TY - BOOK ID - 85473124 TI - Italian Renaissance humanism in the mirror PY - 2015 SN - 1316355675 1316362078 1316364070 1316365077 1316363074 1316282317 1316358674 1107111862 1107530695 1316349675 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Renaissance KW - Humanism KW - Eloquence in literature. KW - Latin language. KW - Classical languages KW - Italic languages and dialects KW - Classical philology KW - Latin philology KW - Philosophy KW - Classical education KW - Philosophical anthropology KW - Revival of letters KW - Civilization KW - History, Modern KW - Civilization, Medieval KW - Civilization, Modern KW - Middle Ages KW - History. KW - History UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85473124 AB - This important study takes a new approach to understanding Italian Renaissance humanism, based not on scholarly paradigms or philosophical concepts but on a neglected yet indispensable perspective: the humanists' understanding of themselves. Through a series of close textual studies, Patrick Baker excavates what humanists thought was important about humanism, how they viewed their own history, what goals they enunciated, what triumphs they celebrated - in short, he attempts to reconstruct humanist identity. What emerges is a small, coherent community dedicated primarily not to political ideology, a philosophy of man, an educational ethos, or moral improvement, but rather to the pursuit of classical Latin eloquence. Grasping the significance this stylistic ideal had for the humanists is essential to understanding both their sense of themselves and the importance they and others attached to their movement. For eloquence was no mere aesthetic affair but rather appeared to them as the guarantor of civilisation itself. ER -