re spirituality" and hope for eternal salvation. The mysteries of salvation and spiritual transcendence were, in part, to be unraveled with the assistance of classical philosophy and this was one of the most important reasons for the study of classical learning. This was not a rationalist movement that set religion aside -- instead it was seen as a support for Christianity. In the Humanist view, philosophy led unfailingly to faith and philosophy was, therefore, "a pious religious activity."
There were, of course, many other important aspects of Humanist thought. The civic ideal which they discovered in Cicero's writings was, for example, very important to the Italians who found in it "a proud and defiant assertion of the values of an autonomous urban society." One of the most important results of the new learning was that the Humanists became seriously interested in philology. The Humanists wished to obtain the most authentic texts for all ancient works and aspired to the highest possible standard for their own Latin -- to be based on ancien
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