Middle Ages and Renaissance: Notes about the Humanistic Spirit of Recovery and Transmission of Ancient Knowledge

Abstract

The Medieval and Renaissance intellectual movements aiming at the recovery and transmission of knowledge are what is mainly responsible for handing down to our times the acquaintance with the science, medicine, philosophy and literature of the classical Greco-Roman world; and adequate comprehension, however, of what these periods mean and the work achieved by these movements are still tasks for us to complete. Given this background, I shall argue in this paper that there are, evidently, differences between these two periods, though they are not as profound as commonly believed. To show this, I shall then proffer some considerations about similarities and differences between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Finally, having established this as a conceptual framework, I shall suggest that the notion of Humanistic Spirit may help us to comprehend these periods and intellectual movements.