JAMES BRUCE ROSS and MARY MARTIN McLAUGHLIN, eds.  The Portable
Renaissance Reader.  New York:  Penguin, 1986 (reprint).  xii,
756 Pp.


     When one studies renaissance men of letters it is important
to study the work that defines them:  the correspondence and
journals they set down for themselves and others.  This
collection is a well-chosen buffet of documents that give us
insight into the period and its inhabitants.
     The section that concerns us is "The Kingdom of God."  The
first document in the section is The Trial of Jerome of Prague. 
This piece is remarkable because it reminds the modern mind how
small a heresy could be to attract death.  Detractors slammed
Jerome with "... it is reported that you have maintained that
there remains bread after consecration (618)."  The perils of
church politics as evinced in the mystic topic of
transubstantiation!  The communicants could plainly see that the
bread was bread, but were heretical for saying so.  It is
difficult to imagine two moderns sitting at a local tavern
arguing about the bread and the wine.
     Following the tragic story of Jerome comes The Unity of the
Church.  Cusa's meditation on the spiritual structure of the
Church is largely derivative of New Testament symbolism (Paul?)
but carries the symbolism a bit further.  It seems to be an
apology for the political hierarchy in the Roman Catholic church. 
Perhaps the only truly interesting passage is the reference to
the priesthood as the soul of the church body.  I wish I had
thought of that.
     The Election of a Pope is wonderful, a purely renaissance
reporting of a quasi-spiritual event.  When first reading this
passage, it might be misunderstood that the author is writing
about some previous pope who he wishes to glorify.  This pope is
reported to have made such (pious!) statements as:
"No one shall persuade me to vote for a man I think utterly
unworthy to be the successor of St. Peter.  Far from me be such a
sin! (634)."  The author goes on to report that, upon news of the
election, "the older men said they had never seen such enthusiasm
among the Roman populace (644)."  
     It is late in the average reader (unfamiliar with the family
names of popes) realizes that the pope being here praised is the
writer himself.  This document is a wonderful example of
Renaissance ego at work.  Here, in a man theoretically devoted to
the maintenance and guidance of the Flock, ego and power would
appear to be manifest.  Perhaps the Renaissance popes thought
that whatever means necessary was quite allowable in order to
avoid another Schism. 
     The same sense of hyperbole found in Pius II's record is
also found in Savonarola, A Portrait.  Savonarola emerges as a
miraculous scholar and flawless Christian:
     Even his adversaries confess that he was most learned
     in many disciplines, notably in philosophy, which he
     mastered so well and used for every purpose that it
     seemed as if he himself had created it...; 

and then:

     ...whoever observed his life and habits over a long
     period could not find there even a trace of avarice, or
     voluptuousness, or any other cupidity or frailty but,
     on the contrary, evidence of a most pious life, full of
     charity, full of prayer, full of observation... (648).

Ad nauseam.  This unchecked exaggeration would have been more
surprising had I not just finished The Autobiography of Cellini.
     The remainder of the section is largely of theological
concern, although it does provide the reader with direct insight
in the figures' personalities.  Erasmus comes across as a
slightly precious intellectual, Luther as a bully, and Calvin as
compulsively self-righteous.  Any biography could interpret the
nature of the writer for us; only the man's writing can reveal
the nature of the man to us.

Jason Carr
http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/