Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century
The great revolution in the outlook of mankind, which began in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, led to the crea tion of some of the conditions in which objective methods and a genetic conception of history could arise. The revelation that the Classical world was not a shadowy tradition but a brilliant reality stimulated curiosity and suggested the study of develop ment. Comparative inquiry was further encouraged by the discovery of the New World and the establishment of closer relations with the East. Within the limits of a couple of genera tions the realm of space and the 'horizon of learning were doubled. While the frontiers of knowledge were being pushed back, a change scarcely less momentous was beginning to appear in the intellectual atmosphere. The increasing corruption of the Church, the development of town life, the expansion of commerce had already begun to act as solvents of the theological spirit; and the rapturous seduction of pagan culture, at once beautiful, lofty and frankly human, completed the process of emancipation. The Italian Renaissance stands not so much for a revolt against authority as for the secularisation of thought. A joyous pride in man, in the power of his mind and the beauty of his body, succeeded to the brooding asceticism of mediaeval ideals. For speculations on the spiritual nature and prospects of mankind were substituted inquiries into his earthly achievements. The Middle Ages begin with Augustine and end with Machiavelli.
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