Luther , the Catholic Church instituted the Counter - Reformation and the inquisitorial tribunals , a real coup d'etat against freedom of thought. Following the Council of Trient ( 1545 - 1563 ), a list of forbidden books was compiled, considered heretical if they contradicted church dogmas ( " Index librorum prohibitorum " , 1559 ). Galileihe is forced to publicly abjure his belief in the rotation of the earth around the sun, not without whispering to himself "eppur si muove"; the philosopher Giordano Bruno ( 1548 - 1600 ), defends the Aristotelian thesis , officially admitted by the Church, of a closed universe, represents a pantheistic humanism and will be burned at the stake as a heretic, following the sentence of the inquisitorial court.In Geneva , under the rule of Jean Calvin , the Spanish theologian and physician Miguel Servet ( 1511 - 1553 ), for being put in question the dogma of the Holy Trinity, ends in the same way, convicted of blasphemy, this time by a Protestant court.

However, the ideas of the Renaissance cannot be suppressed, they are defended by brave people like Erasmus of Rotterdam , Francis Bacon or René Descartes ( 1596 - 1650 ), the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza ( 1632 - 1677 ), who set as their fundamental goal the transmission of a liberating message. and bearer of the joy that knowledge gives and the eighteenth century will resume the spirit of the Renaissance in the form of the French Enlightenment.