Abstract
It is difficult to determine to what extent the views outlined in the previous chapter had penetrated amongst educated people, because there is never a question of separation from the Church, and only seldom of a direct opposition to its doctrine and institutions. No more was an open and direct struggle carried out against the ideas of the humanists: the official organizations did not see in Ficino’s doctrine any deviation from the ideas believed in within the Church, while his views found much favour in the circles of the papal Court itself. The “indifference” with regard to religion, which apparently was widely found, was certainly written about. This irreligiousness was naturally interpreted — just as at present — as being the result of frivolity, indifference as regards spiritual matters, worldliness, etc. To a certain extent this was justified: a phenomenon which is always happening! When, however, that irreligiousness, that living and writing without continually bringing in the religious element, occurs in the case of seriousminded and highly-educated persons, as for example in the case of Bembo, a literary man of importance, papal secretary and cardinal, it cannot be simply classed as indifference.
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References
Janocius de Macentis, quoted: Rudolf Stadelmann, Vom Geist des ausgehenden Mittelalters, Studien zur Geschichte der Weltanschauung von Nicolaus Cusanus bis Sebastian Franck (1929): 145.
Rossi, II Quattrocento: 176 ff.
Robb, Neoplatonism: 197 ff.
Carl Gebhardt, Leone Elreo. Dialoghi d’A more, Hebraeische Gedichte, herausgegeben mit einer Darstellung des Lebens und des Werkes von, (1929).
Book IV, paragr. 11.
Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos: 95.
Op. cit.: 102 cf. supra p. 26 note 4.
Gerhart Burck, Selbstdarstellung und Personenbildnis bei Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pius II), (1956): 82–87, 102, 107, 138.
Meine Sittlichkeit (s.v.v.) marschiert vorwärts ohne kirchliches Zutun und rückwärts ohne kirchliche Gewissensbisse (J. Burckhardt, Briefe, vollständige und kritisch bearbeitete Ausgabe, hergestellt von Max Burckhardt, II (1952): 60; in this letter of jan. 14, 1844, B. confesses: ich habe für ewig mit der Kirche gebrochen, … weil ich nämlich buchstäblich nichts mehr damit anzufangen weisz.)
Vittoria Colonna, Rime e Lettere (1860), first part.
Vittoria Colonna, Marchesa di Pescara, Carteggio raccolto e publicato da E. Ferrero e G. Müller, 2a editione. da Dom. Tordi (1892): 23.
Alfred von Reumont, Vittoria Colonna: Leben, Dichten, Glauben im XVI. Jahrhundert (1881):10.
Cf.: Adolfo Bonilla y San Martin, Luis Vives y la Filosofia del Renacimiento (1903).
Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance: 404, 405.
Loc. cit.: 275.
Cf. the division of the day under similar circumstances, in the Heptaméron of Marguerite d’Angoulême, p. 262 infra.
De liberis recte instituendis (1532).
William Schenk, Reginald Pole, Cardinal of England (1950): 33; Busson, Le rationalisme etc.: 94, 95.
Franz Dittrich, Gasparo Contarini, 1483–1542 (1885): 183 ff.
Ernst Walser, Lebens-und Glaubensprobleme aus dem Zeitalter der Remaissance, Die Religion des Luigi Pulci, ihre Quellen und ihre Bedeutung (1926): passim.
Loc. cit.: 47.
Loc. cit.: 57, 61, 55, 65;-Robb, Neoplatonismin the Italian Renaissance: 172-174.
Walser, op cit.: 55.
Loc. cit.: 47.
Dario Bonomo, L’Orlando Furioso, nelle sue fonti, Le fonti dell’ Orlando Furioso nel più grande movimento illuminista europeo “l’umanesimo” (1955?): 79.
Busson, Le Rationalisme etc: 58, 59.
Bonomo, Le Rationalisme etc: 80.
Loc. cit.: 79.
Presser has proved that such a book never existed, but that various writers were indicated as its authors: J. Presser, Das Buch “De Tribus impostoribus” (von den drei Betrügern) (1926), III, Italienische Verfasser.
Bonomo, op. cit.: 91.
Loc. cit.: 80 (quotation from Francesco Guicciardini, Ricordi).
Bonomo, op. cit.: 95.
Walser, Lebens-und Glaubensprobleme: 45, Bonomo, op. cit.: 81.
Book II, § 86.
Bonomo, op. cit.: 81.
G. Pontano, Dialoghi, quoted: Bonomo, op. cit.: 99.
Bonomo, op. cit.: 92.
Loc. cit.: 78.
Loc. cit.: 75, 76 (quotation from De Fato, de libero arbitrio, De incantationibus in Opère, Basiliae 1567).
Guiseppe Toffanin, II Cinquecento, Storia letteraria d’Italia, VI, (1929): 196.
