Humanitas

Humanitas is a Latin noun meaning human nature, civilization, and kindness. It has uses in the Enlightenment, which are discussed below. The Latin word humanitas corresponded to the Greek concepts of philanthrôpía (loving what makes us human) and paideia (education) which were amalgamated with a series of qualities that made up the traditional unwritten Roman code of conduct (mos maiorum). Cicero () used humanitas in describing the formation of an ideal speaker (orator) who he believed should be educated to possess a collection of virtues of character suitable both for an active life of public service and a decent and fulfilling private life; these would include a fund of learning acquired from the study of bonae litterae ("good letters", i.e., classical literature, especially poetry), which would also be a source of continuing cultivation and pleasure in leisure and retirement, youth and old age, and good and bad fortune. Insofar as humanitas corresponded to philanthrôpía and paideia, it was particularly applicable to guiding the proper exercise of power over others. Hence Cicero's advice to his brother that "if fate had given you authority over Africans or Spaniards or Gauls, wild and barbarous nations, you would still owe it to your humanitas to be concerned about their comforts, their needs, and their safety." Echoing Cicero over a century later, Pliny the Younger () defined humanitas as the capacity to win the affections of lesser folk without impinging on greater. The concept was of great importance during the re-discovery of classical antiquity during the Renaissance by the Italian umanisti, beginning with the illustrious Italian poet Petrarch, who revived Cicero's injunction to cultivate the humanities, which were understood during the Renaissance as grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.