the humanist culture, in spite of the secularism and naturalism which seem so characteristic of them. The more one studies the origin of humanism the more one is brought to recognise the importance of an element which is not only spiritual, but definitely Christian. The old conception of the Renaissance as a revival of paganism—an idea which was popularised by nineteenth century writers such as Burckhardt and J. A. Symonds—is to-day rejected not only by philosophers like Berdyaev, but by historians and critics, such as Karl Burdach and Giuseppe Toffanin. The Renaissance had its origin not only in the recovery of classical antiquity, but in the mystical humanism of St. Francis and Dante. The element survives in the later Renaissance in such representative figures as Francesco Pico and Marsilio Ficino, Botticelli and Michelangelo, Sadoleto and Tasso ; and it finds a clear expression in the poems of Cam¬
panella, above all in his great canzone ” Delia possanza dell’ uomo,” in which the purely humanist ideal of man’s power and glory is united with the Christian conception of the Divine Humanity.
It may be said that this is only one aspect and that not the most important of the humanist movement. But even the purely naturalistic achievements of the Renaissance were depen-95