Dante was born and educated in Florence. He was favored with a devoted teacher, Brunetto Latini, who was said to be "a great philosopher and a consummate master of rhetoric, not only knowing how to speak well, but to write well." Under him Dante became familiar with all of the great Latin poets, with philosophy, history, and theology. Dante always spoke of his teacher with great affection. Those were times of revolution and political disturbance, and Dante was readily drawn into politics. This caused his banishment and even endangered his life.
Dante's greatest work is the "Divine Comedy," which has made his name immortal. His was the first great name in literature after the long dark period of the Middle Ages. It is said of him that "he was not the restorer of classic antiquity, but one of the great prophets of that restoration." He brought the Italian language into use in literature and gave to it a dignity that it has never lost. Dante prepared the way for the humanistic movement and was therefore an important factor in this great revival.
PETRARCH (1304-1374)
The father of Petrarch was an eminent jurist, and he desired his son to adopt his profession, but Petrarch had neither taste nor capacity for Roman law. He was determined to be a man of letters. Like Dante, he too mixed in politics, and several important diplomatic positions were given to him. Though he succeeded in learning a little Greek late in life, Petrarch was not a Greek scholar. This did not hinder him from being a warm advocate of the claims of the Greek language as an important element of a liberal education. Although he possessed a manuscript of Homer, "Homer was dumb to him, or rather he was deaf to Homer."
Petrarch was the real founder of humanism. Being enthusiastic for the works of antiquity himself, he inspired the Italians with a remarkable zeal in the pursuit of classic lore; nor was his influence confined to the limits of his native country. He was the first to make a collection of classic works, and to bring to light the literary treasures which the monasteries had so carefully preserved for centuries. He inaugurated that great movement which "restored freedom, self-consciousness, and the faculty of progress to human intellect." He recognized that the most wonderful thing in the world is the human mind, the emancipation of which can be brought about only through its own activity. He was the first to appreciate the importance of Greek in human culture. Unlike Tertullian, Jerome, and Augustine, he believed that classic authors, together with the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers, produce the broadest intelligence. All of these have the same purpose, and all are necessary to human enlightenment. Petrarch broke down the unfruitful methods of the scholastics, and laid the foundations upon which modern education is based; namely, intellectual freedom, self-consciousness, and self-activity.
BOCCACCIO (1313-1375)
The third of the great Italian leaders in the humanistic movement was Boccaccio. At the age of twenty-five, while standing at the grave of Vergil, he decided to devote himself to a literary career. He admired the great work of Petrarch, and was proud that, "at his own expense, he was the first to have the works of Homer and other Greek authors brought to his native land; that he was the first to call and support a teacher of Greek; and that he was the first among all Italians who could read Homer in the original."
The German Humanists
The German mind is more earnest, disputative, and practical than the Italian, therefore the trend of German humanism was at first chiefly theological, and the study of the classic languages, especially Hebrew and Greek, was undertaken for the purpose of better understanding the Holy Scriptures. Only a few scholars, however, were interested, and not until a violent attack was made upon Reuchlin, was general attention attracted.
AGRICOLA (1443-1485)