THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE - THE GENIUS OF UTOPIAS
The concept of Utopia seems fundamental to me.
As the 20th century draws to an end, it seems to me that it is high time that
we rediscover one of the greatest faculties of our human genius: the ability to dream.
I think that there are very few eras in which man dreamed better than this 16th
century which we shall now visit. We are thus going to be discussing dreams.
For a long time now, since the time of the historian, Burckhart, we have spoken
about the Renaissance. Today, at a time when all the old concepts are being
reviewed and revised, art historians appropriately admit that the term
"Renaissance" itself must be redefined.
As its name indicates, the Re-nascence was a new birth.
Evidently, this new birth essentially related to societies, those of Florence,
Bologna and Urbino suddenly, "ex-machina," discovering the beauty and genius of
life in the Greco-Roman antiquity and wanting to imitate it.
For a long time, for all of us, the Renaissance was a moment when men began to
dream of a time which had passed some fifteen hundred years earlier.
In the 19th century, and for many of us in the 20th century as well, the
Renaissance was nostalgic, a retreat into the past, a moment in time when one
dreamed of being something of an Athenian or something of a Roman at the time
of the Republic and the Caesars.
Then, a new interpretation of the concept was raised:
These were people who, by means of extraordinary discoveries, did a fabulous job of expanding their
culture's horizons, both geographical discoveries of which we all know and
scientific discoveries. They took refuge in these discoveries, which became the
world's -- life's -- new framework. This was not a retreat into the past, but a
rush into the future, that is, a denial of their own era.
The two definitions of the Renaissance accepted today -- the retreat into the
past and the imitation of Antiquity and a rush forward and this applied
futurology -- are too restrictive. They should both be kept, one in the left
eye and one in the right eye, in order to adopt a third definition which I
shall offer you.
The Renaissance was a critical moment when, on the one hand, a better knowledge
of the past and, on the other, a fanatical interest in the present as well as
the future, made it possible for society to dream that a man could become a
genius.
I would call the Renaissance a time of transcendence.
A time when an entire society believed and put all its energy and faith to work
on man's capacity to better himself.
A state of transcendence, a dream state, which is thus a state of Utopia.
Transcendence at the human level. Man must be, and this was put forth by
Marsilio Ficino, as well as Pico della Mirandola, as well as Politian: Man must
be a pure soul, a transparent, elevated soul and served by a body which is pure
and healthy.Not only must man better himself, become a sort of hero, but the society
itself, that is, the constitution of these men-heroes, must become a
super-society. It must be harmonious, balanced and, above all, it must be
conscious of its responsibilities.
A work of art that is an admirable symbol of this Utopian society of the 15th
and 16th centuries:
A college of geniuses assembles within a marvelously refined architecture, with Plato and Aristotle presiding in the center: transcendence and immanence. This is the image of Utopia which Raphael conceived for the Popes.
To frame this visionary and utopian concept for society, the Renaissance man
first implemented a kind of social geometry.
In the 15th, and then the 16th century, man would imagine an ideal
triangle, in which everything is put to work so that,
by means of the energy of each of the triangle's points, human genius is aroused.
The entire Renaissance used this ideal triangle geometry. A famous example:
