Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Literary Source-Book of the German Renaissance
Moreover, when Germany entered upon her humanistic career, a potent instrument had been prepared for the dissemination of the new ideas. In superseding the slow process of manual repro duction, which consumed so much of the time and strength of the Italian humanists from Petrarch on, the printing-press gave a mighty impetus to the diffusion of the new learning. It permitted the more advanced ideas, in so far as they were consonant with the prevailing trend of thought, to gain a rapid victory, aecom plishing thereby in a brief period what in a time of less perfect communication had required generations. It is on this account, perhaps, more than on any other, that we find Germany, within the space of half a century, passing rapidly through the various phases of humanistic development, which in Italy required two centuries.
These phases are a series of stages in the emancipation of thought, and its subsequent progress from a condition of limited theological interest, characteristic of the Middle Ages, to that condition which comprehends the wide range of human interests which we call modern. Along this track of progress are to be found a sequence of individuals, whom for purposes of illustra tion and study it is convenient to arrange in groups, and to char acterize according to the degree of their advancement.
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