CAMPANA, Augusto - The Origin of the Word Humanist

8/12/2019 CAMPANA, Augusto - The Origin of the Word Humanist

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The Origin of the Word "Humanist"Author(s): Augusto CampanaSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 9 (1946), pp. 60-73Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750309.

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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST"By Augusto Campana

f the words of Italian origin which found their way into the Europeanvocabularies at the time of the Renaissance few are more significant thanumanista. It is the unusual vitality of this word which gives it a special claimto the attention of philologists and historians, for in the course of almost fivecenturies the term took on various moods and shades of meaning-some ofthem of great cultural significance-and gave birth to a great number ofderivatives, especially in the English tongue.It is thereforejustifiable that a thorough study of the word in its historicaldevelopment should be undertaken. What I intend to do here, however,concerns only the first part of the story. I hope to add some material to themeagre evidence regarding the earliest use of the word; to throw fresh lighton its original meaning; and to suggest what seems to me a reasonable ex-planation of its etymology. For the rest I shall limit myself to some casualobservations and remarks.The subject has hitherto been only briefly touched upon by RemigioSabbadini and Vittorio Rossi. That two such great students of Italianhumanist literature should have devoted attention to the theme suggests itsimportance. One earlier mention was made in 1909 by Vladimir Zabughin.,also a distinguished scholar in that field. "There can be no doubt," he says,"that the word umanesimos of recent coinage, and I believed that this wasalso the case with umanista,until I happened to find the latter word in aforgotten epigram of the second half of the fifteenth century."1 It is a matterfor regret that Zabughin did not describe his source more precisely and thathe had no opportunity of referringto it again. An important piece of evidencethus remains unknown to us, and only a lucky find can bring it again tolight. Until then we must content ourselves with Rossi's suggestion that theepigram to which Zabughin alludes was "certainly in Latin."Writing later than Zabughin, but without reference to him, Sabbadini re-marks: "I have never come across the word umanistan Latin texts. The earliestuse made of it in vernacular texts occurs in Lodovico Ariosto's sixth Satire(25-27) 'Senza quel vizio son pochi umanisti' . . ."2 And Rossi, in the secondedition of his major work, says: "The word umanista oes not appear in Latinuntil the second half of the fifteenth century, and in Italian only in the thirddecade of the sixteenth; and the word umanesimos of recent date. Yet, evenat the end of the fourteenth century it pleased the pioneers of a new and truerawakening of classical learning to revert to an elegant Ciceronian phrase andto call their studies studiahumanitatis,meaning those studies which tend tointegrate and perfect the human mind and which are therefore the only ones

1V. Zabughin, "L'umanesimo dinanzi alproblema della vita," Atti del terzo Congressodella Societa Filosofica Italiana, Rome, 19o9,Modena, 1910, p. 5 of the offprint.

2 There follows a chronological referencewhich we shall discuss later; R. Sabbadini,II metododegli umanisti, Florence, 1920, p. i,note I.6o

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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 6Iworthy of man." In a note he refers to the two texts quoted by Zabughinand Sabbadini.1No valuable contribution is to be found in the big Italian dictionarieswhich for the sixteenth century give only the quotation from Ariosto and addone from Varchi. It appears that the word is rare in the literary texts of theItalian Renaissance. It may have been more frequent in the practical usageof the spoken language, for we shall see afterwards that the term was appliedto practical rather than to cultural matters. But it does not gain a widediffusion in the spoken and written language of the educated until the endof the nineteenth century; it then takes on a different meaning under theinfluence of modern historians of literature.The very fact, however, that the word is rare is an invitation to searchfor it. I have been fortunate in finding some evidence of its early use which Ishall communicate here, with comments, and in chronological order. Theextracts cover the sixteenth century from the first to the last years, and threeof them are earlier than Ariosto'sverse. I have, of course, omitted Zabughin'ssource from my list; until it has been identified it raises some doubts, withoutaffording full evidence. But I have included the two already known examplesfrom Ariosto and Varchi.A quest of this kind is always to a large extent governed by chance, andalthough I would still maintain, after a search of several years, that the wordis rare, it is probable that the evidence here collected could be further aug-mented, perhaps even considerably. As often happens, once attention hasbeen drawn to a certain subject, it is easier for others to add more material.New facts can be fitted into the picture without an effort and be assessed attheir true value. It is hoped that the present documentation may be increasedby further discoveries in printed or written sources which otherwise mightremain hidden, or unknown except to those who cannot appreciate theirimportance.(I) A document in the Municipal Archives of Bologna dated 2Ist October,1512, and relating to Giovanni Antonio Modesto, lector in Rhetorics andPoetry at the University of Bologna from I512 to 1516, begins with thesewords: "Salariumo. AntoniiModestihumanistae. Item Io. Antonio Modestohumanistae conducto ad Rhetoricam et Poesim ..." Some years later, in adocument ofJanuary i9th, 1516, he is said to have been "conducto ad litterashumanitatis." This would mean that he was appointed to the chair of theHumanities which had been established only a short time before.2This is the first document which connects the word umanistawith a fixeddate, and it may be useful to point out that although it is a Latin text it bears

1 V. Rossi, II Quattrocentoin the new edi-tion of the Storia letteraria 'Italia, publishedby Vallardi), Milan, 1933, pp. 6 and I5,note 2.2 G. Albini, "Dell'umanista FrancescoModesto" (brother of Giovanni Antonio),Atti e memoriedella R. Deputazionedi storiapatriaper leprovincie i Romagna, . III, XVII,1898-99, p. 9, note 2, from the "Partiti degli

