Thomas Leinkauf, a professor of philosophy in Münster and the director of the Leibniz-Forschungsstelle, presents a monumental work on history of philosophy between 1350 and 1600. The work is divided into two big volumes, each containing almost 2,000 pages. The two volumes are organized according to the thematic focus, first on studia humanitatis with the emphasis on Petrarch, then on prominent authors of Renaissance philosophy (Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino), and finally on the dominant topics of Renaissance philosophy (beauty and love, natural philosophy, new physics and methodologies).
The first volume, which is an outline of the main topics of humanism, is structured into six parts. The book starts with an extensive introduction where the author explains four so-called irritations which shaped the epoch between 1350 and 1600. According to the author, the four irritations (namely the potentia absoluta of God and the contingency of the world; death [plague, epidemics] and anxiety; the Copernican turn and the discovery of the New World; Protestantism and the schism) are starting points or discourse for our understanding of the various topics of Renaissance philosophy and the main philosophical personalities of the epoch. These irritations are interconnected, and the book is essentially an attempt to present their mutual dynamics. The author deals with the subject of humanistic understanding of dignity (dignitas), language, nature, knowledge, science, technology and the meaning of innovations in the field of optics (perspective), book printing, medicine (anatomy), and astronomy (telescope) for the development of humanistic culture. The next chapter focuses on the main representative of humanism, Petrarch, as an innovative thinker who comes with a new understanding of individual experience because every moment in human life is an unfixed, uncertain, unstable expression of the self-movement of the human subject. In comparison to Dante’s vertical, hierarchical, theological-cosmological structure of medieval mind, Petrarch’s landscape is horizontal; it lies in the space of a real individual experience.
The following chapters are organized along the subjects of the humanist scholars, the studia humanitatis: language (grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, poetics), ethics, politics, and history. In the chapter on language, attention is paid to grammar and dialectics (Coluccio Salutati, Lorenzo Valla, Rudolph Agricola), and the dialectics between nominalism and humanism in the thought of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, Petrus Ramus, and Mario Nizolio. The other subchapters deal with various aspects, such as the relation between rhetoric and poetics (teologia poetica) in the works of Petrarca, Boccaccio, Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Angelo Poliziano, Giovanni Pontano, and Girolamo Savonarola. The author also analyzes the aspects of poetics: poetics of enthusiasm (the Platonic tradition) and the theory of the poeta creator (Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino), the transformation of the furor in the sixteenth century (Girolamo Fracastoro, Antonio Minturno, Angolo Segni, Pietro Bembo), the poetics in rhetorical and Aristotelian tradition (Marco Vidas, Julius Ceasar Scaliger, Giovanni Battista Giraldi, Giovan Battista Pigna), and finally the theory of the mirabile and the universal poetics (Francesco Patrizi). In the chapter on ethics, the author deals with basic ethical notions such as good (bonum), virtue (virtus), will (voluntas), freedom (libertas, liberum arbitrium), fate (fatum), and community (societas, civitas, court). The author pays special attention to ethical theories, in which he highlights virtue (Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Pietro Pomponazzi), pleasure (Lorenzo Valla, Cosma Raimondi), contemplation and love (Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino), miles-christianus (Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, Martin Luther), benefit (Nicollò Machiavelli), the court and educational ethics (Baldassare Castiglione), and heroism (Giordano Bruno). Also, the author refers to discourses of Scholastic discussion of ethics in the early modern period. The chapter on politics is directed toward an interpretation of Dante’s work De monarchia, Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis (civitas, absolute power, and equality) and political thought in Padua and Florence from 1320 to 1380. The author also notes the political ideas of such authors as Christine de Pisan, Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Alamanno Rinuccini, and Buonaccorso Pitti.
In the next section, attention is paid to political theories between 1420 and 1510 with an emphasis on such concepts as stability (Leonardo Bruni, Matteo Palmieri), nobility (Poggio Bracciolini), state office (Leonardo Bruni, Matteo Palmieri, Giovanni Pontano), commonwealth (republic), monarchy (principate, monarchy), justice as a basic political criterion, natural law (Leonardo Bruni, Matteo Palmieri, Giovanni Pontano), the political function of religion (Matteo Palmieri, Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino), and freedom versus tyranny (the res publica libera and the res publica amissa). After the detailed analyses of these terms there is a selection of different forms of political views of such thinkers as Francesco Patrizi, Girolamo Cardano, Thomas Morus, Tommaso Campanella, and Jean Bodin.
The purpose of the final chapter on politics is to discuss the Renaissance understanding of history as science, the relationship between ancient history and the Christian influences, the anthropological dimensions, and structural terms like sequence, temporality, order (order of events), and beginning. The following subchapter is dedicated to the explanation of the criterion of truth (facticity, separation of fiction), objectivity, universality (universal history), openness and inconsistency, freedom, utilitas (educatio), commoditas, virtus, and bene vivere. The detailed analyses of the factors and criteria of the understanding of history are followed by an interpretation of selected authors such as Francesco Petrarca (history as a basic cultural structure), Leonardo Bruni (history as a city history), Giovanni Pontano (history as quasi soluta poesia, history from exempla), Francesco Patrizi (history as philosophy and as an anthropological self-expression), and Jean Bodin (history as a methodological historical reflection).
The second volume begins with two extensive chapters dedicated to key philosophical figures of Renaissance Platonism (Nicholas of Cusa and Marsilio Ficino). The author’s comprehensive and systematic interpretation of both thinkers demonstrates their significance for the interpretation of Platonic philosophy in Christian thought. In addition, there are chapters on natural theory as well as about love, which was one of the fundamental themes of the Renaissance. The third chapter focuses on beauty and love, beauty as unity and beauty as multiplicity, the tradition and culture of the tractates on love in court society, and concepts of beauty from some authors (Raimundus Sabundus, Marsilio Ficino, Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, Mario Equicola, Leone Ebreo, Pietro Bembo, Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, and Agostino Nifo). The last part of the volume is dedicated to natural philosophy and methodological questions: nature, soul, method (autopsy, experiment, induction), cosmology, astronomy, astrology, magic, hermeticism, and alchemy. The book is complemented by a detailed bibliography and index.
The book should be understood as a dialogue with the author who, in the epilogue, speaks sincerely about his intention to open discussion on various aspects of humanism and Renaissance thought as he does not want to provide a kind of final or fixed interpretation. The author is very open to possible criticism, further confirmation, or relativization of the results presented in his monumental work. The originality of the work lies also in the fact that after studying the introduction (250 pages), the reader can turn to individual chapters as separate wholes. Thus, the book can be an inspiration for further research of the sources which would add new and more detailed insights into the various aspects of humanism and the Renaissance.
Not only is Thomas Leinkauf’s book a unique and comprehensive piece; it is also clearly a groundbreaking work that deserves the attention of experts on philosophical thought and every researcher who is trying to understand the philosophical atmosphere in the fascinating and complicated period between 1350 and 1600. For those interested in intellectual history this will be a quintessential study for further adventurous and important research.
