Petrarch saw in Stoicism's teachings an effective way to manage one's relations with the world. Stoicism embraced a world-renouncing creed that was not dissimilar to the Christian philosophy of many medieval figures, nor was it unattractive to the early humanists. Seneca was a Stoic, a member of the ancient philosophical sect that taught that the human passions were the source of evil. The critical interest in Seneca was not accidental. Around 1300, the early humanists Lovati Lovato and Nicholas di Trevet producedĬommentaries on Seneca's tragedies. Humanist interest in ancient tragedy developed early, as Italian scholars examined the ancient tragedies of Seneca. Translations of major Greek dramas appeared throughout the sixteenth century, producing calls for the revival of Greek theater, as well as a more general interest in classical dramatic conventions. By 1525, this situation had begun to change when three of the most famous Greek tragedies, Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris and his Cyclops as well as Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, had translations in Italian. By contrast, the study of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes proceeded more slowly since, in the fifteenth century, Greek dramas could only be read by the most erudite of scholars. The new editions also prompted Italy's wealthy patrons and nobility to commission translations of the works into Italian and to undertake productions of the plays. These printed editions allowed hundreds of identical texts to circulate among scholars and authors simultaneously, thus inspiring readers to try their own hand at imitating the ancient forms. A collected edition of the surviving works of Terence appeared in 1470, followed two years later by the works of Plautus. By the second half of the fifteenth century, the printing press permitted scholars to print editions of the classical plays. In 1429, the humanist Nicholas of Cusa rediscovered twelve plays by Plautus, and in the years that followed, Italy's growing ranks of literary scholars pored over these documents. The comic playwright Plautus was the next great classical figure to undergo a revival. Already in the fourteenth century scholars had turned to study his tragedies. Seneca, the ancient author of Rome's greatest tragedies, was the first ancient playwright to attract the humanists' attentions. The rediscovery of the comedies and tragedies of the ancient world gave birth to new editions of the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and the Roman playwrights Seneca, Terence, and Plautus.
In comedy, by contrast, Renaissance Italians evidenced greater success, producing a long string of learned or erudite comedies that also inspired playwrights throughout Europe. At the same time Italian humanist scholarship traveled to the rest of Europe, and in Renaissance England, France, and Spain, great tragic dramas did appear.
Italian scholarship of the ancient classics gave rise to works that today are only of historical interest. Although many Renaissance Italians wrote Greek and Roman styled tragedies, no masterpiece in this genre appeared until the eighteenth century. In tragedy, however, Italian dramatists long remained slaves to ancient models. Their efforts produced a classical revival of the masterpieces of Antiquity, even as they eventually inspired Renaissance playwrights to imitate the ancient genres. This same conviction prompted the humanists to study ancient forms of drama. There was no humanist manifesto or creed, but a general conviction that the development of men and women who were critical readers and thinkers as well as elegant writers might ennoble society. As this snapshot suggests, humanism was from its first a literary, rather than a philosophical, movement. At about the same time, humanism also supported a revival of the study of ancient rhetoric as well as the Greek language. Philology developed rigorously scientific methods that by the second half of the fifteenth century allowed scholars to establish the authenticity of ancient texts. This sophistication gave birth in the fifteenth century to philology, a new discipline that studied the historical and contextual uses of languages in ancient documents. As the humanist movement developed, it acquired a new sophistication about the role and uses of language. They envisioned a revival of culture based upon ancient literary models.
The early humanists Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375) had been fascinated by the genres and literary style of Latin Antiquity. In Italy humanism was the dominant intellectual movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and its methods affected most areas of cultural life. The Renaissance Theater in Italy Humanism.