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Renaissance: The Origins of Modernity - Description The network is supported by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities and organized by
Forum for Renaissance Studies
The organizers are:
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The New Aristotle: Renaissance Readings of the Corpus Aristotelicum Copenhagen, 23 - 25 April 1998 (See the program) The theme of the seminar will be the reinterpretation of Aristotle's works in the period between Petrarch and Francis Bacon. Aristotle is generally held to be the philosopher whose authority characterized the Middle Ages. However, the sixteenth century alone produced more works on Aristotle than the preceding 1000 years. Moreover we find that the medieval Latin translations were supplanted by new humanist ones, so that the entire corpus was accessible in contemporary Latin before 1600. The whole of Aristotle's oeuvre was subjected to the philosophical reorientation of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; eventually the new readings of his works influenced contemporary thought on dialectic, science, poetics etc. We hope that the seminar will contribute to the understanding of Renaissance Aristotelianism and its place in the development of modern thought. The seminar is arranged in collaboration with prof Eckhard Keßler, Institut für Geistesgeschichte des Humanismus, Munich.
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"Higher Artisans": Humanism and the University Tradition The Zilsel thesis reconsidered in relation to the Renaissance transformation of mathematics Copenhagen, 29 October - 1 November 1998 (See the program) In 1942, Edgar Zilsel presented the thesis that none of the current explanations of the breakthrough in late Renaissance natural science was adequate. Instead he pointed to the interaction between "higher artisans" (i.e. specialists belonging to the practical professions, such as master builders, artist-engineers, surgeons, gunners, navigators, and instrument-makers; humanists; and university scholars), an interaction which, he argued, created possibilities which none of the groups provided on their own. Zilsel's still rather crude sketch can be criticized on various points, but his thesis has inspired many subsequent discussions of the incipient scientific revolution. However, the debate has mostly concentrated on the mechanical and physical sciences and, leaving perspective theory aside, has rarely touched upon the Renaissance transformation of mathematics. It is the purpose of the seminar to fill this lacuna, and to discuss of the development of mathematics proper in the light of earlier investigations of the mathematized mechanico-physical sciences.
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Virtł and Fortuna The Danish Academy in Rome, 23 - 27 January 1999 (See the program) The purpose of the conference is to elucidate central aspects of Renaissance ethics by analyzing the concepts of virtł and fortuna within the fields of philosophy, classical scholarship, literature and art. Renaissance attempts to define man's dignity, his potential and his place in the universe led to a discussion of the relationship between two important factors in human life, that is virtł, personal ability and force, and fortuna, the casual nature of the human condition, luck or fate. Renewed reading of classical authors played a central role in the formation of this ethical theory, and among the early humanists we find influential discussions of the two concepts in the works of Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati, and Poggio Bracciolini. Influenced by new political and social conditions Alberti, Macchiavelli, and Guicciardini continue this tradition, and the two principles also appear as fundamental forces in the fictional world of the great Renaissance epics (Boiardo, Aristo, Tasso). The twentieth century has seen many attempts to redefine the individual and his relations with the surrounding world, but the concepts of Renaissance moral philosophy still carry weight in an ethical understanding of human life.
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The Modern Knight of the Renaissance Copenhagen, 23-25 September 1999 (See the program) In the course of the Italian Renaissance the medieval concept of knighthood was subject to radical change, and humanist writers contributed to the modernization of a feudal institution with its orders and statutes. The aim of the conference is to further an understanding of the development which in Renaissance art and literature made the figure of the knight an emblem or icon of modern man, at the same time heroic and vulnerable. In the early fifteenth century the heroes of antiquity were depicted as knights, in terms of language and iconography, but at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there was a remarkable development in the visualization of the ideal princely knight. Likewise, in Renaissance poetry a deep cleft separates the knightly universe of Boiardo (Orlando innamorato, 1474-94) and that of Ariosto (Orlando furioso, 1516-32), whose new sceptical understanding of man brings human rationality into question. The medieval concept of the knight also changed in transalpine Europe. The numerous new Mirrors of Princes, which became popular in courts all over Europe, influenced the norms of the ideal knight. In many cases they contain surprisingly modern ethical and aestethic ideals which encourage a deeper analysis of the question whether later knightly ideals may in fact originate in the 'modern' knight of the Renaissance.
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Scandinavian Conference on Renaissance Studies Copenhagen, 28 - 30 May 1999 (See the program) In the Scandinavian countries Renaissance studies are being carried out at present in a wide range of separate research fields such as Latin philology, history, art history, history of the theatre, literary criticism, and modern languages, and in widely differing institutional settings, as for instance universities, museums and libraries. This interdisciplinary nature of Renaissance studies often makes it difficult to obtain information about the work of colleagues in related fields. The purpose of the conference is to establish closer relations between Renaissance scholars in Scandinavia and to give a survey of current research.
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Last updated by Marianne Pade, 30-11-1999 |