The Renaissance - Medieval and Renaissance culture
3 important questions on The Renaissance - Medieval and Renaissance culture
How did Petrarch describe his day? What did he predict?
- It was Petrarch (1304-74), the most influential humanist, or classical scholar, of the fourteenth century, who first referred to the period that stretched from the ancient world to his own day as a 'Dark Age'.
- Petrarch also suggested that a new era might be dawning in which the darkness would be left behind and the 'radiance' of Antiquity rediscovered, a notion energetically promoted by his followers.
What two reasons are there for the significance of the usage of 'Dark Age' as a term?
These usages are clearly significant for two reasons: logically a Renaissance or rebirth presupposes some sort of cultural death, such as Petrarch's Dark Age; and by coming to identify that Dark Age with the Middle Ages, Petrarch's followers invented modern chronology, with its three principal divisions: the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the modern period.
What does the book say about Petrarch's charge that the ancient world was false?
- It was completely false.
- At a medieval university, studying law normally involved the study of Roman Law; studying philosophy or theology usually entailed acquiring at least some sort of acquaintance with Aristotle's works, in translation; and studying medicine gave the student the chance to draw upon the ancient Greek medical texts, also in translation.
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