In Our Image and Likeness. Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought by Charles Trinkhaus (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 861 my Hindu friends nor myself could find anything that we could seriously disagree with, and we all found this book to be the best systematic, clear, and scholarly book available on the subject of avatars in world religions. I found his theology of the Incarnation was incomplete and less satisfying, but there are numerous excellent works on this Christian mystery. St. Charles' Seminary Nagpur, India BEnE McGREGGOR, 0. P. In Our Image and Likeness. Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought. By CHARLES TRINKHAUS. Q vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. 10QO. $QQ.50 the set. Too often scholars have been seduced by their predilections for unity and common characteristics. Consequently, many accounts of particular historical periods are permeated, so to speak, by contrived descriptions of similarities and a peculiar neglect of differences. In Our Image and Likeness , however, might be said to represent a new weave in the fabric of this traditional historical pattern. Trinkaus says: However, our approach will attempt, at least, to be more pluralistic and eclectic, believing in no historical " unseen hand," whether a transcendental or an immanent one, observing a number of humanist authors in their attempts to discuss the condition of man, taking it for granted that the resulting statement will be the result both of the particular character of the writer and his knowledge and preferences among a. variety of traditional material and viewpoints available at that time for his adoption. (p. 175, Vol. 1) In the final analysis a common characteristic of humanism does emerge, but it is tempered by Trinkaus's recognition of the philosophical ambiance in which differences figure prominently. (See p. 761) The two volumes which consist of nearly a thousand pages (including an extensive selection of relevant original quotations, a Bibliography and a useful Index of Names and Works) is divided into four parts. One of the theses which Trinkaus hopes to sustain by this fourpart investigation is that the humanists' conceptions of the " nature, condition and destiny of man " cannot be understood without reference to the framework of Christianity in which they were originally defined. Trinkaus claims that the humanists' acceptance of Augustinian and patristic assumptions, and their dissatisfaction with classical moral philosophy and scholasticism, had a profound effect on the conception of man which resulted from their labors. Moreover, he argues that the Italian humanists' distinctive 362 BOOK REVIEWS intellectual orientation, their concern for studia humanitatu, provided an important kind of leadership in the Renaissance search for a new vision of man. Since the Italian humanist sought to reconcile the prevailing sense of significant human achievement within the conceptual framework of the Church, he was considered the harbinger of a cultural idiom that some feel was only ultimately fulfilled in the Reformation. According to Trinkaus, the humanists' vision of man was engendered by (I) the patristic exegesis of Genesis which Trinkaus quotes as: "And he said: 'Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness'." (p. XIV, Vol. I), and (2) those harsher notions of the misery of man which derive force from the Biblical theme concerning man's Fall. Trinkaus interprets these conceptions as the peculiar expression of two distinct but related Christian literary genres-the Dignitas hominu and the Mueria humanae conditionu. Although his emphasis on the theological quality of humanism has been anticipated in more than in obiter dicta by G. Tofl'anin in his Storica dell'Umanesimo and C. Angelieri in his Il problema religioso del Rinascimento (as well as many others) , Trinkaus does provide the reader with some interesting insights and a lucid exposition of several important but virtually neglected Italian humanists. In Part I Trinkaus explores certain of the works of Petrarch, Salutati, and Valia in order to illustrate that their respective views on the nature of man were formulated in light of (and moreover, profoundly influenced by) their Christian beliefs. In particular, their concern with the nature of man presupposed prior theological conceptions of the relation of God to man. Thus, the studia humanitatu and the studia divinitatis are not separable-one cannot be understood adequately in isolation from the other. All three humanists endeavored to define the nature of man in...