humanism

Desiderius Erasmus, from an engraving by Hieronimus Cook (1510-1570) of a woodcut by the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). As the Latin panel behind Erasmus shows, he was born in Rotterdam, Holland, and died in Basel, Switzerland. Dürer created this formal portrait in 1526 (before Erasmus's death), and it was Cook who added the life dates and other inscriptions.

Belief in the high potential of human nature rather than in religious or transcendental values. Humanism culminated as a cultural and literary force in 16th-century Renaissance Europe in line with the period's enthusiasm for classical literature and art, growing individualism, and the ideal of the all-round male who should be statesman and poet, scholar and warrior. Erasmus is a great exemplar of Renaissance humanism.

Renaissance humanism originated in the literary studies undertaken in the 13th and 14th centuries by such scholars as Petrarch. It gained momentum with the study of literary texts and, as a result, the rediscovery of the great body of ancient Greek literature for the West.