SOCIETAS LITTERARUM: SOME ASPECTS OF HUMANISM AT THE ACADEMY OF CRACOW

Albert Gorzkowski

SOCIETAS LITTERARUM: SOME ASPECTS OF HUMANISM AT THE ACADEMY OF CRACOW

Summary

This article is concerned with early Renaissance humanism at the Academy of Cracow at the end of 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. The contemporary societas litterarum is reconstructed here as a panoramic sequence of ideas, trends, beliefs and inspirations which are reflected both in the work of Cracovian humanists (i.e. born in Cracow or having other vital links with the Academy) and in their libraries. Of the latter we can check the book collections of Andrzej of Łabiszyn, Jan of Stobnica, Mikołaj Czepel, Paweł of Krosno, Paweł of Zakilczew, Jan Sommerfeld the Elder and some other scholars. In this article the story of the birth of humanism is presented not as a linear sequence of cultural facts but as an intertextual reconstruction, a fragment of a complex cultural 'chain reaction'. This method depends on a careful examination of the circulation of printed texts and manuscripts among members of Cracow's intellectual elite at the turn of the 15th century. The study suggests that the growth of Renaissance humanism, which may well have its roots in the 1420's, was fostered by an eclectic coexistence of scholastic and humanist ideas. Although the two philosophies may appear incompatible and even radically opposed to one another, at that time at least they were functioning in complementary harmony.