“Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one
another here, greet each other—and wander together for a brief moment. Then we
lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived.”
“May I ask you something?”
“We’re not playing hide-and-seek any more.”
“Why did you move into the major’s cabin?”
“So that we would not be so far from each other, when we were only talking by
letter. I knew the old cabin would be empty.”
“So you just moved in?”
“That’s right. I moved in.”
“Then maybe you can also explain how Hilde’s father knew you were there.”
“If I am right, he knows practically everything.”
“But I still can’t understand at all how you get a mailman to deliver mail in the
middle of the woods!”
Alberto smiled archly.
“Even things like that are a pure bagatelle for Hilde’s father. Cheap hocus-
pocus, simple sleight of hand. We are living under what is possibly the world’s closest
surveillance.”
Sophie could feel herself getting angry.
“If I ever meet him, I’ll scratch his eyes out!”
Alberto walked over and sat down on the sofa. Sophie followed and sank into a
deep armchair.
“Only philosophy can bring us closer to Hilde’s father,” Alberto said at last.
“Today I shall tell you about the Renaissance.”
“Shoot.”
“Not very long after St. Thomas Aquinas, cracks began to appear in the
unifying culture of Christianity. Philosophy and science broke away more and more
from the theology of the Church, thus enabling religious life to attain a freer
relationship to reasoning. More people now emphasized that we cannot reach God
through rationalism because God is in all ways unknowable. The important thing for a
man was not to understand the divine mystery but to submit to God’s will.
“As religion and science could now relate more freely to each other, the way
was open both to new scientific methods and a new religious fervor. Thus the basis
was created for two powerful upheavals in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
namely, the Renaissance and the Reformation.”
“Can we take them one at a time?”
“By the Renaissance we mean the rich cultural development that began in the
late fourteenth century. It started in Northern Italy and spread rapidly northward
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”
“Didn’t you tell me that the word ‘renaissance’ meant rebirth?”
“I did indeed, and that which was to be reborn was the art and culture of
antiquity. We also speak of Renaissance humanism, since now, after the long Dark
Ages in which every aspect of life was seen through divine light, everything once
again revolved around man. ‘Go to the source’ was the motto, and that meant the hu-
manism of antiquity first and foremost.
“It almost became a popular pastime to dig up ancient sculptures and scrolls,
just as it became fashionable to learn Greek. The study of Greek humanism also had a
pedagogical aim. Reading humanistic subjects provided a ‘classical education’ and
developed what may be called human qualities. ‘Horses are born,’ it was said, ‘but
human beings are not born—they are formed.’ “