the language used by classical authors. He
began the craze for manuscript hunting,
in which scholars fanned out to monaster-
ies and cathedral libraries to uncover long-
forgotten manuscripts and bring the works
of Greek and Roman authors to light. In
some cases, these newly discovered works
had a direct effect on the work of artists
and architects; a first-century work by the
Roman architect Vitruvius, for example,
discovered by Poggio Bracciolini, influ-
enced the design of the dome of the ca-
thedral of Florence, a work completed by
the architect Filippo Brunelleschi in the
fifteenth century.
Following in Petrarch’s footsteps were
several generations of scholars, who were
invited to Renaissance courts of Italy and
offered positions as teachers, tutors, and
advisers to aristocrats and princes. Their
principle subjects were rhetoric, grammar,
music, history, philosophy, and poetry. To
have a humanist scholar in one’s house-
hold was the mark of breeding and good
taste; the leading families, such as the
Medici of Florence, set up academies
within their palaces for an education that
would stamp young people with the new
outlook and make them loyal to new ide-
als. Leading humanists of the Renaissance
include Desiderius Erasmus, who at-
tempted to combine classical philosophy
with Christian outlook, as well as Sir Tho-
mas More, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, whoseOration on
the Dignity of Manwas an important hu-
manist manifesto. In this work, Pico della
Mirandola held man to be an essential in-
termediary between the Divine and the
natural world, and unique in his ability to
choose his own nature and develop his
natural abilities. Writers such as Francois
Rabelais adopted the humanist outlook, as
did painters such as Leonardo da Vinci,
whose wide-ranging genius allowed him to
master painting, military engineering,
anatomy, and the science of flight. One
notable Renaissance humanist, Silvius Pic-
colomini, also was a scholar of ancient pa-
gan and Christian values and attained the
highest position in the church as Pope Pius
II.
The trial of the Italian scientist Galileo
Galilei represented the climax of the
struggle between faith and reason. Having
discovered the moons of Jupiter with a
telescope, Galileo was forced to explain his
observation by a contradiction to accepted
doctrine of the Christian faith—that the
earth was the center of the universe,
around which all other observed celestial
phenomena revolved. Galileo escaped with
his life, but his works were banned and
humanist learning was, temporarily, sup-
pressed. But humanism in the way of sci-
entific investigation eventually triumphed
over the church’s attempts to suppress it,
and went hand in hand with the dawning
of a new age of reason in Europe.Hungary ..........................................
A kingdom of central Europe, established
by the eastern nomads known as the Mag-
yars in the tenth century. In the fourteenth
century, Hungary was ruled by the foreign
Anjou dynasty, whose kings presided over
a time of peace and general prosperity. Sil-
ver and gold mines enriched the treasury,
while the Anjou kings asserted effective
control over Hungary’s landowning nobles
and allied Hungary with Naples and Po-
land through marriage. Under King Louis
I, who ruled from 1342 until 1382, trade
with the rest of Europe increased and the
kingdom’s artisans began forming craft
guilds to standardize their production of
goods and limit competition. Louis
founded the first university in HungaryHungary