The article presents the relationship between Christian Hebraism and Humanism between the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century. The polemical origins of Humanism as an anti-scholastic movement, and of Hebraism from Christian-Jewish controversies in the Middle-Ages are studied from the vantage point of selected, significant cases. The initial success and the final demise of the Christian Hebraist project are explained in term of the "limits of Humanism", that is to say the challenge the discovery of extra-Christian or extra-Catholic sources posed for the formation of early modern Western identity. The reaction against the integration of Hebrew among the Humanistic canon of the educational languages represents a convenient vantage point to observe the ultimate failure of the Humanistic project, or, in a more optimistic bend, its permanent perfectibility.
Hebraism and Humanism
saverio Campanini
2020
Abstract
The article presents the relationship between Christian Hebraism and Humanism between the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century. The polemical origins of Humanism as an anti-scholastic movement, and of Hebraism from Christian-Jewish controversies in the Middle-Ages are studied from the vantage point of selected, significant cases. The initial success and the final demise of the Christian Hebraist project are explained in term of the "limits of Humanism", that is to say the challenge the discovery of extra-Christian or extra-Catholic sources posed for the formation of early modern Western identity. The reaction against the integration of Hebrew among the Humanistic canon of the educational languages represents a convenient vantage point to observe the ultimate failure of the Humanistic project, or, in a more optimistic bend, its permanent perfectibility.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
