There were several influences that aided in the build of education and learning during the Renaissance period. The Renaissance period has impacted education as we know it today.
From the years of the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century, the Renaissance period began in Italy and eventually spread to the remaining parts of Europe. “As a cultural movement, it encompassed a rebellion of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform.” (“Renaissance”, n.d., ¶ 2) The scholars of the Renaissance period went out to find a humanist method in the their studies, and wanted to find art that held human emotions. The movement has been thought of as the bridge that linked the worlds of the Renaissance to the Middle era.
Altogether, sixteen different universities were founded. In the early thirteenth century, the universities were started. They included Bologna, Padua, Naples, Siena, Rome, and Perugia. The universities eventually made their way to the places of Pisa, Florence, Pavia, Turin, Ferrara, Catania, Macerata, Salerno, Messina, and Parma by the end of the sixteenth century. “There were many other “papal universities” in Italy, schools that were licensed to award doctorates but which provided no teaching.” (Jurdjevic, 2003, ¶ 1)
The University of Ferrara really didn’t begin until 1442 with the financial aid of Marquis Leonello d’Este. “The University of Ferrara became a significant second-tier university and something of a degree factory.” (Grendler, 2000, p. 1177) Many of the students did most of their class at other universities and ended up coming to Ferrara for their doctoral exams. The reasoning behind this is because Ferrara was lower on their cost of tuition.
“The University of Macerata began in the academic year 1540-1541 with a papal charter and the appointment of about nine professors, seven in law.” (Grendler, 2000, p. 1178) During the sixteenth century the university remained smaller concentrating mostly in the field of law. To this day, it remains one of Italy’s smallest historical universities. It is also the least well known of the Italian Renaissance universities. Next in the line of universities comes from Pavia which was founded in 1361. This university was ranked behind the ones in Bologna and Padua in the fifteenth century.
During the years of 1343 – 1406, the University of Pisa had opened and shut their doors when Florence won a battle and took over the city. The doors were once again open when the University of Florence was moved to Pisa in the year of 1473 by Lorenzo de’ Medici. The university quickly became the most wanted in the Medici state.
Siena was opened in 1246. This university was known for their legal studies. “Despite relegation to second place among Tuscan universities, numerous students, especially Germans and other ultramontanes, came to Siena for legal studies.” (Grendler, 2000, p. 1181)
The size and wealth of the universities was a reflection of the local rulers. The university of Padua was far better off under the ruling of Venetian command than it had been under the Padua government. “By 1407, the Venetian government was paying all the expenses of the studio, had abolished competing schools in Treviso and Vicenza, and had instated a fine of 500 ducats for subjects who studied elsewhere.” (Jurdjevic, 2003, ¶ 2)
Certain towns in the area of Florentine had a little more advantage in the area of education than taxation and political matters. When Charles V sold out Siena to Cosimo I, the rulers were very hesitant about putting forth money towards universities that might cause rivalry against Pisa. The universities in Italy fought for their faculty and students. These fights were accomplished with the support of princes due to their income levels granted by bigger universities. “Universities capitalized on the instability caused by peninsular wars to attract famous professors.” (Jurdjevic, 2003, ¶ 4)
The Renaissance universities were based on a basic curriculum. Anatomy, medical botany, metaphysics and Scripture was added for those in the area of teaching. The universities also included a more practical method of math which became a privilege over astronomy and astrology. Taking an opposite point of view from theologians ruling the northern European universities, the universities of Italy were based on a relationship to the actual world rather than religion. They were taking on a form of humanism.
Theology was the least studied and mostly misunderstood thoughts of the Italian universities. Some professors thought this field of study wasn’t important enough to have been looked at more closely.
“All Italian university towns had faculties of theology, but local mendicant order friars, especially Dominicans and Franciscans, lacking links to the university for arts, medicine, and law, did not of the theology teaching in their own monasteries, which also provided almost all of the students.” (Grendler, 2000, p. 1179) Only a small number of professors taught theology, which were taken from the local monasteries, and other universities didn’t adopt this idea until after the Council of Trent was over. In comparison, theology was studied more in the Paris university than Italy.
