The great intellectual
movement of Renaissance Italy was humanism. The humanists believed that
the Greek and Latin classics contained both all the lessons one needed
to lead a moral and effective life and the best models for a powerful Latin
style. They developed a new, rigorous kind of classical
scholarship, with which they corrected
and tried to understand the works of the Greeks and Romans, which seemed
so vital to them. Both the republican elites of Florence and Venice and
the ruling families of Milan, Ferrara, and Urbino hired humanists to teach
their children classical morality and to write elegant, classical letters,
histories, and propaganda. In the course of the fifteenth
century, the humanists also convinced
most of the popes that the papacy needed their skills. Sophisticated classical
scholars were hired to write official correspondence and propaganda; to
create an image of the popes as powerful, enlightened, modern rulers of
the Church; and to apply their scholarly tools to the church's needs, including
writing a more classical form of the Mass. The
relation between popes and scholars
was never simple, for the humanists evolved their own views on theology.
Some argued that pagan philosophers like Plato basically agreed with Christian
revelation. Others criticized important Church doctrines or institutions
that lacked biblical or historical support. Some even seemed in danger
of becoming pagans. The real confrontation came in
the later sixteenth century, as
the church faced the radical challenge of Protestantism. Some Roman scholars
used the methods of humanist scholarship to defend the Church against Protestant
attacks, but others collaborated in the imposition of censorship. Classical
scholarship, in the end, could not reform the Church which it both supported
and challenged.