Revival in Early Italian Renaissance
The concept was of great importance during the re-discovery of Classical Antiquity during the age of the Renaissance by the Italian umanisti, beginning with the illustrious Italian poet Petrarch, who revived Cicero's injunction to cultivate the humanities, understood during the Renaissance as: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.
In 1333, in Liège, Belgium, Petrarch had found and copied out in his own hand a manuscript of Cicero's speech, Pro Archia, which contained a famous passage in defense of poetry and litterae (letters):
Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur. (Translation: "These studies sustain youth and entertain old age, they enhance prosperity, and offer a refuge and solace in adversity; they delight us when we are at home without hindering us in the wider world, and are with us at night, when we travel and when we visit the countryside").
Petrarch liked this quotation. He referred to it often, and where Cicero used the phrase "litterarum lumen", "the light of literature", Petrarch in the margin wrote lumen litterarum alongside and drew a sketch of a lamp or candle. The Liège manuscript is lost and so is Petrarch's copy, but Petrarch's copy "can be shown to be behind all but one of the later manuscripts" and preserve Petrarch's marginal annotations. Petrarch, in many respects a Medieval man, regretted that Cicero had not been a Christian and believed that he certainly would have been one had not died before the birth of Jesus. Cicero's humanitas was not seen as in conflict with Christianity or a Christian education by the umanisti who immediately followed him.
Read more about this topic: Humanitas
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