When scholars that had control of ancient Greek took on a better understanding of Galen, medical tradition was being questioned and medical humanism took a part in society. Humanism was not always thought of as a philosophy, but as a different way of learning. “Humanist education was based on the programme of ‘Studia Hamitatis’, that being the study of five humanities: poetry, grammar, history, moral philosophy and rhetoric.” (“Renaissance”, n.d., ¶ 20) “The recovery of Greek mathematical texts led to conceptual improvements in algebra and geometry and a growing emphasis on their significance.” (Jurdjevic, 2003, ¶ 6) Platonic science was created when the theories of Aristotle was doubted dealing with natural philosophy.
Peter Ramus was a man who was out to reform the universities. Ramus wanted to expand upon the opportunities for intelligent younger men at the University of Paris. Unfortunately for women, the reform didn’t include them. “Thus his challenge as a new master of arts to the primacy of Aristotle in the university, which he say as perpetuating the control of learning by a handful of men trained in scholasticism.” (Baumgartner, 2004, ¶ 3) Ramus wanted to enforce a reform of education that was based on practical knowledge that was open to those men that was not based on their position in society or their wealth. Ramus also wanted to replace French as the native language with Latin.
During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Italian universities saw a small decline. Schools based upon religious order came into play with the Counter-Reformation. The university students were attracted to these new schools because the education was more spiritual and free. When the economy was faced with war and hard times, funding for the universities became very difficult to find.
“The upheavals occurring in the arts and humanities were mirrored by a dynamic period of change in the sciences.” (“Renaissance”, n.d., ¶ 27) It is said that the most dynamic contribution to science was not a direct discovery but a process which discoveries are made, the scientific method. This new way of learning about the world around us was based on observing evidence, the significance of mathematics, and doing away with the final cause.
The Italian universities held the foundation for famous men of the time despite the small decline. “Matteo Realdo Colombo was one of the great anatomists and teachers of the Renaissance period.” (Tubbs, Linganna, & Loukas, 2008, ¶ 2) Colombo moved throughout Italy to complete his higher education. He eventually studied at the University of Padua “where he was instructed, coincidentally, by another apothecary’s son, the great Belgian anatomist Andreas Veslius.” (Tubbs et al., ¶ 4)
Cosimo de’ Medici, Duke of Tuscany, was fond of Colombo. Colombo was offered a teaching job at the University of Pisa from Medici. He eventually move on to teach at the Papal Medical School in Rome. There Colombo made noted descriptions about the pulmonary circulation. His discoveries influenced the most people due to the fact he used various factors. “It is the accomplishments and findings of such early anatomists like Colombo that our current morphological understanding is based.” (Tubbs et al., 2008, ¶ 13)
The medical aspects of the Renaissance played a major role in the world of learning. “Renaissance medicine participated in broad cultural trends associated with the humanist movement in general.” (Siraisi, 2004, ¶ 4) Renaissance medicine refers to the term European medicine that came about between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Men of science and medicine were attracted because the Renaissance medicine specialized in the areas of anatomy and botany. The history involving the early Renaissance medicine broadens the world around it which also includes “learning, education, and intellectual life.” (Siraisi, ¶ 7) The relationship that medicine had with the separate lives and careers of others corresponded in different ways.
“(1) medicine in relation to other branches of knowledge focused on the human body; (2) the role of disciplines and contacts outside medicine in medical education and professional formation; and (3) the place oflearning in shaping medical careers and reputations.” (Siraisi, 2004, ¶ 8)
The part that astrology played in the early medical practices was not as pervasive as some took it to be. Although some physicians did use astrology figures in treating their patients” illnesses. Others also depended on the moon forms to help determine the illness. “University medical students and graduate physicians might acquire some of both their technical medical knowledge and their other learning outside as well as inside the university medical faculty.” (Siraisi, 2004, ¶ 31)
The contacts that were more personal both inside and out of the university walls offered addition ways of learning to their students. For those who graduated during the sixteenth century had a very complex and multiple ways of learning that went beyond the medical terms. The training the men acquired in the universities were based on books, knowledge that dealt with medical-texts, and more modern ways of learning.
“As the Renaissance swept through Europe, a great desire for books developed that had copying or block printing could not satisfy.” (Pulliam & Patten, 2007, p. 21) Johannes Gutenberg was born into an aristocratic family. Gutenberg was given the credit for the first printing press that made books available to a widespread number of people.
“Gutenberg’s printing press was like a proto-Xerox machine-His aim was to replicate manuscript, not replace it-and it has since been held as the standard model for casting characters of varying widths to compose pages of text.” (Johnston, 2003, ¶ 3)
When printed information became more available to the public, the members of society were able to think and learn more freely on their own. “The resulting revolution in the production and availability of printed information had a profound impact on education in the Western world.” (Pulliam & Patten, 2007, p. 21) They became members that were able to contribute more to society rather that just go on the word of the government all the time.
From the early stages of the Renaissance period, education has played a major role in forming those past centuries. Education today is based solely on the foundations from the Renaissance period. Thanks to the men of science, mathematics, and astronomy, the learning process would be very different today.
If Johann Gutenberg would not have learned of a new way to print words, then books would have been discovered much later. Because of him, the educational word was spread through Europe and Italy. The people were able to learn on their own and adapt away from the word of the government. The discoveries of Matteo and the pulmonary circulation helped to develop the medical world beyond what the human eye can see. He helped to form a new medical way of thinking.
Men and the universities of this era put aside the spoken word and asked ‘what if?’ The education world was forever impacted because of the history and thought behind the revolutionary way of thinking during the Renaissance period. Even though the Italian universities may have once faced a small decline, the western education was forever greatly impacted from the universities’ achievements.
Without these achievements, education today would not be the same. We would not be learning from those who have discovered and accomplished but just from the word of mouth.
References
Baumgartner concentrated on Ramus and the reform that he brought to the Renaissance society. He explains how Ramus was out seeking a new form of educational way along with religious ones in order to make the learning environment more practical for young men.
In Grendler’s essay on the Renaissance universities, he informed the reader on when and how the universities were started. He went into detail about the difference between them and the attraction they brought to new people seeking a higher education.
Johnston, A. (2003). Design and new media. Print, 57(6). Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com
Johnston’s work was on Johann Gutenberg. The author wanted to inform people about Gutenberg’s contribution in the modern Renaissance world. They printing press invention was a new wave of information that forever changed how people thought and believed in society.
Jurdjevic, M. (2003). The universities of the Italian renaissance. Canadian journal of history, 38(1). Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com
The author of this journal, Jurdjevic, thought a need to spread information about the sixteen universities that opened in a wave across Italy. He concentrated on the territorial state of each universities. The author went on to examine information concerning the decline of the universities and account for the reasoning behind them.
The text focused on the impacts the Renaissance had left on the western world as we know it today. The authors of this book put into view the idea of different aspects that made it possible to learn and even read words from a book, let alone think for ourselves because of the history of the Renaissance period.
The information in this reading from Wikipedia was all about the Renaissance world. It showed the reader information about who, what, when, and where event took place. Not only did it tell about the history but about the impact the Renaissance world left on education and science in the modern era.
The author of this journal entry wanted to inform people about the importance of the medical world and the history behind it all. She dealt with the issues of famous men and the contributions that had on the western world.
Tubbs, R. S., Linganna, S., & Loukas, M. (2008). Matteo realdo colombo (c. 1516-1559); the anatomist and surgeon. The american surgeon, 74(1). Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com
R. Tubbs, Sanjay Linganna, and Marios Loukas wrote about Matteo Colombo. He was a great anatomist and a teacher for the Renaissance world. His work led him to be a professor at the University of Pisa. He eventually was part of the school of thought.