Anziani" of Bologna (Archiviodi stato); butin U. Dallari, I rotulidei lettori egistie artistidello studio bolognese dal 1384 al 1799, I,Bologna, I888, p. 216; II, 1889, pp. 6, 9, I2,Modesto always appears under the heading"ad Rethoricam et Poesim," and in I515-16another name appears "ad Literas humani-tatis" (II, p. 12).5



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62 AUGUSTO CAMPANAevidence of the use of the term in the vernacular. The literal translation ofthe word into Latin is in accordance with the current business practice ofnotaries and public offices. On linguistic grounds, therefore, the documenttestifies to the existence of the word in Italian, and not to its entry into theLatin vocabulary. It would have been a different matter if it had occurredin a literary context. In the light of this evidence Zabughin's epigram, thoughperhaps not conclusive, might be of great interest, and it is the more regret-table that it cannot be traced.

(2) Giuliano Fantaguzzi of Cesena (1453-1521) is the author of a bulkychronicle of his times of which an unedited autograph manuscript exists.United with it in the same volume is a kind of note-book containing miscel-laneous entries, which, apart from their local interest, present a lively pictureof the confused and rustic education, the intellectual interests and quaintenthusiasms of this country nobleman. It is a provincial reflection of ItalianRenaissance civilization. The note-book and the chronicle together providea mine of miscellaneous information. In this note-book, Fantaguzzi recordsamong the "homini singulari" who lived in his native town in 1512 the"Mo. F. Uberto maestro de schola et umanista e poeta."I In another partof the same miscellany, listing in great disorder all kinds of notes broughttogether from various sources and jotted down as they passed through hismind, Fantaguzzi enters a curious selection of words ending in -ista. Thislist merits publication in full for the linguistic interest which it affords:"Jurista. Legista. Artista. Canonista. Tomista. Scotista. Sophista. Umanista.Terminista. Contratista. Sacrista. Vochabolista. Antista. Abachista. Alchim-ista. Summista."2In making a list of these words without regard to their meaning andguided only by their common ending -ista, the worthy Fantaguzzi seems tohave been inspired by a certain curiosity, caprice, or even linguistic flair,however crude and primitive. Three of the words turn up again in anotherlist which reads: "Scola e studio in gramatica. retorica. dialetica. loica.musica. geometria. astronomia. arsmetrica. fisico. cirusico. armorum. archi-tettore. sculto(re). pictore. canonista. legista. artista."3Here Fantaguzzi apparently began with the intention of enumerating thedisciplines of the mind, the seven liberal arts, increasing their number to eightby including "loica"; he went on to collect under the same heading variousother occupations including artistic and technical professions like "cirusico"and "armorum." The two lists deserve a fuller linguistic commentary thanthe present context allows.4 The first list is especially interesting and is bound

1 The passage is edited by L. Piccioni, DiFrancesco Uberti umanista cesenate, Bologna,1903, p. 212, from Fantaguzzi's own manu-script in the Biblioteca Comunale di Cesena,MS. 164.64, p. 81 (f. 233r., in the old pagenumbering). On Fantaguzzi, see Piccioni,pp. 195-7.2 MS. cit., p. 74 (f. 228V); "Summista"seems to have been added later, but in thesame hand.3 MS. cit., p. 169 (f. 278r); this part of the

MS. contains notes and various matter inalphabetical order; the last two words areadded later in different ink.41 am doubtful about the meaning ofcontratista in the first list; antista [sic] mustcome from antistes: compare Tommaseo-Bellini, Dizionario della lingua italiana, I,Turin, 1865, p. 490. I should add, for thosewhom it may interest, that Fantaguzzi usesartistaalso in the sense of artigiano,both in

the plural "li artista" (the plural ending in -a



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 63in itself to attract the attention of philologists, though the occurrence of theword umanistan it adds nothing to the other example of its use by Fantaguzzi.(3) The Venetian Marino Sanuto, recording in his diary the death ofAldo Manuzio on 6th of February, 1515, calls him "optimo humanista etgreco." (A few lines further down Raffaele Regio, who delivered the funeralspeech, is called "lector publico in questa citta in humanita.")1(4) The passage from Ariosto is found in the Satire (numbered VI or VIIin different editions) addressed to Pietro Bembo in which the poet invites hisfriend to help him find a Greek teacher for his son Virginio. He explainsthat he requires a man not only of sound learning but of good morals, anddescribes the dangers with which his choice is beset. The six relevant linesexist in two versions. The only known manuscript of the Satires is in theBiblioteca Comunale in Ferrara and was at one time regarded as an auto-graph; but the corrections alone are in the poet's own hand. The originaltext (lines 25 ff.) runs thus:

Pochi sono grammatici e humanistiSenza il peccato per cui SabaotFece Gomorra e i suoi vicini tristi;Che mand6 il fuoco gifi dal cielo et, quot quotEran, tutti consunse, si che apenaCamp6 fuggendo uno innocente Lot.Ariosto first altered line 26: "Senza il vitio per cui Dio Sabaot," thenproceeded to cross out entirely and rewrite in his own hand the lines begin-ning with "Senza il peccato etc.," and in the end again corrected the firstline. The final text, therefore, reads:

Senza quel vitio son pochi humanisti,Che fe' a Dio forza non che persuaseDi far Gomorra e suoi vicini tristi:Mand6 fuoco da ciel ch'uomini e caseTutto consumpse et hebbe tempo a penaLot a fugir, ma la moglier rimase.2

