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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 56, Linacre. and Others:
April 19, 2004:
This rebirth of reason and surge of creative effort was not the exclusive province of philosophers and artists. Men of science and technical fields were much involved. One such person was the English physician, Thomas Linacre (1460-1524). He was not just a doctor. He was the doctor in England. He founded and became the first president of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Linacre was also a humanist and classical scholar.
One thing that bothered Linacre was the lack of rules for governing the practice of medicine. At that time, anyone who wished could act in the capacity of doctor or even surgeon, and they did. Among the practitioners were clergymen and barbers. His solution was to get King Henry VIII to license him to create a governing body for the practice of medicine in England. Therein is how he created the Royal College of Physicians of London. This group had authority to license doctors and regulate the practice of medicine throughout the kingdom.
For sure, Linacre could not foresee those future medical unions and state boards who regularly wink and cover for the butchers within their ranks. His goal was to protect patients against people like that. We can believe this board was effective when it was first commissioned by the King. The degeneration of ethics came much later on.
Another man who was trained in medicine, but never practiced was the Italian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525). Pomponazzi was a heavy in Italian Renaissance Aristotelianism. Although familiar with the work of Aquinas and others, he chose to interpret Aristotle in humanist terms. Of course, he piqued the powers of the church with a tract on the immortality of the soul. This was another of those faith versus reason arguments for which religious people are renown. He argued for faith against the Aquinas notion that immortality can be demonstrated. He was criticized, but not condemned by the church.
Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) was not so lucky. An Italian Neo-Platonist philosopher, he was condemned as a heretic after he tried to convene a diverse group of scholars in a public discussion. He had collected 900 theses from many different writers for the occasion. As part of the discussion he had composed his "Oration on the Dignity of Man." Unfortunately a papal commission decided that 13 of the theses were heretical. Whoops! Pico apologized and took off for France.
Pico was arrested anyway, but was soon release whereupon he prudently settled in Florence under the protection of prince Lorenzo de' Medici. Later he met a very convincing advocate of orthodoxy, Girolamo Savonarola, and he switched sides. Then he wrote a bunch of stuff against the enemies of the church. These goings on serve to demonstrate some of the silliness in theological philosophies and politics in this era of the Renaissance. Just a couple of years after he had converted Pico, Savonarola was excommunicated and executed for criticizing Pope Alexander VI. Go figure.
Let's move on to something a bit more rational. That is the artistic talent and work of a pair of artists. First was Hans Holbein the Elder (1465-1524), a German painter and draftsman. We also have his son, Hans Holbein the Younger (1497 - 1543), a portrait and religious painter.
Holbein, the Elder did mostly religious paintings along with some stained glass window design and silverpoint drawings. Silverpoint is a technique of drawing on specially prepared paper with a silver-tipped instrument. It seems Hans specialized in doing altarpieces for various churches of his time. An altarpiece is a piece of artwork, such as a painting or carving, that is placed above and behind an altar. In The Elder's case the altarpieces were paintings.
In this case we can take Hans Holbein, the Younger out of his chronological order to keep him with his father. The Younger was much more famous than his father. He was an outstanding portrait and religious painter of the Renaissance. He was and still is considered a genius. Much of his work is celebrated and still hangs in famous galleries around the world. He decorated buildings and did altarpieces just as had his father. His silverpoint work is considered to be unmatched. He went to England in 1526. While there, he did an outstanding portrait of Sir Thomas More. It hangs in the Frick Mansion museum n New York City. We will get to the humanist More later.
Holbein left England in 1528 and returned to Basil. There he was under a bit of suspicion for a time. It seems in his earlier years he had done some anti-Lutheran paintings. Once he was admitted to the official faith of Basel he continued with his brilliant work. It seems like many genuses he was also a bit of a nasty. In 1532 he abandon his wife and children to return to England. In England, he became court painter for Henry VIII where he did some of his finest portraits. Some of his subjects were the king and members of the court.
This fellow was nothing if not prolific. In the final phase
of his life he painted some 150 portraits. To that he added about
250 drawings for the royal household. It seems he was an extraordinary
designer. His drawings were of designs for everything from coat
buttons to weapons. Hans the Younger finally died in London in
1543 of the plague.
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