{"id":67,"date":"2012-02-01T15:21:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T21:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=67"},"modified":"2013-01-24T20:57:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T02:57:42","slug":"books-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2012\/02\/01\/books-memory\/","title":{"rendered":"Books & Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"

“For although written records are very valuable indeed for other purposes, they are especially valuable for preserving the memory of the past<\/em><\/strong>, as they contain the deeds of mankind, the unhoped-for turns of fortune, the unusual works of nature, and (more important than all these things) the guiding principles of historical periods.\u00a0 For human memory and objects passed from hand to hand gradually decay and scarcely survive the lifetime of one person, but what has been skillfully entrusted to books endures forever<\/em><\/strong>.” [Italics &\u00a0Bold print added]\u00a0Piero Paolo Vergerio, “Character and Studies Befitting a Free-Born Youth,” in The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be An Educated Human Being<\/em>, ed. Richard M. Gamble. Wilmington\u00a02007, p. 317.<\/p>\n

Piero Paolo Vergerio (1370-1444) taught logic and rhetoric\u00a0at various schools in the late 14th and early 15th centuries in northern Italy.\u00a0 He wrote the quote above\u00a0around 1400 as part of a larger work for his pupil, Ubertino\u00a0da Carrara (a prince at Padua).\u00a0 Therein, Vergerio set forth the pedagogical theories of Renaissance humanists.\u00a0 The liberal arts (grammar, logic,\u00a0rhetoric, music, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy) formed the\u00a0basis of sound learning in Latin.\u00a0 As Vergerio indicated, they are called liberal, because they befit a free [liber] man.\u00a0 However, he\u00a0asserted that the liberal arts\u00a0laid the foundation for the related subjects of literature, history, moral philosophy, and poetics.<\/p>\n

In this section Vergerio praises the well-crafted book as a repository of\u00a0human memory.\u00a0 These books\u00a0form the\u00a0basis of historical inquiry and integrate literary studies, history, and moral philosophy.\u00a0 He understood these subjects to be so connected that one\u00a0may not study them separately.\u00a0 Literature, by its very nature, forms our understanding of history and history gives us\u00a0moral examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“For although written records are very valuable indeed for other purposes, they are especially valuable for preserving the memory of the past, as they contain the deeds of mankind, the unhoped-for turns of fortune, the unusual works of nature, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,5,6,44,15,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-learning","category-memory","category-pietro-paulo-vergerio","category-renaissance","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}