The Era of the Protestant Revolution

This little knot of men at Florence, and others in Italy, were at work at what is called the ' Revival of Learning.' These revivers of learning are often spoken Thc Revjvaj of as 'the Humanists' They were dig- of Learning, ging up again, and publishing, by means of the printing-press, the works of the old Greek and Latin writers, and they found in them something to their taste much more true and pure than the literature of the middle ages. After reading the pure Latin of the classical writers they were disgusted with the bad Latin of the monks; after studying Plato they were disgusted with scholastic philosophy. Such was the rottenness of Rome that they found in the high aspirations of Plato after spiritual truth and immortality a religion which seemed to them purer than the grotesque form of . Christianity which Rome held out to them, tendencies They could flatter the profligate Pope as all revival of but divine in such words as ' Sing unto Six- learmns- tus a new song,' but in their hearts some of them scoffed, and doubted whether Christianity be true and whether there is a life after death for mankind. (6) The great Florentine Reformer, Girolamo Savonarola. These were the revivers of learning. But suddenly there arose amongst them quite another kind of man?a religious Reformer. He came like a shell i -i i 1 i Girolamo Sa in the midst of tinder, and it burst in the vonarola, 1451 midst of the Platonic Academy. The name -14'8' of this Flo...