Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/645

 THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE 589 and interests are characteristic of the rest. Humanism was the study of classical literature not merely to derive scientific or theological information from it, but TT ,.. Humanism primarily for its literary and human interest. The humanists were impressed not only by the subject- matter of the ancients, but by the elegance of their Latin style. They developed a liking for Latin poetry, orations, letters, and other works whose interest was personal, emo- tional, and rhetorical rather than objective, logical, and scholastic. They took an interest in the personalities of the ancients and in their manner of life and their attitude to the world. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries, of course, had seen a great revival of Roman law and Greek science ; and the interest in Latin literature and in the stories of classical mythology had never entirely died out at any time during the Middle Ages. But by the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- turies the Digest of Justinian and the doctrines of Aristotle and Galen and Ptolemy had been warmed over and made hash of so often that there was little more to be got out of them. It was time to seek new authors, new works, and new points of view. Humanism, therefore, was characterized by a search for classical manuscripts and by a great enlargement of the amount of Latin literature which was generally ColJ. known. The humanist Poggio, who was em- of Latin ployed as one of the papal secretaries and at- l ^ ra ure
 * tended the Council of Constance, brought to light a number

of precious finds in the monastery of St. Gall. The classical manuscripts discovered by the Italian humanists did not, I however, date back to classical times. They were simply rl medieval copies of those works. Therefore all the Latin I literature known to the humanists had been known some- ■i where and at some time during the Middle Ages since I all together into public circulation; multiplied and edited 1 and corrected the medieval copies, which had sometimes j been carelessly or ignorantly made, and then subjected this I very considerable body of literature to an intensive and
 * Charlemagne's time. The humanists, however, brought it