According to Catalano, "the editions of the Satires derive from two mainsources, the clandestine print of 1534 which reproduces the Ferrarese manu-still survives in the dialect of Romagna) and"li artisti," MS. cit., p. 9, relating to theVerona fairs.II diarii,XIX, Venice, 1887, p. 425. Thisnotice was published several times (see A. A.Renouard, Annales de l'imprimeriedes Alde,3rd ed., Paris, 1834, p. 392; also by A.Firmin-Didot, A. M. et l'hillinismea Venise,Paris, 1875, PP- 396-7). The autograph ofthis passage is reproduced in a photographin T. D(e) M(arinis), "Manuzio, Aldo, ilVecchio," Enciclopediataliana, XXII, 1934,p. I84.2 I have used the collotype reproductionin:Le satireautografdi LodovicoAriosto,Bologna,1875, and the photograph of the passage in

question (f. 35r) reproduced by M. Catalano,"Autografi e pretesi autografi ariosteschi,"Archivumromanicum,IX (1925), p. 63. Cata-lano deals, on pp. 58-64, with the questionof the hands; later he abandoned his opinionthat the codex was written by GabrieleAriosto, brother of Lodovico (see Vita di L. A.,I, Geneva, 1930, p. 445, note 51). G. Tam-bara's edition, Le satire di LudovicoAriosto, conintr., etc., Leghorn, 1903 (see pp. 14 and 158),is inadequate; he omits some of the correctionsand prints the first version in his text; he alsoprints "quot," taking the second "quot" fora slip of the pen, not realizing that he shouldhave read "quotquot."



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64 AUGUSTO CAMPANAscript without the corrections, and Giolito's edition of 1550 which takes intoaccount practically all the corrections of the manuscript."1 The Crusca uotedwithout distinction one edition of the first, and one of the second type.2 Thatis the reasonwhy we find the earlier rather than the later version of our passagein the dictionary of the Cruscaand in all the dictionaries based on it. It isalso the version which chiefly interests us here, because it links humanistiwithgrammatici. The poem probably belongs to the years 1523-4.3(5) In the year 1544, the printer Aramezzino of Venice published forthe first time the Silva de varialeccionby the Spanish author Pero Mexia4 inthe Italian translation by Mambrino Roseo of Fabriano. This was the firstforeign translation of this extremely successful book which was translatedinto nearly all European languages and published in many reprints. In hisfirst version, on which the Italian and French translations are based, Mexiarelates (Bk. I, ch. 21) the legend of Cola Pesce, and, quoting Pontano, callshim: "Ioviano Pontano, varon doctissimo en lectras de humanidad, y singularpoeta y orador." In Mambrino Roseo's translation the passage reads: "ilPontan l'uno, grande humanista, oratore, et poeta"; and in Claude Gruget'sFrench translation it reads: "l'un est Pontan grand humaniste, orateur etpoete." If in the first version of the Spanish original the passage is as I havequoted it above,5 then Gruget must have known and remembered not only theSpanish text but also the Italian translation. We shall have to come back toGruget'stext later on, as the firstrecorded use of the word humanisten French.(6) Varchi uses the word in a letter to Luca Martini written between1545 and 1546, but not published until 1841. In this letter, Varchi blamesthe fifteenth century men of letters for quibbling over matters "of littleimportance or of no doubt." He names, as examples, Filelfo, LeonardoAretino, Pontano, Valla, Poggio, Merula and Domizio Calderini andcontinues: "La qual cosa quanto stia bene e sia richiesta, e massimamentea quegli che fanno professione d'umanita, lasciar6 giudicare agli altri, e dir6solamente che queste ed altre cosi fatte non so se sciocchezze o malvagita,hanno e meritamente in buona parte cagionato quella poca riputazione, pernon dir dispregio, nella quale sono oggi non solamente gli umanisti, ma ifilosofi, e generalmente tutti coloro i quali o si dilettano delle lettere o atten-dono alle scienze." [How far this is a good and desirable thing, especially forthose whose profession is the Humanities, I leave to others to judge. In myopinion these and other cases of, I do not know whether to call it stupidity

1 "Autografi," etc., pp. 62-63.2See G. Manuzzi, Vocabolarioella linguaitaliana gia compilatodagli AccademicidellaCrusca,2nd ed., IV, Florence, 1865, p. 815,note c.3 Catalano, Vita,I, pp. 548-52. Sabbadini,i.c., with reference to Rossi, Giorn.Stor. d. lett.it., XLVI, 402, dates it Dec. 1523, butthis is due to a misunderstanding caused bythe different numbering of the Satire. TheSatirewith which Rossi deals is that addressedto B. Pistofilo.1La selva di varia lettione. Tradottanella

lingua italianaper Mambrinoda Fabriano;seeE. Toda y Guiell,Bibliografia spanyola'Italia,III, Sant Miquel d'Escornalbou, 1929, p. 79,no. 3219; A. Palau y Dulcet, Manual dellibrerohispano-americano,, Barcelona, 1926,p. 172.5 I1 have seen only three late editions:Venice, G. Giolito, 1553, for the Spanishtext (a reprint of the second version); Lyons,B. Honorati, 1556, for the Italian; Tournon,C. Michel, 16Io, for the French text. Thefirst version of the Spanish text appeared inSeville, 1540; Palau y Dulcet, V, 172-



