The Sixth Renaissance

“The Sixth Renaissance” is a term coined by French philologist Christophe Rico and Polish scholar Katarzyna Ochman to describe a rapidly-growing international movement of renewed interest in classical Greco-Roman sources, similar to previous movements in the history of the western (Latin) world (the most famous of which is the Humanist Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries).
The Sixth Renaissance, as its name suggests, is the sixth and most recent in a line of renaissance movements over roughly the last two millennia. The previous five renaissances, delineated by Christophe Rico, occurred in the (1) 3rd and 2nd centuries BC around the Library of Alexandria, (2) 2nd and 3rd centuries AD in Athens, (3) 9th and 10th centuries AD around the court of the emperor Charlemagne, (4) 12th century AD in Europe at large, and (5) 16th century AD (Humanist Renaissance) following the fall of Constantinople. The Sixth Renaissance, at the dawn of the 21st century AD, seems to be a worldwide movement.
According to Brague, this characteristic is what has allowed the Latin world to "return to the sources" on several occasions. The previous renaissances in the history of the Western World are manifestations of the external position of Western culture with respect to the great traditions of Jerusalem and Athens. Renaissances have always caused a great cultural shock to the Latin world because each renaissance involves a return to sources that are external (that is, originating not in the Latin world but in the world of Jerusalem or Athens). Renaissances are almost always accompanied by a strong philological effort to recover the foundational texts that are written in languages other than Latin, especially Greek and Hebrew. That is why, although the phenomenon has also happened to the Byzantine world, the effect it produces in the Byzantine world is usually neither as long-lasting nor as profound as that which it produces in the West. The re-assimilation of the classical sources does not imply for the Byzantine world an intellectual effort comparable to what it implies for the West because it does not compel the Byzantine world to step into a different culture and language, while it does compel the Western world to do this.
Rico adds to the ideas expounded by Brague a reflection on the relationship between renaissances and the technological inventions that are found to occur at the same time. This renaissance is marked by continuity with its immediate past, was enabled by the technological innovation of the first state library, produced the first Greek glossaries, grammars and commentaries, and selected certain authors who would constitute the first literary canon.
The Second Renaissance: II-III c AD
The second renaissance took place in Athens in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. This movement, also maintaining continuity with its past, was enabled by the widespread use of the codex which, because of the presence of large margins, allowed for comments to be easily written. The second renaissance produced a development in rhetoric and sophistics, as well as , the creation of the first chairs of rhetoric and of philosophy by Marcus Aurelius and Antoninus Pius, and a list of auctores classici which included Virgil, Cicero, Horace and others.
The Third Renaissance: IX-X c AD
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire (476 AD), there was little study of classical sources until the 9th and 10th centuries when the Emperor Charlemagne encouraged a renewal in Greco-Roman studies. This movement under Charlemagne is called the Carolingian Renaissance. Shortly thereafter, another renaissance was happening in Byzantium, the Macedonian Renaissance, on account of the reorganization of the university of Constantinople. These Carolingian and the Macedonian movements together constitute the third renaissance.
The third renaissance, as the two before it, did not break away from its past. It was enabled by the technological innovation of the Carolingian miniscule which made reading manuscripts easier because each sentence could be introduced by a capital letter. Before this innovation, it was more difficult to find the separation between sentences because there was no separation between any words at all. In this renaissance, the Latin grammar was rediscovered and there was a reorganization of education with the establishment of trivium and quadrivium study centers.
The Fourth Renaissance: XII-XIV c AD
The fourth renaissance occurred between the 12th and 14th centuries, in both the West and the East. This renaissance, also continuing with its past, was enabled by new technologies of reading: words began to be separated in manuscripts, allowing a person to see separated words on the manuscript and thus read silently instead of having to hear works read aloud in order to hear the separation between words, and copying centers developed better organization of work, allowing for more copies of written works to be produced. Due to these technical advances, Latin translations of Greek philosophical and scientific texts began to become widespread in Europe. In the East, philology flourished with scholars such as Maximus Planudes (1260 - c. 1310), Manuel Moschopoulos (1265 - 1316), Thomas Magister (c. 1265 - 1346), and Demetrius Triclinius (1280 - 1340).
The Fifth Renaissance: XV-XVI c AD
The Humanist Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries was the fifth renaissance in the West. Unlike its predecessors, this movement broke away from its immediate past and went back directly to original classical sources, breaking away from the tradition of commentaries and interpretation of sacred scripture. This renaissance is linked to the invention of the printing press, allowing for general mass reading and for identical copies of the same text. Scholars at this time dedicated themselves to studying and speaking Latin and to intensive study of Greek. It was in this renaissance that the authors of pagan Rome and pagan Athens, rather than Imperial Latin or Hellenistic Greek authors, were selected as the references works of the ancient world, and, as such, as constituting the classical literary canon.
