Among the historical documents of the Renaissance in Italy, the works of Francesco Petrarca's contemporaries have survived. The "Notes" of the merchant-writer Giovanni Morelli give culturologists reason to believe that the Florentine polo, along with other humanists of the "Trecento" period, was one of the founders of the humanistic culture of the European Renaissance.
In the wealthy medieval city-states of Italy (the Genoese, Venetian and Florentine republics), starting from the end of the XIV, people appear who call themselves "lovers of wisdom." They considered antiquity to be the "golden age" and worshiped ancient culture. Thinkers were united by a historically new revolutionary concept of reality, which considered an integral, internally free person as the center of the Universe. They rehabilitated the earthly material world, recognizing the value of social life and the role of the human person. The name "humanist" was associated not only with high education, but also with the rethinking of medieval scholastic dogmas of the world order. In Florence, the first humanist circle was created, and the commune of popolanov became the center, from where Renaissance humanism, as a new ideology, spreads throughout the cities of Italy and to other countries.
Humanism of the Early Renaissance
The concept of Renaissance humanism is associated primarily with the new educational system in Italy, which was based on the mastery of spiritual culture. The term studia humanitatis was borrowed from Cicero and meant the resurrection of Greek education on Roman soil. Figures of the Early Renaissance put in the center of such a system of knowledge the problem of man, his earthly destiny. A complex of disciplines different from that of the Middle Ages was introduced (Latin and Greek grammar, rhetoric, poetics, history, ethics). According to researcher Paul Kristeller, the term humanista (humanist) originally meant a specialist in the scientific and educational field, by analogy with a professor of law (legista), teacher of liberal arts (artista). In a broader sense, humanism began to denote a secular culture, addressed not only to a person, but also emanating from a person, from his own spiritual and creative capabilities and subjective power.
Who are the merchant writers
The new type of active and active personality put forward by the humanists was reflected in the popolan elite, who played a leading role in the economic and socio-political life of Italian cities. Among educated, thinking people, the culture of reading books originates.
In the libraries of the Florentines, along with the Bible, sacred Scripture, psalter and hagiographic literature, obligatory for a Christian, works of ancient classics appear. Interest is aroused by secular literature, as well as works of medieval knightly and urban culture. In private collections of popolans, grammar textbooks, medical treatises, collections of legal norms, "Aesthetics" and "Metaphysics" by Aristotle, and Alberti's treatise "On the Family" take place. In terms of the number of manuscripts in the libraries of the townspeople, there is no equal to Dante's Divine Comedy and Boccaccio's Decameron. A whole galaxy of enlightened business people has formed, in whose life there is an "aesthetic" component. Many of the owners of the manuscripts began to express their thoughts on what they read in their own writings. These are memoirists, chroniclers and merchant-writers: Giovanni Villani, Paolo da Certaldo, Franco Sacchetti, Giovanni Rucellai, Bonaccorso Pitti, Giovanni Morelli.
Creating works of so-called "merchant literature", business people of the Renaissance expressed in them their views on the material world and the life purpose of man in this world. They put forward the ideal of active life as the main moral guideline. This implied active self-realization in the chosen professional field, focusing on a person who relies on his mind and his abilities. The observations and advice of the Florentine merchant-writers, which they shared on the pages of their writings, are devoted not only to the accumulation of capital, but also to the solution of general ethical problems (about the meaning of human life, about human freedom of will, about the ideal of social harmony).
"Notes" by Giovanni Morelli
A Florentine citizen, a very wealthy and intelligent man, Giovanni da Poglo Morelli (1371-1444) was a hereditary merchant, a member of one of the most influential and wealthy craft guilds in Lana. He is the first representative of the chroniclers of the Morelli family and the author of the surviving work Ricordi (Notes).
In an essay written for his sons, the entrepreneur urged that they not only master the courses of commerce and strive to become the successors of the family business (trade and dressing of woolen fabrics). He in every possible way stood up for the replenishment of their cultural baggage, aroused interest in architectural monuments, objects of art. The father strongly advised the children to read Dante, Homer, Virgil, Seneca and other ancient classics. "Studying them, you derive great benefit for your mind: Cicero teaches eloquence, with Aristotle you study philosophy." Morelli's practical advice and moralizing messages go beyond the traditional teaching and behavior of sons. The capacious Italian term ragione is constantly present on the pages of merchants' notes. This word in the meaning of account, reason, wisdom, justice means the assertion of a rationalistic principle in the thinking of the merchants.
It is noteworthy that as a guide for everyday life, along with the norms of merchant ethics from the "code of honor", Giovanni Morelli puts forward new ethical ideals - worldly success, worldly wisdom and worldly virtue. In his essay, a representative of the early bourgeois elite sets out an attitude towards religion that differs from the established medieval dogmas. He considers the best path to God not the path of renunciation and asceticism, but real life practice, civil activity of a person: "everything comes from God, but in accordance with our merits", "the Lord wants you to help yourself and work to come to perfection" … The emphasis in the treatise "Notes" on active earthly life reflected the fact that in the specific conditions of the urban culture of Florence, the popolans developed a new view of the world. The meaning of life was measured in activity for the family and the community.
According to cultural experts, Giovanni Morelli came to the humanism of the Renaissance in a different way than his contemporary Francesco Petrarca. Noting the merits of Petrarch in the formation of humanistic ideas mainly in the field of philology and education, the researchers recognize that the Renaissance thinker Morelli is considered the figure of the so-called civil humanism. He was more closely associated with the business life of Florence, the roots of his work were deeply rooted in the urban folk culture.