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 65or malice, have to a large extent justly contributed to the low reputationand even contempt in which are held at present not only humanists, but alsophilosophers, and generally speaking, all those who either enjoy literarystudies or devote themselves to the sciences.]1

(7) Paolo Manuzio's letter to his son Aldo (the younger) on I7th October,1573: "E anche una vergogna, ch'io sia tenuto principe de gli humanisti, eche non habbia un Virgilio, un'Horatio, un Salustio, un Livio." [It is ashame that I who am considered the prince of humanists, should not possessa Virgil, a Horace, a Sallust, or a Livy.]2(8) In a letter written 12thJanuary, 1573 (I574 if the date of the letteris in the Florentine style), Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici asks his brotherFrancesco Maria to release "Mes. Piero da Barga Humanista di Pisa" fromhis teaching obligations for a period of six months to enable him to take upservice with the Cardinal." Pier Angelio da Barga was a lecturer in Greekand Latin literature at Pisa university from 1549 to 1596.(9) Bologna university in the first years of the century was our point ofdeparture and chance leads us back to it at the end of the century and ofour survey. At the beginning of this period, in 1515, an independent chair ofthe Humanities had been added to the existing chair of Rhetorics and Poetry.4The rolls show that the lectors of the new chair had always belonged to theFaculty of Artisti. But in 1588 the Municipal Government decided to transferTomaso Corria, Professor"humanarumitterarum"o the roll of the Legisti.5The"Artists" chose the first opportunity to lodge their protest. In 1595 the Chairfell vacant and no less a person than Justus Lipsius was about to be elected toit. During the session of 25th January of that year the Dean of the ArtsFaculty "proposuit maximum praeiudicium esse Universitati" (or, as wewould say, the Faculty) "quod humanistae describantur in rotulo DD.legistarum cum vere sint Artistae et sub iurisdictionem DD. Artistarum,"without regard to the exception made in Correa's case; and he insistedon asking the Vicelegatoo declare "humanistas esse et esse debere Artistaset describi debere in rotulo Artistarum."6 The letter written on this occa-sion to the Vicelegatotill exists. "Trattandosi di condurre in questo Studiodi Bologna alla lettura dell'humanita il sig. Justo Lipsio" the Faculty of theArtists requests that the new professor be included in "rotolo nostro," eventhough his predecessor had been on the roll of the legisti: "e perche

1 Lezioni sul Dante e prose varie di BenedettoVarchi la maggiorparte inedite, ed. G. Aiazzi--L. Arbib, Florence, 1841, II, p. 81 (for thedate see pp. 73, 78, and cf. I, p. 337); also inOpere, II, Trieste, 1859, p. 738.2Ed. A.-A. Renouard, Lettere di PaoloManuzio copiate [by P. A. Tosi] sugli autografiesistenti nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana,Paris, 1834,p. 301.3 Ed. A. Fabroni, Historiae AcademiaePisanaeII, Pisa, 1792, p. 427, note; ibid., p. 47Ifor the dates of Bargeo's teaching activities.If the letter was addressed to Francesco Mariaafter he had become Grand Duke (on the Ist

April, 1474), the date must be wrong. I owethe reference to G. Manacorda, Storia dellascuola in Italia, ed. Sandron, I, I (1914), PP-277-8; Manacorda's expression "come sidiceva a Pisa, l'umanista," implies that theword sounded new to his ears, or at leastunusual.4 E. Costa, "La prima cattedra d'umanita.nello studio bolognese durante il secolo XVI,"Studi e memorieper la storia dell' Universita diBologna, I, I (1907), pp. 23-63-5 Costa, p. 6o, note i, and cf. Dallari, op.cit., II, 1889, p. 229.6 Costa, p. 61, note 2.



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66 AUGUSTO CAMPANAl'humanita e arte et che di raggion devono i professori esser sottoposti alliSig.ri Artisti, si come ancora per privileggio antico appare che detti humanistiet tutti quelli della Citta pagavano tributo per riconoscimento d'esseresudditiall'Universithdelli Sig.riArtisti."'1

"The said humanists" are obviously those appointed to the "letturadell'humanita," that is the chair of the Humanities. It is not so easy tounderstand the expression that follows, "quelli della Citta." I believe thatthis term refers to the umanisti f the town, teachers of the regional schools ofBologna who also formed part of the academic body. They were, in fact, inright of an ancient custom, enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, and labelled "Adlecturam gramatice per quarteria," "Ad gramaticam pro quarteriis"or somesimilar phrase.2

What do we learn from these documents? In the first place, they answerthe question as to the precise meaning of the term umanista. In its originalsense, the word is closely connected with the scholastic system: it qualifiesa person as a public or private teacher of classical literature, of the chair ofhumanitas r umanitd. This meaning is evident in the two Bolognese docu-ments of the first and the last years of the century and in the Pisa docu-ment (our numbers I, 8, and 9). It is less evident, but no less certain inthe first example from Fantaguzzi (2). It is still clearly implied in the quota-tion from Ariosto (4), if one remembers that the Satire is concerned with ascholastic question; and without running the danger of being either rash orpedantic, we may take the double term "grammatici e humanisti" in thefirst version of the poem to denote two successive grades of school teachers.This is, in my opinion, the primary meaning of the word. But the examplesfrom Mambrino Roseo (5), from Varchi (6) and from Paolo Manuzio (7)point to a second phase in which the word assumes a more comprehensiveand general meaning. It refers to the student of classical learning who is notnecessarily also a teacher. This is especially plain in Mambrino Roseo's useof the word in translating from a text where it does not occur. The translatorthereby shows unmistakably what meaning he attached to the term umanista.In Marino Sanuto's time (3) we may already be on the thresholdof the secondperiod, and the comparatively early date of his testimony is therefore relevant.Still, from the way it is used I would not conclude that the word had alreadyquite lost its bearing on school matters. It should not be forgotten that AldoManuzio's early career, both as a public lector n Ferrara and as a privatetutor to the Pio family, lords of Carpi, was that of a teacher, and that the

