On the Origins of Renaissance Humanist Thought by Means of Francesco Petrarca and Johan Huizinga With Special Emphasis on Overzealousness

The late John Roaten Cheadle III, or Ro (November 29, 1985 - May 16, 2005), has been described as "a rare gentleman of yesteryear who lived in the 21st century."

"If ever an elite, fully conscious of its own merits, sought to segregate itself from the vulgar herd and live life as a game of artistic perfection, that was the circle of choice Renaissance spirits."
-Johan Huizinga

Francesco Petrarca, or Petrarch, lived in the 14th century, and had many Ro-esque qualities which led him to be recognized as the founder of a cultural period influential throughout history since his work. Passionate, romantic, anachronistic, polite, scholastic, extremely academic, traditional, ambitious, optimistic, respectful, pious, faithful, chivalrous, honest, and virtuous, Petrarch was not the picture of a man who broke down barriers and made new discoveries, yet to some, Petrarch was revolutionary. In St. Augustine's oft-referred to treatise Confessions, he deplores the fact that "human beings go around admiring the mountain heights, the mighty tides of the seas, the broad streams of the rivers, the circle of the ocean, and the orbits of the stars, but do not care to look more deeply into themselves." This seems to be a quote that could describe the way Petrarch would have lived. One of the fathers of humanism, he wrote of humanist appreciation of the individual. He fought the Neo-Aristotelians who believed that upon one's death, the soul is absorbed into intellectus, or a "world soul." He believed in the nature of man over that of many things, but he was hardly Howard Roark. This individualism was characterized less by egoism than by selective introversion. He thought of a certain group of things/subjects above all else that, if hallowed in some way, can lead to personal inner peace. (Disclaimer: that is my opinion; any liberals or people who have no appreciation of history or family should probably get off here.)

Twentieth century antireligious and militaristic humanists, existential humanists, and communist progressive humanists" need not apply.

Renaissance humanism believed in individual salvation through Christian faith. Goodbye "new" twentieth century humanists. It preached history, classics, and academia. Goodbye exisistentialism. It preached optimism and educability of man. Goodbye communists.

As a student of history, and an advocate of Renaissance humanism, I must add something written by Pietro Paolo Vergerio, a humanist thinker, on the subject of education. "...By history we learn the essential truth of things, which by eloquence we so exhibit in orderly adornment, as to bring conviction to differing minds." Amen Pietro. The humanists were interested in history, especially classical history, the history of their own times, and the place they would occupy in history. One beloved humanist proclaimed "History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity." The humanists were masters of graceful style.

Renaissance humanism is not only about the studia humanitatis, the study of the classics with emphasis on history, chivalry, anachronism, and the general liberal arts as a means of a diverse education. It is also about qualities held by people like Petrarch. It is about respect for ones history, about a mix of objectivism, Christianity, and romance, about literature, and most importantly about the advancement of oneself through the quest of knowledge and appreciation of ones past, origins, and personal family history (those are all kind of the same thing, I know). Nearly any virtue celebrated (or some that weren't celebrated) in the past can only be beneficial in today's world. I learned that from the late Ro Cheadle. Hopefully the passing of a fine young southern gentleman will help people look more deeply within themselves, as St. Augustine tells us, and then perhaps seek to segregate themselves from the vulgar herd and attempt to live life in artistic perfection, as Huizinga suggests after the study of Petrarch.