Article

Art, superstition and "philosophy" in the Renaissance

January 2015

DOI:10.7213/aurora.27.042.AO02

Authors:

The main objective of the reflections of this article is to show that, differently from what people usually think, the Renaissance period was rather characterized by an atmosphere of sorcery, superstition, fear and anxiety regarding destiny and death. Therefore, it is an epoch where flourished, or revived, the human letters and art, but not exactly science and philosophy. To be sure, even science and what could be called philosophy, which was represented by two main currents - the Platonic one of Florence School and the Aristotelian one of Padua University - were in fact involved by an atmosphere of hermetic knowledge. Consequently, they were mostly interpreted and studied from this perspective. Moreover, it is worth noting that, already in the first half of the 20th century, new studies were developed, the result of which was to disclose this unknown, or neglected, feature of the Renaissance period.

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Chapter

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R. Hooykaas

Aristotle’s ideas of Being and Change, of elements and compounds and of the structure of the universe had an overwhelming influence, even upon those, such as the Stoics and the Neoplatonists, who did not belong to his school of thought. In the Middle Ages all scholastic sects accepted his cosmology; later the vast majority of Renaissance philosophers, even though they were more inclined towards ... [Show full abstract] Platonism, would accept much of his natural philosophy and most of his astronomical system.

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Article

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