1 Ed. Costa, p. 61, note 2; later, but with-out reference to the earlier edition, in G. Zac-cagnini, Storia dello studio di Bologna duranteilRinascimento, Geneva, 1930, p. 298, note 2;the text of the document is more complete,but, I think, less correct than in Costa's edi-tion: e.g. "di raggione dicono"; the date, too(29 Jan., Costa, 27 Jan., Zaccagnini), and thepress-mark are rendered differently in the

two editions. The artists carried their case,judging by the Roll of 1595-6; Dallari, II,p. 256.2Dallari, op. cit., I and II, passim; thelecturers in grammar of the quarters of thetown are mentioned even in the earliest ofthe preserved rolls, 1384-85, though styledsimply "In Gramaticha" (I, p. 5 and cf. IV,1924, p. 7 ff., years 1381-82 ff.).



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 67brilliant life of printer, editor and philologist on which he later embarked,belongs entirely to the period of his maturity. It is therefore possible thatin Sanuto's time the word has just begun to take on that wider significance,that application to a less precise, less technical field in which we find itsecurely established in 1544. But at the same time the word may still haveretained its old associations with schools and teaching, and it is thereforewise to reserve our judgment until more evidence comes to light. One thingis, however, certain, and it enhances Sanuto's value as a witness. In his mindthe word umanista efers only to Latin literature; and he feels compelled toadd the curious qualification "e greco" in order to make clear that Aldo wasa student of both languages.The primary sense of the word clearly connected it, therefore, not withhumanitasn general, but with humanitas-umanitdn the strict and technicalapplication to Renaissance schools.1 It seems aprioriunlikely that this processcan be reversed-that the narrower sense could have been second in orderof time. But to clinch the argument we must examine how the word wasformed.Taken in connection with the whole family of words ending in -ista, thelinguistic structure of the word umanista tamps it as belonging to scholasticvocabulary. The ending itself has a long history. It existed in the ancientlanguages and has never ceased to be formative. Its most prolific period, how-ever, isourown, and it gains an evergrowingdiffusion. Whethercoupled with itscounterpart -ismoin abstract nouns, or not, the suffix -ista denotes a personfollowing a certain profession, possessing certain qualifications, or belongingto a certain philosophical, political or social group.2 At the time when theword umanistawas first recorded a number of parallel words describingpersons, groups and bodies connected with elementary and academic schoolshad been in general use for centuries. Grammatistand abachista elong to thefirst category; canonista, decretista, decretalista to the second, together withiuristawhich has a more generic meaning. It is worth noticing that eventoday a tendency persists in the Faculty of Law, stronger than in anyother, to apply similar words to the occupants of particular Chairs. Termslike summista,terminista,thomista(thomatista),scotista, occamista,etc., describe thefollowers of certain philosophical schools, and also, occasionally, and at givenmoments, the teachers and students connected with a particular Chair orsyllabus. And finally, the words artistaand legistastill reflect the organizationof mediaeval universities and their division into two faculties, Arts andMedicine on the one hand and Law on the other. If the history of the suffix-ista, with its enormous range and formative power, ever comes to be written,one chapter in it should be devoted to the vocabulary of mediaeval schools,

1 Some examples of the terms humanitas-umanita?, s used in the schools, can be foundabove; see I, 3, 6(?), 9.2 As I am no philologist I may be excusedfor the following bibliographically incompletenote: see the heading -ist in Murray, A newEnglish dictionaryonhistoricalprinciples, V, 1901I,pp. 514-5. The article is practically a short

history of the ending from ancient to moderntimes; see also the paper, familiar to Italianreaders, by B. Migliorini, "I1 suffisso -istico"(with frequent references to -ista), in his Saggisulla lingua del Novecento, 2nd ed., Florence,1942, pp. 90-133; by the same author, Linguacontemporanea,3rd ed., Florence, 1943, PP-75-6.



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68 AUGUSTO CAMPANAparticularly the universities. It would make a most instructive contributionto the history of education.It is, therefore, very likely that the earlier terms for special schools orbranches of instruction provided the models after which the word for theteachers (and also the students) of the Humanities was formed. True, little isknown of the living organism of mediaeval and Renaissance schools, and theirtechnical language often escapes or baffles us. Words like umanitd nd umanistawill not show their outlines clearly across the distance that separates us fromthem until our vision has become wider and sharper. It is not too much topredict that, on closer view, terms still in use during the last century in Italianschools, particularly ecclesiastical ones (grammatica,umanitd,rettorica)willappear much older than they are generally believed to be. It might be arguedthat the term humanitas-umanitd,n its relation to teaching, ought to havebeen studied before the present attempt was made. Perhaps our argumentwould thereby have been placed upon a sounder foundation and made moreconvincing. But this type of inquiry cannot be expected to proceed in thestrict order of a mathematical demonstration; and a dissertation on the r6leof that word in schools and curricula is still waiting to be written by somestudent of education who is both a historian and a linguist.When and where was the word umanistaused for the first time? I mustleave to others the researches and observations for the date. Even thoughZabughin's text remains unidentified, I consider it likely that sooner or latersome evidence from the end of the fifteenth century will come to light, moreprobably in documentary records than in literary texts. I do not, however,believe that its date will be prior to the middle of the century, or even asearly as that. As to the place, any surmise on this point involves a risk. Butthe earliest documents which prove that the word umanista riginated in Italyin the atmosphere of the schools, also point to the direction in which itsbirthplace should be sought. Most of them come from Emilia (the Bolognesedocuments, Fantaguzzi, Ariosto), and our thoughts turn naturally towardsthe greatest University centre in the Po valley: Bologna. This suggestion is,of course, no more than a working hypothesis which only covers our presentincomplete information.'

