Mann’s The Origins of Humanism, Essay Example

Nicholas Mann’s view of the nature of Renaissance Humanism as an intellectual, social, educational, and professional movement is presented in his essay included in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. Its obvious thesis is that humanism is the study of the “legacy of antiquity” (Mann 1). Ancient literature was its emphasis, which began in the ninth century among scholars, ecclesiastical and lay, in the cities and monasteries of the Italian city-states, as well as France and England. Those who in lived in antiquity itself and produced its literary legacy were not themselves humanists as Mann defines it. Instead, they lived the life that created the heritage that was studied and is still studied today. But it is my own thesis that Mann’s paper also contains another view: that up to the fourteenth century at least, humanism’s works must be considered with skepticism. Mann obliquely says so himself in the first sentence of his essay, which I now challenge my readers to try to remember. Failing that, I now challenge them to continue perusing my paper to the end without going back to read Mann’s lead. I would then like them to try to deduce what that statement is, and only then, after referencing Mann, judge whether my thesis is sufficiently focused to satisfy the requirements of this essay.

A Defining Example

What we might call humanism’s defining first text is De chorographia, by the first-century geographer Pomponius Mela. Mann tips his hat at the earlier proto-humanists who kept the text preserved from the fall of Rome and through the Dark Ages, so-called. Or rather they made copies of the text. Copying was usually done by hands belonging to a person or persons unknown, working at unknown locations. Petrarch made his own copy circa 1335. That copy has vanished, but other copies from that copy survived, allegedly preserving his annotations. Petrarch copied his version from a twelfth century copy, which itself is presumed to be a copy of a ninth century copy made at Auxerre. The author of that copy — the scholar Heiric — had as its source a sixth century miscellany of texts by a known scholar based at Ravenna. This kind of line of authenticity, Mann tells us, is “not unique”, and calls it a “direct line of textual descent” characteristic of humanism (Mann 3). In other words, humanism, in its practice, is the study of literary copies of ultimately unknown provenance. So how much did the copies change?

We don’t know and Mann tacitly admits it. He details Petrarch’s reassembly of Livy’s History of Rome in a way that makes clear the dependence of humanism on conjecture and trust, as well as inspired scholarship. It is “doubtless” (meaning possibly subject to doubt) that he began the new work for his father “around” 1325. It was “certainly” (meaning probably) at Avignon where he had a frontispiece added to it “a dozen years later.”  He created his copy from documents at Avignon or brought there by persons unknown, “combining a thirteenth century copy” from the third decade with a copy from the first decade and a copy from the fourth decade (Mann  9). He also included variants, now lost, “probably” provided by one Landolfo Colonna. Petrarch then transcribed the result in his own hand. Mann admits that there is “no real evidence of critical reflection” by Petrarch on the “relative merits” of his sources. However, there is “no doubt” as to his zeal, knowledge of, and enthusiasm for copies of classical literature (Mann 10).

Copying

Some perspective might be shed on copying by imagining ancient and medieval copyists alike being replaced by illiterate visual artists, whose job would have been to literally copy the manuscripts given them — that is, to make near-photographic images of the texts themselves, not literary copies of them. I think such a suggestion would have been received as an affront and an invitation to a Dark Age, even before the medieval period covered by the essay. Yet one might wonder how many scholars today dearly wish that over the centuries exactly that had been done at least to some documents that we should assume were partially edited as they were rewritten.

Translations

The problem of accurate translating is as important as the problem of accurate copying of texts and annotations. Mann sheds an ominous light on translation authenticity when he describes the late start that humanists had in rescuing from oblivion ancient Greek copies of ancient Greek texts, a process that required their translation into Latin. The scholar Leonzio Pilato, “an apparently most unpleasant man”, stopping at Florence on his way to Avignon, was persuaded to stay in the city and teach Greek while earning a stipend (Mann 15). But Pilato’s translations were also unpleasantly literal, modeled after the translations of scientific treatises where tight accuracy at the expense of literary style was (fortunately) standard practice. Mann cites a “plodding” Greek translation by the then-reigning archbishop of Thebes as representative of the kind of text that the humanist Coluccio Salutati had a difficult time making enjoyable (Mann 16). And so the literal method was replaced by a literary one easier to read. The Latin version was a new book.

Church Scholasticism versus City Humanism

The example of the scholar and cleric John of Salisbury is relevant here. Mann describes him as one of the “outstanding scholars” of the age, educated at Chartres and Paris (Mann 4). But his knowledge of Latin is described as impressive but patchy, and probably derived not from the reading of relatively trusted copies, but rather from florilegia — anthologies taken from such copies. Mann implies that this lack turned Salisbury into a grammarian rather than a philologist (leaving the terms undefined in that historical context) and so may explain why Salisbury “lacked a deeper understanding” of the ancient examples he brought to bear on contemporary moral problems in his own apparently popular writings based on those florilegia. (Mann 4).

Mann goes on to offer an explanation of how this kind of scholar became the rule rather than the exception at places under greater control of the Roman Catholic Church, an example being France, and a counter example being what we now call northern Italy. In the areas where Canon Law held supreme in local schools, students were indoctrinated in the orthodoxy of scholasticism, which tended to prevent the study of what Mann calls pagan literature, that being probably a rough translation of the scholastics’ term for such material. For some contemporary critics, scholasticism was later regarded as the antithesis of humanism (Mann 5). But in some cities, be they in France or Italy, there was greater freedom. These were centers of commerce. Educated people in such cities went into secular governmental administration, law, and business. As they became prosperous, they had more wherewithal and desire to study the history of their fallen empire and its environs, especially Greece, and to make sure their sons did the same in their own schools. Such study “assumed the role of professional training” and showed itself in the presumably less literary translation of practical works, such as medical treatises, and Euclid (Mann 4). Scholasticism aside, vernacular literature dating from antiquity made inroads into all levels of society, examples being Roman de Thèbes, Eneas, and Roman de Troie. But, as with classical texts, such material was necessarily the product of the flawed process described above.

Mann’s essay concludes with the statement that 1397 was a key date in the history of humanism (Mann 16). A new Greek grammar brought that language further into the discipline called humanism. I believe its title poetically reinforces Mann’s thesis as I see it, as expressed in the topic sentence of his essay. That title, literal or literary, was Erotemata, or Questions.

Works Cited

Mann, Nicolas. “The Origins of Humanism.” Trans. Array The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism. Jill Kraye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 1. Print.