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Who were some of the good historians of this time? What was there view of ancient or classical history?
Which field are you looking at? In general, their view of classical history was quite positive. Edward Gibbon wrote a seminal book on the Fall of Rome.
Many Enlightenment thinkers were also scholars in their own right. I would look to the French as well as most of the prominent Enlightenment guys were French. Voltaire, Diderot, etc.
You know, I thnk I posted this in the wrong category. The Renaissance was the resurgance of all things Greco-Roman, correct?
The Renaissance and Enlightenment overlap and kind of segue into each other. Particularly during the latter half of the 17th century the terms are interchangeable. Are you sure you are not talking about the Scholastic period at the beginning of the Renaissance proper when all the old classic texts were rediscovered?
Are you sure you are not talking about the Scholastic period at the beginning of the Renaissance proper when all the old classic texts were rediscovered?
Yes. I didn't know it was called that
Renaissance is kind of a catch-all term that describes the whole period from the late Middle Ages to the middle and even end of the 18th century. It is a useful device for High School when they want to explain the flowering of science and rediscovery of ancient texts. It also helps them to explain why they call the dark ages dark. I don?t know if they still call it the dark ages in High Schools but Wally could probably answer that for us. I know that historians haven?t called them the dark ages for about 30-40 years but they were still calling it that when I was in school 20 years ago.
Not a good idea, calling the era the Dark Ages. Case in point; many years ago while introducing that era a student asked me, “So why do they call it the Dark Ages anyway?” My reply was that one night when the sun went down it never came back up for 1000 years. Seems a bit unkind I know but just having spent 10 minutes or so explaining about the stagnation (mostly) of things during that time and hearing the collective groan from 90% of the class I couldn't pass up the shot."Wow, how did they know when it was day time and when to go to bed and stuff?" Don't remember my reply but after about 2 more minutes of chain pulling I explained euphemisms....
So who were good historians of the Renaissance period? Specifically curious about accounts of eyewitnesses to ancient ruins like the Parthenon. Pausanias has his description of Greece. I was just wondering if any Renaissance historians had their own “modern” descriptions of Greece or Rome. How was the Parthenon described in the 15th or 16th century? Would like to compare that with what Greek or Roman historians said.(Phid, if this is inappropriate to post here, I can make a new post in the renaissance section)
Not a good idea, calling the era the Dark Ages. Case in point; many years ago while introducing that era a student asked me, "So why do they call it the Dark Ages anyway?" My reply was that one night when the sun went down it never came back up for 1000 years. Seems a bit unkind I know but just having spent 10 minutes or so explaining about the stagnation (mostly) of things during that time and hearing the collective groan from 90% of the class I couldn't pass up the shot."Wow, how did they know when it was day time and when to go to bed and stuff?" Don't remember my reply but after about 2 more minutes of chain pulling I explained euphemisms....
I was not saying I call them the Dark Ages, they were anything but. I just figured that you would know better than me how they are describing the early Medieval period in schools today given that you recently retired from teaching.
And right you are. My point was the misunderstanding of the term, think of darkest Africa; not lack of daylight, light-skinned people, nor lighter colored anything… just (at the time) lack of knowledge about it.
So who were good historians of the Renaissance period? Specifically curious about accounts of eyewitnesses to ancient ruins like the Parthenon. Pausanias has his description of Greece. I was just wondering if any Renaissance historians had their own "modern" descriptions of Greece or Rome. How was the Parthenon described in the 15th or 16th century? Would like to compare that with what Greek or Roman historians said.(Phid, if this is inappropriate to post here, I can make a new post in the renaissance section)
Are you looking for general descriptions of Rome, as in physical geography? I know that a number of Renaissance humanists made it a point to study ancient texts and learn the wisdom from them. But it sounds like you just want eyewitness accounts, right? I'm sure there are some out there...just don't know where exactly off the top of my head.If you want to see some older depictions of Rome, you may want to look up some illustrations of the artist Piranesi who lived in the 18th century. He drew pictures of a number of ruins in Italy, and perhaps in Greece as well.
