Science and Civic Life in the Italian Renaissance.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Einband leicht berieben, Seiten altersbedingt leicht vergilbt, sonst guter Zustand / Binding slightly rubbed, pages slightly yellowed due to age, otherwise good condition. - PREFACE Most of the present essays originated as lectures. These lectures were given to expound some now well- established results of research. Hence there is a certain lack of critical discussion and documentation. In some cases I have endeavoured to compensate for these defects by giving references to texts in the footnotes and by referring to the researches on which some of my views are based. I am adding this prefatory note in order to clarify my point of view. My discussion turns upon two points. There is first my interest in the ethical and political ideas and ideals of the Italian cities of the fifteenth century; and secondly there is my interest in the problems of the science of the Renaissance insofar as it was connected with the rebirth of humanistic studies. More generally I hope to show in the present studies how the cultural development, strictly tied in its origins to the life of the Italian city in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, came to be one of the preconditions of modern science. However, at the very moment that the new vision of the world was beginning to take shape, the Italian cities and the ideals that had nourished the new image of man began to decline. In the course of two centuries the civilisation of humanism had flourished and the arts had held their triumph. Then there came the metaphysics of Bruno and the science of Galileo. But in the end the cultural hegemony of Italy, which had shown certain signs of national consciousness, declined because of the crisis of civic life in which these forms of humanism had developed. It had all begun with a vigorous political and moral commitment, and it ended with detached contemplation and devotion to the organic growth of autonomous theory.