Chapter I
Reading edition
THE SPIRIT OF THE RENAISSANCE.
Difficulty of fixing Date--Meaning of Word Renaissance--The Emancipation of the Reason--Relation of Feudalism to the Renaissance--Mediæval Warnings of the Renaissance--Abelard, Bacon, Joachim of Flora, the Provencals, the Heretics, Frederick II.--Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--Physical Energy of the Italians--The Revival of Learning--The Double Discovery of the World and of Man--Exploration of the Universe and of the Globe--Science--The Fine Arts and Scholarship--Art Humanizes the Conceptions of the Church--Three Stages in the History of Scholarship--The Age of Desire--The Age of Acquisition--The Legend of Julia's Corpse--The Age of the Printers and Critics--The Emancipation of the Conscience--The Reformation and the Modern Critical Spirit--Mechanical Inventions--The Place of Italy in the Renaissance 1