Original scientific paper
Peter Paul Vergerio, Sr. – studia liberalia and education of a free man
Ivana Zagorac
orcid.org/0000-0003-4487-2102
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Against all difficulties of positioning humanism in frames of history, disagreements about defining its nature, sources and grounding motives, and also its relation to philosophical tradition, it seems recommendable to rely on humanists themselves and by studying their works try to detect the novum of humanistic way of perceiving the world. With that aim, this paper will be based on work of a “first generation” humanist and a writer of influential pedagogical treatise. Peter Paul Vergerio, Sr. (1370–1444), a writer, religiously political author and a dignitary, at very beginning of the 15th century writes the treatise De ingenuis moribus ac liberalibus studiis which we note as a kind of a milestone in philosophical understanding of education. Humanistic programme, offered by Vergerio, treats wisdom as an outcome of study in comprehensive knowledge and as achievement of freedom. A dialogue with traditional values is basic for understanding proper time and its system of values, and it calls for a free study as the only one that is worthy of a free man. Education should then be in service of every day life, and the idea should be verified and completed by an action. Although appreciated as
the first humanistic pedagogical treatise, being confronted to intellectual inheritance of the Middle-Ages, Vergerio’s work itself originates from tradition; admitting to the wise, he himself becomes wiser. For that reason this paper will tend to place Vergerio’s work in context of time when it was created, and to note the influence it had on promoting humanistic way of perceiving the world.
Keywords
Petrus Paulus Vergerius senior; humanism; education; studia liberalia
Hrčak ID:
36582
URI
Publication date:
26.2.2009.
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