This detailed discussion was rendered necessary by the revealing silencewhich students have hitherto maintained on the subject. It was consideredtoo obvious to need any further clarification, that the word umanista elongedto the same sphere of ideas as the terms humanitas, tudiahumanitatis,which1 [Since writing the present article, I havecollected some other examples of the sixteenthcentury which fit well into my reconstruc-tion; but I shall leave my article in its presentstate, while the new material will be com-municated on another occasion. MeanwhileP. O. Kristeller has found in a letter writtenin the vernacular in 1490 an example where

the word is used for teacher (in Fabroni, op.cit., I, 369, note 2; see my postscript p. 73)-I am delighted that my opinion as expressedabove has so quickly found its confirmation,though the new document, coming fromPisa, weakens my hypothesis concerning theEmilian origin of the word.]



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 69our first humanists borrowed from antiquity and introduced into their schools'and which from the Renaissance schools passed into the modern systems ofeducation and into our whole intellectual world. But it may be pointed outthat students of the Renaissance have deceived themselves in taking the resultfor granted. They have overlooked that a specific study of the origin andformation of the word umanistawas an obligation from which, strictly speaking,they ought not to have felt themselves exempted. For, if my interpretation iscorrect, the line of descent is not direct. The links are not found in the realmof abstract ideas, but only in the humbler field of school life and terminology;they lead through the restricted, practical, workmanlike region in which theword stands as a name for a tutorial chair or a certain phase in the classicalsyllabus of Renaissance schools.Reduced to the precise and concrete limits of a linguistic analysis, theetymological link between umanista nd humanitasoses its vagueness and gainssolid reality in the social framework of the period. The main lines of thestory, the origin of the word in the atmosphere of the Italian humanist schools,and its reception mainly by the spoken language during the Cinquecento arenow clear enough, and will probably not require to be greatly modified.However, new researches and new finds may enrich the picture and dispersethe remaining obscurities.

The little that is known about the diffusion of the word in Europe duringthe sixteenth century tends to confirm our conclusions. The dates of some ofthe texts with which I am now going to deal would have allowed of theirinclusion in my first list, but they may just as well be discussed by way ofan appendix. The scarcity of the available documents should act as an invita-tion to students of other European languages and civilizations to augmenttheir number.In order of time, Germany takes the lead. The word humanista ccursfour times in the Latin text of the Epistolaeobscurorumirorumwhich appearedin several editions between 1515 and 1517. That there was room for theword in the militant language of the famous satire confirms our theory thatit was not originally at home in the rarified air of humanist latinity-inGermany no more than in Italy. For the fictitious authors of the Epistlesarethe representatives of the old education, the theologians, friars, and teachersof grammar, against whom the champions of German humanism launchedtheir invective. The four passages in which the word recurs are: Ep. I, 7:

1 A good selection of evidence from Italianhumanists was made by W. Brecht in theappendix to K. Brandi, "Das Werden derRenaissance" (i 9o8), now reprinted inBrandi, Ausgewdhlte Aufsdtze, Oldenburg,Berlin, 1938, pp. 302-3 (see also Rossi,op. cit., pp. 15-6, note 3); selections fromGerman humanists in E. K6nig, "'Studiahumanitatis' und verwandte Ausdriicke beiden deutschen Friihhumanisten," Beitrdge

zur Geschichteder Renaissance und ReformationJoseph Schlecht . . dargebracht,Miinchen-Freis-ing, 1917, pp. 202-7; see also K. Burdach,Riforma, Rinascimento, Umanesimo, trans. D.Cantimori, Florence (1935), P. 71, note 2.Burdach's reference to the rubric of humaniorain the library catalogues of the period requireselaboration: library inventories and similarsources may provide new and excellentmaterial for the history of the term.



