Black Death Plague Humanism Analysis

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In 1347 Siena, Italy faced a horrible crisis when the ‘Black Death Plague’ killed off around 60% of their overall population. Everyone thought the end of Siena was near, and that their rival Florence would soon take over; but that was not the case. Around the 14th century, the Renaissance began, and the rebirth of Siena was in action. During this time, the term “Humanism” was very important, illustrating interests in the Ancient world. Humanism was a study first done during the Renaissance, where for the first time people started to think and learn about themselves as people, rather than just focusing on god and religion. There are many different attributes of humanism such as anatomy, classicism, nature, realism, and more. Humanism was very important and different as illustrated in the reading “What is Humanism?”, stating “unlike medieval scholasticism which emphasized theology, the studia humanitatis embraced Greek, Latin, history, public speaking, literature, philosophy, and politics” (1). Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a young philosopher who wrote “Oration on the Dignity of Man” in 1486 as an introduction to his nine hundred theses. His work was extremely …show more content…

Also, only human beings can change themselves freely, whereas all other changes in nature are the result of some outside force. Mankind are the most powerful beings created from God, which is why they are the most dignified creatures. Also, Pico states that as a humanist he believes that knowledge should be through the senses, such as sight, hearing, touching, taste, and smelling; which is something only humans can truly use to learn and create with. In the “Oration on the Dignity of Man”, Pico states that “There is nothing to be seen more wonderful than man”, which truly illustrates his beliefs on mankind and the abilities we

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