概论：文艺复兴人的旧日荣光

 原书及其作者

Jerry Brotton 的 "The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction"，是的我又在读牛津通识读本系列，这个系列很合我对于一个主题想要的入门程度。优点也都说过很多遍，大主题，小开本，很多学科都有出本，学科内部的介绍也都相当全面。

文艺复兴对于欧洲，是从不假思索的中世纪世界中出离的年代，它就和现代性本身一样复杂。看了这本书我更能留下印象的倒是，原来人的社会历史，从早期到现代，一边是越来越复杂但一边也是越来越柔软灵活的。中世纪的欧洲里边，钉死的清规戒律就是死的，到了文艺复兴时期，技术爆炸，航海和商贸长足发展，各地的方言脱离了拉丁语开始自我的发展，社会如此深刻的变化。

过了这本书，我发现看的历史越多，我的评论变得越少。原书之中已经有一切，我只是看见。

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Introduction——An Old Master

 

>p3 The three basic arts – grammar, logic, and rhetoric – were known as the trivium. …… The quadrivium referred to arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, all of which are clearly represented in Holbein’s precise depiction of the arithmetic book, the lute, and the scientific instruments.

These academic subjects formed the basis of the studia humanitatis, the course of study followed by most young men of the period, more popularly known as humanism. …… The highly flexible nature of the studia humanitatis encouraged the study of a variety of new disciplines that became central to Renaissance thought, such as classical philology, literature, history, and moral philosophy.

• 新学科教育是文艺复兴的坚实基础。他们培养所谓的“新的人”，即“文艺复兴人”——利用他们的学识来追求人类的名誉和雄心壮志。

>p5-6 As with the impact of the printing press, and the upheavals in religion, this global expansion bequeathed a double-edged legacy. One of the outcomes was the destruction of indigenous cultures p. 6page 6. and communities through war and disease, because they were unprepared for or uninterested in adopting European beliefs and ways of living. Along with the cultural, scientific, and technological achievements of the period came religious intolerance, political ignorance, slavery, and massive inequalities in wealth and status – what has been called ‘the darker side of the Renaissance’.

• 贸易繁荣、金融繁荣，地理大发现，印刷术彻底革新知识传播格局…世界的复杂度和人们所能看到的复杂度爆炸性增长，人们开始思考一切，质疑一切，知识与经济不断发展的同时也带来了动荡、宗教不宽容，以及欧洲的全球殖民扩张。

P7-8 They reflect an intensified interest within the Renaissance in understanding and mastering the natural world. As Renaissance philosophers debated the nature of their world, navigators, instrument-makers, and scientists began to channel these philosophical debates into practical solutions to natural problems.

• 人类看见了自己在自然界中的位置以后，技术和野心也随之暴涨。文艺复兴不仅包含着许多帝国扩张的政治野望，还包含着科学与仪器制造的飞速发展，人们打开了眼界，看见了蒙昧。

>p8 In offering a more global perspective on the nature of the Renaissance, it would be more accurate to refer to a series of ‘Renaissances’ throughout these regions, each with their own highly specific and separate characteristics. These other Renaissances often overlapped and exchanged influences with the more classical and traditionally understood Renaissance centred on Italy. …… Today, there is a popular consensus that the term ‘Renaissance’ refers to a profound and enduring upheaval and transformation in culture, politics, art, and society in Europe between the years 1400 and 1600. The word describes both a period in history and a more general ideal of cultural renewal.

• 事实上，许多重大的历史概念在时间和地点的界限上都是模糊的，但仍然可以有一些模糊的共识。几乎每一本VSI系列的书都会点到这一点，当我们简单化的形容一个历史事件是某一年到某一年发生在某地的时候，这样的定义如果去深究的话，其实是建立在许多的研究和界定之上的。现代生活中其实很多事都这样，我们日常生活中自然而然使用的概念实际上是基于很长时间的形成，不断地有共识形成了又消失，共识和现实互动，新的现实又改变共识。

• 历史本身从来只是发生，对历史的认识和解读有赖于代代史学家的努力。关于文艺复兴的认识，最早发明这个称呼的法国历史学家儒勒（Jules Michelet）认为文艺复兴是与中世纪决裂的一个历史时期与时代精神，是艺术与人文主义的盛宴；后来瑞士学者布克哈特（Jacob Burckhardt）认为文艺复兴是“自我”的发现，从此人的身份不再只是宗教或宗族之中的模糊部件，因此文艺复兴是“现代”的摇篮；再后来英国作家华特·佩特（Walter Pater）总结他俩，认为文艺复兴是对传统宗教组织的反叛和对艺术与感官的纯粹颂扬。

>p12-13 Michelet, Burckhardt, and Pater created a 19th-century idea of the Renaissance as more of a spirit than a historical period. The achievements of art and culture revealed a new attitude towards individuality and what it meant to be ‘civilized’. The problem with this way of defining the Renaissance was that, rather than offering an accurate historical account of what took place from the 15th century onwards, it looked more like an ideal of 19th-century European society. These critics celebrated limited democracy, scepticism towards the church, the power of art and literature, and the triumph of European civilization over all others. These values underpinned 19th-century European imperialism. At a point in history that Europe was aggressively asserting its authority over most of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, people like Pater were creating a vision of the Renaissance that seemed to offer both an origin and a justification for European dominance over the rest of the globe.

• 但是这里有个问题，以上几种学说，比起严谨的历史陈述，更偏近于19世纪学者本身对于文艺复兴的理想愿景，并且在某种程度上合理化了“先进”的欧洲文明对世界的殖民扩张。这种理想化的描述到了世界大战的年代迅速遭受打击，学者们对于文艺复兴的“文明”感到悲观而虚无。到了今天，文艺复兴的遗产到底如何判断，还是充满争议。 

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原书信息：Brotton, Jerry, The Renaissance: A Very Short Introduction, Very Short Introductions (Oxford, 2006; online edn, Oxford Academic, 24 Sept. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192801630.001.0001