Loc. cit.
Does Toffanin mean this conviction of Ariosto when he stresses the “religious character” of the work, which is even strengthened in the second version, 16 Cantos longer? (Toffanin, II Cinquecento: 196).
Carl J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschickte, fortgesetzt von J. Cardinal Hergeröther VIII (1887): 599.
Renan relates that in about 1500 the question of immortality had so much attracted everyone’s attention, that students used to call to their professor if he were treating a theological question: tell us about the soul. (Ernest Renan, Averroès et l’Averroisme, essai historique 2 (1861): 355)
Hefele, op. cit.: 608.
itself and in its essence the form of the human body, immortal and, in view of the multiplicity of bodies into which it is cast, separately multiplicable, multiplied and to be multiplied. (Loc. cit.: Ludwig Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, IV, I. Abt. Leo X (1906): 562)
Hefele, op. cit.: 729; — Pastor, op. cit.: 563.
even by way of discussion, by reading the philosophers or any others, to assert a conclusion contrary to the catholic dogma (quotation from Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova … collectio, in Delio Cantimori, Italienische Haeretiker der Spätrenaissance, Deutsch von Werner Kaegi (1949): 9.
De vera phliosophia ex quattuor doctoribus ecclesiae (1507), quoted in Cantimori, op. cit.: 8.
Pastor, op. cit.: 564.
Loc. cit.: 562.
Cantimori, op. cit.: 20.
Cantimori, op. cit.: 18.
Cantimori, op. cit.: Vorwort and V. Kap.; it is to be noted, that Cantimori also points to “neuplatonische Vorstellungen und moralische Bestrebungen humanistischer Richtung,” (p. 25); cf. especially: Gerhard Ritter, “Wegebahner eines ‘aufgeklärten’ Christentums im 16. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte XXXVII (1940): 168-289, where stress is laid on these humanistical characteristics; — Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarism, Socianism and its Antecedents (1946), I:85.
Pastor, op. cit.: IV, 2. Abt., 586.
Loc. cit.: 588, 598.
In: The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. I The Renaissance (1957), chap. VI, 1: 144, 145.
The evolution obviously took place only in the case of a slight minority; until far into the 16th century, very many paintings were made which still fit in completely with the orthodox view. Every visitor to Italian museums and churches will have been struck by the fact that so many works of art of this period have a thorughly mediaeval atmosphere, except as regards technique.
just die stärksten Rationalisten besitzen ein solches mystisches Refugium: Walser, Lebens-und Glaubensprobleme: 75.
Except in a small corner of the “Last Judgment” which was not painted until 1538.
The picture of Del Sarto is in Chiostro dello Scalzo, that of Fra Bartolommeo in the Galleria degli Uffizi, both in Florence.
“Botticelli’s Mythologies, a Study in the Neoplatonic Symbolism of his Circle,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, VII (1945): 7-60); the quotations from Ficino, Pico a.o. (‘……’) are in the translation of Grombich.
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (1939): 40–66.
By later addition; it is likely that only the sketch for this picture is by Leonardo himself, what he meant with it is consequently uncertain: Giorgio Nicodemi, Leonardo da Vinci (s.d.; translated into Dutch): XXXII.
Karl Jaspers, Leonardo als Philosoph (1953): 11.
Loc. cit.: 32, 28.
Cassirer, Individuum und Kosmos: 53–56.
Cassirer, “Codex atlanticus 862” in Nicodemi, op. cit.: XXXVII.
Quotation from Leonardo’s notebooks in Nicodemi, op. cit.: XXXVIII.
From his notebooks in Jaspers, op. cit.: 46, 48.
Leonardo stand zum Christentum in der kampflosen Haltung des Nichtwissenden, der unberührt ist. Es ist kein Problem für ihn; er redet selten davon, widerlegt etwa den Sintflutbericht, schreibt aber auch einmal: “lasse die gekrönten.Schriften unangetastet, denn sie sind von höchster Wahrheit.” Leonardo hat gelebt mit der Transzendenz des Spirituellen, spricht von Gott, aber dieser Gott ist nicht der offenbarte Gott der Bibel. Er teilt nicht mit, ob und wann er betete, er lebte in der vollkommenen Freiheit der Gleichgültigkeit in diesen Dingen, wie sie in der Zeit vor der Reformation möglich war. (Loc. cit.: 71)
Nicodemi, op. cit.: XXXV.
Der Mensch hat nicht als wählendes Subject zwischen zwei Lebensideale zu entscheiden, die letzlich aus seinen eigenen seelischen Strebungen erwachsen sind und als Verkörperungen des irdischen Guten und des irdischen Bösen vor him hintreten, sondern er sieht sich als unbekämpftes Objekt dem Streite zwischen Mächte ausgesetzt, deren Gegensatz kein ethisch-psychologischer, sondern ein religiös-ontologischer ist: die Entscheidung des Herkules zwischen Tugend und Laster stellt sich dem christlichen Mittelalter als ein Kampf des Himmels und der Hölle um die Seele dar: Erwin Panofsky, Hercules am Scheidewege: Bibliothek Warburg, 1930): 50–165.