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70 AUGUSTO CAMPANA"Et isti humaniste nunc vexant me cum suo novo latino, et annihilant illosveteres libros, Alexandrum, Remigium, Iohannem de Garlandia," etc.; I, 42(App., I): "hospes noster (meaning Erasmus ) qui est bonus humanista";I, 46 (App., 5) : "metrificavi illa carmina ex tempore, quia ego pro parte sumhumanista"; II, 58: "Ego vellem quod omnes universitates facerent in simul(corr. contra) et concluderent contra omnes poetas et humanistas, quiadestruunt universitates."1These examples, as the last one especially shows, are, like the Italianexamples, closely linked with University life. But contrary to the Italian use-at least, contrary to the documentation provided by our limited material-they seem to refer to pupils as well as to teachers. As to the date, no one whoaccepts the theory that the word umanista riginated in Italy at the end of thefifteenth century or possibly a little earlier, will be surprised to find it usedin Germany so soon afterwards. It is sufficient to remember what importancethe student population from across the Alps had gained in North ItalianUniversities, by weight of numbers if by nothing else; and the situation musthave encouraged quick and lively intellectual contacts. However, it is strangethat the German word does not appear until the end of the eighteenthcentury; at least, German scholars, generally more alive than others toquestions of this kind, do not record any examples of an earlier use. If noproof to the contrary turnsup, this means that the word remained the propertyof a small, if active, group of educated people and that its continuity inGerman language and thought was less complete than in Italy, France andEngland.The earliest date which French lexicographers and linguists record underthe heading humaniste s 1539, the alleged date of Claude Gruget's translationof a Spanish text; they quote the phrase which we know already: "Pontan,grand humaniste." A later quotation from Montaigne is also recorded.The French definition of the word "Celui qui enseigne ou &tudie leshumanites" corresponding to the old double meaning of the Italian schoolterm, is still valid nowadays.2 But the date 1539 is wrong; Gruget's trans-lation appeared more than ten years later under the title of Les diversesefonsde Pierre Messie.3 If I am right in arguing that Gruget's translation wasinfluenced by the Italian text which uses the word umanista, ather than by

1These passages are indicated in the"Index verborum" of E. B6cking's edition(Ulrichi Hutteni operumsupplementum, I, Leip-zig, 1869, p. 208); they are found in I, pp.12, 64, 71, 277; for the correction "contra"see Bo6cking, II, p. 752 (of the Ist edition).The passages, except the last one, are alsoquoted by Brecht, p. 303; ibid.: "Die EpistolaeS. .ebrauchten humanista als bereits herge-brachte Bezeichnung."

2 The first example is given by Hatzfeld andDarmesteter, Dict. gendralde la languefranfaise,I895-1900, s.v., and by M. Delboulle fromRecueil de vieux mots (in preparation but notpublished; cf. F. Brunot, Histoire de la languefranfaise, I, 4th ed., Paris, 1933, p. XXIX,

hence in Brunot, II (ed. 1906), p. 240; thesecond example is in Littr6, Dict. de la languefranf., II, Paris, 1883, 2063. The definitionquoted in my text comes from Hatzfeld andDarmesteter, where the etymology, a littletoo simplified, "D6rive du radical dehumanite," and the information that the wordwas admitted by the Academie in 1718 arealso to be found.

3 Paris, E. Groulleau, 1552, see Palau yDulcet, V, p. 172. The dates: Rouen, I525,and Lyons, 1526, of two editions which theCat. gin. des livres imprimis de la Bibl. Nat.,Auteurs, CXIII, Paris, 1932, p. 814, quotes,without amendments, are, in fact, 1625 and1626: see Palau y Dulcet, V, p. 173.



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 71the Spanish original in which it does not appear, then we have here a proofthat the use of the term came from Italy to France. This is in fact what wewould have expected.We are better informed on the use of the word in English than in any otherlanguage, thanks to the Oxford Dictionary which gives a long list, a minuteanalysis, and many dated examples of the various meanings.1 The earliestdated example (1589) comes from the commentary on the Georgics by theItalian scholar R. Flemyng. The way in which Flemyng places "humanists"side by side with "grammatists" suggests that we are still in the atmosphereof the schools or very close to it. The Oxford Dictionary, referringto Ariostoand the date "1539" (Gruget), correctly calls the English word an adaptationfrom the French and the Italian.In Italy the two meanings, that of teacher and of scholar in humanities,which we traced in the sixteenth century, linger far into the nineteenthcentury, perhaps with a slight bias in favour of the original meaning. Tothese two a third one was added, that of pupil in humanities, which we havealready met in other European countries; I cannot say if this meaning is alate-comer; the nineteenth-century dictionaries record it for their own periodwithout giving any examples.2 In our own time all three meanings havegone out of use rapidly and completely in Italy. Having lost its originalvalues, the term has become a historical definition. If we now speak of ahumanist, we think of a scholar who played a part in the revival of classicallearning during the Renaissance as by humanism we mean the literary aspectof that revival.It would be worth while to follow up this latest transformationof the twowords in the European languages and civilizations of the last centuries. Butthe story would fill a book, not an article, and requires a writer, whosemental equipment and temperament are equal to the patient pursuit of allthe disguises, migrations and interrelations of the two concepts. Yet, I amtempted to say a few words on the subject. The first language in which theword "humanist" lost its reference to an actual or ideal condition and assumeda retrospective or historical sense was, perhaps, the English, from the seven-teenth or eighteenth century onwards.3 Then came Germany, and we ask our-selves whether the word Humanistwas at once coupled with the word Human-ismus,and how this link was forged. For the two nouns are not necessarilycon-

1 Murray, IV, pp. 444, and 444-5 for thederivatives (humanism, humanistic, humanistics,humanistical, humanistically).2 The word seems to be quoted for thefirst time in the 4th edition of the Vocabolariodegli Accademici della Crusca, V, Florence,1738, s.v. In the definition "Che professabelle lettere, o lettere umane," the expression"che professa" means professor or teacher; theexample from Ariosto and one from Salvinifollow. More important are the two dic-tionaries which I have quoted in anotherconnection, that by Manuzzi, IV, p. 737,and that by Tommaseo-Bellini, IV, 2, 1879,

p. 1655. It should be remembered thatManuzzi misunderstands the definition givenby the Accademia della Crusca and connectsthe examples incorrectly with his definitions;and that Tommaseo omits the wider sensealtogether.3 Murray's examples appear to be reliable:"Caelius Rhodiginus . . . and BonifaciusBonifacii, another learned humanist" (Lassels,1670); "The humanists of the fifteenth cen-tury" (Gibbon, 1764); the examples becomemore numerous from 1870 onwards; from1881, also in the adjective form of the word.



