Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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In Reply to: PLEASE POST YOUR SECOND REQUIRED POSTING AS FOLLOWUPS TO THIS POST posted by Tom Bacig on January 13, 1999 at 21:59:54:
The "IDEAL" Renaissance Person
The ideal Renaissance person's characteristics are best described by the these three authors:
Leon Battista Alberti (1401-1472)
Characteristics of an "ideal" Father
- to teach their sons to read and write correctly
- to teach their sons arithmetic and a sufficient knowledge of geometry
- to make sure their sons learn about the great poets, orators, and philosophers
- to instill in their sons excellent customs
- to make sure their sons can speak Latin fluently
Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529)
Characteristics of an "ideal" Courtier
- to have his true profession be that of arms
- to have a perfect body (strong but not too tall)
- to have a vast knowledge of fighting and weapons
- to know how to wrestle
- to be able to perform strengthening exercise
- to be a good hunter
- to be a good athlete (tennis)
- not to do anything too dangerous as that is not gentlemen like
- to be graceful
- to be intellectual (speak and write well)
- to be well versed in the poets, orators, and philosophers
- to be a good musician which involved playing an instrument
- to be able to paint and draw
Characteristics of an "ideal" woman
- to comply with all of the above characteristics
- to be extremely graceful
- to be able to dance
- to be able to entertain men
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
Characteristics of an "ideal" Prince
- to make good laws and good arms
- to have a good mix of mercenaries and auxiliaries
- to always have his main focus on war
- to abstain from the property of others
- be loved not feared
- to keep faith amongst his people
-of course also possess all good characteristics
To get the actual "ideal" Renaissance person you have to have a good combination of all of the above characteristics. Personally, I think to possess all these characteristics is asking way too much of any one normal human being but some of the renaissance people were by no means normal. Only a few people really measured up to these high standards. (About 3-4%) of the population) Some great examples are:
< Michaelangelo >
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Filippo di Brunelleschi
Rapheal
Click on the above links to see more great works like these!
I think Alberti's On the Family suggests that our human nature tends to be lazy and idle with a definite lack of motivation. For example where he says, "If one wishes to gain praise and fame, he must abhor idleness and laziness and oppose them as deadly foes." I can easily relate to the laziness he is talking about as in the middle of winter quarter I spend at least a good ten minutes each morning debating if it is even worth going to school. It is definitely a hard battle to fight. I think the main thing that Alberti stresses is education and the need for it at an early age. I really like his example of the bottle in relation to the mind. Whatever you put in the bottle first can taint it forever that is why you have to fill the mind with good and what is right from the very beginning. I think that is great advice for life. It is kind of like that saying Don't give up before you even get started or you'll never know what you could have accomplished. I think Alberti is saying that preparation through a good knowledge of everything can help you accomplish anything.
I think Castiglione's The Courtier suggests that humans have only one purpose in life and that is to be the best at war, which basically means all we want to do in life is fight. I think that makes mankind look kind of grim and our human nature pretty evil. Castiglione talks a lot about preparing yourself to the best of your ability for war, but even though your life is supposed to revolve around that you are supposed to possess all of these other characteristics like grace. I think it is kind of funny that he wants the men to train to be tough for war but be eloquent enough to mount a horse gracefully. It's kind of like he's trying to avoid the "football player stereotype"; where every ones first impression is that his warriors are big, dumb, jocks. Castiglione wants his courtiers not only to be strong and good warriors he wants them to be graceful and smart. He wants them to be well rounded in all areas of life; poetry, reading and writing, music, athletics such as tennis, painting, etc.
At first glance I was really impressed that Castiglione was speaking to women as well but he kind of treated women as inferior and a prize possession. It seemed like he was more worried about women maintaining control and order then anything else. He gave women a purpose which was to entertain men over anything else, despite his saying they should be knowledgeable in all areas that men are. I guess that just goes with the time. Women of the Renaissance weren't really respected because not too many or at least that I have been able to find were predominant citizens in any profession or area of life.
In Machiavellis The Prince he suggests that the majority of people are not trustworthy and will run away from trouble when it comes their way. For example he states, "They are ready enough, therefore, to be your soldiers while you are at peace, but when war is declared they make off and disappear." Since Machiavelli states that humans can't be trusted a prince doesn't necessarily have to keep his faith. He says, "If all men were good, this would not be good advice, but since they are dishonest and do not keep faith with you, you, in return, need not keep faith with them." I admire Machiavelli's honesty though with respect to the qualities of a Prince. He says Princes should be generous, tenderhearted, true to their word, high-spirited and courageous, courteous, chaste, etc. He goes on to say that it is not in our human nature to possess or practice all of these characteristics. Instead he goes on to tell Princes how to work on avoiding having to indulge themselves in the bad characteristics. I think that is great advice as well. If you don't possess all the best characteristics instead of trying to attain the good ones try to avoid possessing bad characteristics.
In conclusion, I think that all of these stress that education is very important and that it is a key to success in all areas of life. I like also how all three stress the importance of being a well rounded human being. I thin our education system should take a look at these pieces because too often especially early on they only stress the reading and math and forget about the arts. In many schools they are completely taking away music and art programs as they are supposedly unnecessary. I think though we should keep in mind that it is humanly impossible to be this "ideal" Renaissance person that we have described. You have to admit you don't see too many Da Vinci's or Brunelleschi's these days. So we should not over stress ourselves with being perfect in everything because then we may become nothing.
*Mary