II Pur gatorio: XIX.
With his less personal spirit and incredible technical ability, Raphael was in a position to express everything that he was commissioned to do with the same perfection, the Renaissance “School of Athens” as well as the orthodox “Mass of Bolsena.”
behoeft der hellen kaeck niet te vresen.…, wie Christus’ cruys dragen, komen bij’ t Lam ten hemel.
Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’ Arte italiana, vol. IX: La pittura del Cinquecento (1928) parte III, IV.
Panofsky, “Hercules am Scheidewege”: 176 ff; idem, Iconology: 152 ff.; — the picture is in Rome, Galleria Borghese.
Far be it from me to exalt myself except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Panofsky, Iconology: 160 ff.; — “The Education of Cupid” (Rome, Galleria Borghese) of Titian indicates, according to Panofsky, the same direction (op. cit.: 165).
I have treated this matter elaborately in: Michelangelo, verbeelder van Christelijk humanisme (1958).
The tomb of San Domenico, in Bologna, designed and nearly completely executed by Niccolò dell’ Arca.
They all represent Mary with her divine Child: one in the National Museum in Florence, the other in Casa Buonarroti, Florence, the third in the Royal Academy, London.
Henry Thode, Michelangelo und das Ende der Renaissance, II (1903): 424.
Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: 192 ff., Charles de Tolnay, Werk und Weltbild des Michelangelo (1948); idem, Michelangiolo, IV: The Tomb of Julius II (1954): passim; I can not accept the conception of Frederick Hartt, “Lignum vitae in medio paradisi, the Stanza d’Eliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling”: The Art Bulletin, 1950: 114 ff.
De Tolnay, Michelangiolo, III: The Medici Chapel (1948): 63 ff.; — Panofsky, Iconology: 203 ff.
The so-called Boboli Slaves, now in The Accademia in Florence.
Cf. p. 64 above.
Vittoria Colonna, Carteggio: 441 (letter no. XVII, dated 31 Nov. 1536).
For their lives and doctrines cf.: Edmondo Cione, Juan de Valde’s, la sua vita e il suo pensiero religioso (1938), Karl Benrath, Bernardino Ochino von Siena, ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Reformation2. (1892), and Roland H. Bainton, Bernardino Ochino, esule e riformatore senese del Cinquecento (italian translation, 1940).
Opuscoli e lettere di Reformatori italiani del Cinquecento, a cura Giuseppe Paladino, I (1913), parte III: Dalle prediche di Bern. Ochino da Siena, Prima predica.
Fourth Sermon; — Karl Benrath, op. cit.: 49.
Op. cit.: 37.
est omnino amor ita adhaerens Deo, ut inter ipsum et Deum nihil medium potuerit intercedere: quotation from XXX Dialoghi in: Cantimori, Italienische Haeretiker: 245.
fatendum est nos et amatos et electos a Deo fuisse, mero beneficio, nullus adhibita opera (loc. cit.).
magna pars Christianismi est toto pectore velle fieri Christianum (Cione, op. cit.: 42).
Op. cit.: 86.
Op. cit.: 87-90.
Op. cit.: 42, 90, 82.
Op. cit.: 107, 95, 109, m; — the influence of Zwingli and Bucer on Valdés is fairly certain, he did not know Luther’s work (Cione, op. cit.: 42, 82), compare what Valdés says about the mass with Erasmus’ dialogue Pietas puerilis (cf. p. 156 hereafter).
Sixth sermon, Benrath, op. cit.: 50.
First sermon, op. cit.: 46.
Benrath, op. cit.: 38.
Fourth sermon, op. cit.: 49.
First sermon, op. cit.: 40.
Seventh sermon, op. cit.: 79; — Daniel Bertrand-Barraud, Les idées philosophiques de Bernardin Ochin de Sienne (1924): 37.
Benrath, op. cit.: 83, 128.
The New Cambridge Modem History, Vol. II, The Reformation, 1520–1559 (1958): 268.
First edition: 1534 (Opuscoli, cf supra p. 100, n. 2), Toffanin, Cinquecento: 75.
Schenk, Reginald Pole: 99.
The “Palestrina Pietà” in Florence, Accademia, and the “Rondanini Pietà,” formerly in Rome, Palazzo Sanseverino-Vermati, now in Milan.
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van Gelder, H.A.E. (1961). Propagation and Expansion in Italy. In: The Two Reformations in the 16th Century. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9562-1_3
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