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72 AUGUSTO CAMPANAnected, and the story of humanism nd Humanismuss not necessarily simplerthan that of humanistbecause it is more recent. After the beginning of thecentury, there are German as well as English examples, but they have otherphilosophical and theological connotations. The word Humanismuss firstused in the sense of a historical event by K. Hagen, in a work published irrI841-43, and then by Voigt whose famous book first appeared in 1859.1At this point the link between Humanist nd Humanismuss complete in form aswell as in substance. German learning and scholarship were, therefore, theagencies which opened the doors for the entry of the double term into all theEuropean languages, and, if I am not mistaken, chiefly with the aid of twocircumstances. The first is that the terms are soon so closely coupled as tobecome inseparable and theirjoint diffusion had many times the momentumthat each would have had alone. The second lies in the great and deservedreputation of Voigt's book in which the word Humanismuss used from thetitle-page onwards, and this is no negligible or superficial coincidence.Within a few decades the word Humanismusad become so universal2that itwas admitted even into those languages which had not previously acceptedthe earlier meanings of the word humanist.Among them, strange to say, wasa language which may be called dead, but which is none the less a Europeanlanguage, namely the Latin of the philologists. Neither classical nor mediaevalLatin knew the word humanista,and the Latin of the humanists was toofastidious to tolerate the intrusion, at least the open intrusion, of the newexpression. But for all that the term has succeeded in insinuating itself intothe Latin of the philologists, which in many ways is heir and successor to theLatin of the humanists. It is true there are some modern philologists whotry to keep the language free from adulteration by a modern word, and who,therefore, prefer the well-known round-about phrases to the modern term.But there is no lack of examples of humanistan the last century,3 and I shouldnot be surprisedto find, one day or another, the word *humanismusn a philo-logical or theological University thesis. The use of one of the words is almostbound to draw the other after it.But this is not the end of our story. The word humanism has recentlystarted on a fresh career of its own. From all sides and under many titles

1 On Humanist and Humanismussee Brecht,op. cit., p. 304; E. Heyfelder, "Die AusdriickeRenaissance und Humanismus," DeutscheLiteraturzeitung, 1913, cols. 2248-50; K6nig,op. cit., p. 202, note I; Burdach, op. cit., pp.80-2, 159; on humanism,Murray, I.c. (but notethat the example of 1832 has no historicalmeaning).2 In Italian the form in which the wordwas preferably used in the beginning, evi-dently under the northern influence, isumanismo,and an example in I. Del. Lungo,Prosevolgariinedite .. di A. AmbroginiPoliziano,Florence, 1867, p. v, indicates that it wasregarded as a new creation: "l'umanismo,secondo e tornato(?) in uso chiamare la let-teratura del rinascimento"; later, umanesimo

became the more usual form, for reasons im-plied in a remark by Migliorini, Saggi, p. 96,note 2; I do not know any examples ofumanista in this sense which would seem sig-nificant by reason of their date. Umanesimoand umanista in the new sense appear ratherlate in the dictionaries: they are, I think,registered for the first time by Petrocchi,Novo dizionario universale della lingua italiana,II, Milan, 1891, p. 1181.3 I have not myself made any researcheson this point, but I think that the use of theterm by H. Hagen, Zur GeschichtederPhilologieund zur rimischen Litteratur, Berlin, 1879, p.237 ("humanistarum, qui vocantur"), 242("humanistae", genit.) in a paper alreadypublished in 1877 is worth noting.



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THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD "HUMANIST" 73there is talk of a new humanism, and the old word is again coloured by newideal values. These will, in their time, be the concern of future philologistsand historians.

POSTSCRIPTI have already pointed out (see p. 68, note I) that the present article is publishedhere as it was written in the first half of I946. I have decided to insert neither thenew material which I have collected meanwhile, nor the few bibliographical noteswhich ought to be added here and there. But an article recently published by P. O.Kristeller must be acknowledged now: "Humanism and Scholasticism in the ItalianRenaissance" (Byzantion,XVII, I944-45, PP- 346-374). This paper, which I havebeen able to read, thanks to the kindness of my learned friend, is of the greatestimportance for a comprehensive valuation of Italian humanism, and also for myparticular problem (see p. 366). I should like to express here my pleasure that we

have both arrived independently at nearly identical conclusions. In fact in one com-pressedpage Dr. Kristeller shows the origin of the word in the sphere of the Italianuniversities (he quotes an example of I490, up to now the oldest known); its penetra-tion into official use; its connection with the ancient words of the school ending in-ista, and its meaning of teacher of humanities. He moreover suggests that the oldterm humanista as been misunderstood under the influence of the conception ofRenaissance humanism accepted by modern students (a conception which his wholearticle shows to be indefensible); instead, as he concludes in accordance with whatI wrote on p. 68-69, "The old term humanista.. reflects the more modest, but correct,contemporary view that the humanists were the teachers and representatives of acertain branch of learning which at that time was expanding and in vogue, but welllimited in its subject matter."Finally, I want to expressmy gratitude to the translator of my article, whose taskwas by no means an easy one, and to my friends, Dr. N. Bujatti and Dr. J. Hess,for their help with the revision of the text and the translation of the present Post-script.Rome, October I947.

CAMPANA, Augusto - The Origin of the Word Humanist

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