DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63221#0066
40
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
were led in a leash to market, it was the cord, or the
holder of the cord that actually led him : a question over
which there was a feud which divided men into camps.
Such burlesque instances of pedantry were probably rare,
but the stories of these hair-splitting pundits remain as a
measure of man’s power to take himself seriously. They
did not then appear preposterous, except to the few; the
average person accepted them with the rest of his normal life.
It was, as usual, in Italy that these fallacious processes
were most effectively superseded. That strange race, the
Cardinals of the Renaissance, gave the final blow to the
Italian Schoolmen and new life to the Scholars. Academic
ideals were not upheld by men such as Cardinal Bembo,
who only took to the study of the Scriptures after he
became a Cardinal, and favoured the book of Pomponazzi
against the immortality of the soul: a work condemned by
the Inquisition and burned at Venice. This typical prelate
spent his time between his garden and library, his medals
and antiquities, his Roman palace and his Paduan Villa;
and busied himself with the fresh developments of philosophy.
Aristotle, disfigured by the Schoolmen, had hitherto been
their prophet and their bulwark. Men now began to read
him for themselves, and in Italy the Aristotelians divided
into two parties, centering in the school of Aristotle at Padua.
On the one hand was the Pantheistic party, counting among
them the Christian Cardinal Sadoleto; on the other, was
the band of the Materialists, to which the Pagan Bembo
belonged. Casuistry gave way to real debate; hair-splitting
to dialectics; and not in Italy alone. She gave impetus to
the movement, but other nations vied with her. Even
THE FRENCH RENAISSANCE
were led in a leash to market, it was the cord, or the
holder of the cord that actually led him : a question over
which there was a feud which divided men into camps.
Such burlesque instances of pedantry were probably rare,
but the stories of these hair-splitting pundits remain as a
measure of man’s power to take himself seriously. They
did not then appear preposterous, except to the few; the
average person accepted them with the rest of his normal life.
It was, as usual, in Italy that these fallacious processes
were most effectively superseded. That strange race, the
Cardinals of the Renaissance, gave the final blow to the
Italian Schoolmen and new life to the Scholars. Academic
ideals were not upheld by men such as Cardinal Bembo,
who only took to the study of the Scriptures after he
became a Cardinal, and favoured the book of Pomponazzi
against the immortality of the soul: a work condemned by
the Inquisition and burned at Venice. This typical prelate
spent his time between his garden and library, his medals
and antiquities, his Roman palace and his Paduan Villa;
and busied himself with the fresh developments of philosophy.
Aristotle, disfigured by the Schoolmen, had hitherto been
their prophet and their bulwark. Men now began to read
him for themselves, and in Italy the Aristotelians divided
into two parties, centering in the school of Aristotle at Padua.
On the one hand was the Pantheistic party, counting among
them the Christian Cardinal Sadoleto; on the other, was
the band of the Materialists, to which the Pagan Bembo
belonged. Casuistry gave way to real debate; hair-splitting
to dialectics; and not in Italy alone. She gave impetus to
the movement, but other nations vied with her. Even