who represents the Renaissance individual, ôWhen this impulse to the highest individual development was combined with a powerful and varied nature, which had mastered all the elements of the culture of the age, then arose the all-sided man,ö (Burckhardt 1958).
We see the humanistic tendency of the Renaissance in the writings of Pietro Pomponazzi when he discusses the kind of men that have become most godlike on earth: ôHence there are three kinds of men to be found. Some are numbered with the gods, although such are but few. And these are the men who, having subjugated the vegetative and sensitive, have become almost completely rational. Some from total neglect of the intellect and from occupying themselves with the vegetative and sensitive alone have become almost completely rationalö (Dether 1981). During the Renaissance scholars used the pagan values of Greco-Roman society and helped loosen the grip of Christianity that had been so strong during the Middle Ages.
The increasing secularism of the age focused on human interests and values, especially a philosophy that rejected supernaturalism and stressed individual dignity, self-worth, and posited a high value on reason or rational thought as a means of self-realization. In many ways the devastating impact of the Bubonic Plague (the Black Death) turned many individuals away from the church for an answer to the meaning of life. Instead many turned to science for such answers and rational thought. In this way modern science was begun and rational thought became pitted against religious mysticism. Use of the intellect and manÆs capacity for rational thought were the main virtues of the individual. This is not to say that all those who felt this way were virtuous men. Indeed, in the writings of individuals like Pomponazzi, we are expressly told that there is a difference between acting virtuous and being virtuous. It is a condition that has proscriptions attached t...