The Sixth Renaissance: XXI c AD
It is the proposition of Christophe Rico and Katarzyna Ochman that a worldwide sixth renaissance in occurring now at the opening of the 21st century..
The Sixth Renaissance
Forerunners and Beginnings
In the early 20th century, W. H. D. Rouse co-founded the Loeb Classical Library and did much work in the field of Latin and Greek pedagogy. Due to the World Wars, however, his work in renewing classical studies and teaching did not produce the widespread retour aux sources typical of a renaissance. Shortly after the foundation of the Loeb Classical Library (1912), Cardinal Henri de Lubac rediscovered the Fathers of the Church and co-founded the patristics collection (1941).
In 1985, Fr. Reginald “Reggie” Foster, OCD, at that time the Latin secretary of the Vatican, founded the Aestiva Romae Latinitas in Rome, Italy, a free summer school at which he taught a generation of Latinists to read, write and speak Latin. Trained and inspired by Foster, these students became some of the first torch-bearers, especially in the United States, of the new renaissance movement.
In 1996, Nancy Llewellyn, a student of Reginald Foster, founded S.A.L.V.I. (Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum), an institute for speaking Latin as a living language, in Los Angeles, USA. The year before that, in 1996, the Accademia Vivarium Novum, a school for boys in which Latin is the primary spoken language, was founded in Rome, Italy and the Conventiculum Latinum Lexingtoniense, an annual conference conducted entirely in Latin, was founded in Lexington, KY, USA by Terence Tunberg. Around this time, David Morgan began composing the Lexicon Morganianum (now the Morgan-Owens Lexicon).
Digital Revolution
Within the decade following these beginnings, digital technology rapidly developed and digital platforms for communicating information sprouted just as rapidly.
In 1993, the internet was communicating 1% of telecommunicated information, by 2000 it was communicating 51%, and by 2007 it was communicating all of 97% of telecommunicated information. YouTube was founded in 2005, Facebook went public in 2006, and the iPhone was launched in 2007.
Recent and Current Developments in the Renaissance
In 2006, the Kuklos Hellenikos was founded in Paris by Charles Delattre; in 2008, David Morgan and Mark Clark began hosting summer Latin immersion programs in Virginia, USA; former students of Reginald Foster, Jason Pedicone and Eric Hewett, founded the Paideia Institute in New York, USA in 2010; and in 2011, the Polis Institute was founded by a group of scholars in Jerusalem, Israel. Today there are around 5000 speakers of Latin in the world, most of whom are between the ages of 20 and 30. International conventions draw scholars from all over the world, such as GrecoLatinoVivo, and .
Digital platforms are enabling and fostering both the widespread availability of resources and the connection and sense of community among Latin and Greek speakers worldwide. Digital tools such as online dictionaries (Perseus, Logeion, Pollux, Philolog.us, etc.), mobile applications (Philolog.us, SPQR, Logeion, etc.), and online archives and databases (archive.org, Digital Loeb, etc.) have enabled easy access to classical sources. Additionally, platforms such as , YouTube, Facebook and blog sites are being filled with resources for interested scholars, speakers and teachers of Latin and Greek. The Latin version of has over 100,000 articles written entirely in Latin; YouTube channels containing videos of people speaking Latin and Greek are becoming increasingly popular, e.g. ScorpioMartianus, Legio XIII, Divus Magister Craft, Latinitium, etc.; podcasts have been started such as , and others; many scholars and teachers of Latin and Greek (such as Justin Slocum Bailey and John Piazza) have blogs with large followings and filled with practical teaching tips and other resources. The Polis Institute in Jerusalem is rapidly turning out audio recordings of Greek texts (dialogues, letters, and other works). “Circles” of Latin and Greek speakers are popping up in cities around the world (e.g. Paris, France; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Oxford, UK); Facebook groups are connecting Latin and Greek scholars from around the world; and speakers meet frequently over internet video chats to speak in Latin or Greek.
Telepaideia, a project of the Paideia Institute, and E-Polis, a proposed project of the Polis Institute, are offering to teach Latin and Greek as living languages in online classrooms.
Future
An international renewal in classical studies, taking full advantage of the digital platforms available in the 21st century, is in full swing and rapidly growing, especially among young people. This movement is what scholars Rico and Ochman think has the signs of being the beginning of a new renaissance, the sixth renaissance in the history of Western culture. Rapidly advancing digital technologies together with a growing interest among people worldwide to learn, speak and teach ancient languages could blossom in the upcoming years into a renaissance just as large as its predecessors.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu