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This new era, that brought to the surface a wealth of scientific, social, cultural, and technological advances, became the greatest era of progress in all of human history. It is doubtful that any of this could have occurred without the foundation in linguistic and moral development that Dante pioneered, because the renewal that became Golden Renaissance started in Italy
As it turned out, Dante's country was saved by his efforts. Italy became the world center of mankind's bright new era of civilization. In fact, his beloved home city, the city of Florence, became instrumental in this advance through the work of the famous Council of Florence, by which, the new era was put on the map of history.
The idea of the nation-state was born during the renaissance. It can be said that the deep mobilization in thinking, that Date had set in motion, resulted in the discovery of principles that are still the backbone of modern civilization; although this civilization is fast disintegrating.
Dante said of his motives: "All men whom the higher nature has enriched with a love of truth should feel impelled to work for the benefit of future generations, whom they will thereby enrich, just as they themselves have been enriched by the labors of their ancestors." This idea is reflected in the principle of the nation-state, because, according to Dante (and we find this idea throughout his writings): ". . . the man who does not contribute to the common good fails sadly in his duty."*(The Portable Dante - Penguin Books 1995 p.xxv) Dante did not, however, state that the society has the power to create the environment in which it wants to live, which is possible on the larger platform of a nation-state. Therefore, this duty to the common good that Dante referred to, is really a duty to oneself.
This second major era of renaissance in history comprises a time frame that spans from the beginning of the 14th century through to the end of the 19th century. It began with the works of Dante, Cusa, and the Council of Florence and is identified at the end of this period by the works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, Shakespeare, Alexander Hamilton, Friedrich Schiller, and Mary Baker Eddy to name but a few from a vast diversity of fields.
A largely unrecognized parallel trend.
Another interesting coincidence comes to light when one compares mankind's two major periods of renaissance to each other. Not only did both periods begin with a profound development in language, and unprecedented advances in knowledge and civilization; they both had at their ultimate extreme, an emergence, and re-emergence, of Christ-healing.
The work of Christ Jesus, at the end of the Greek Classical Period, opened up a new horizon for humanity. A similar breakthrough occurred again at the end of the second period of renaissance through the scientific work of Mary Baker Eddy (working in the north eastern parts of United States). It was here, in North America, that Christ-healing, based on a scientific platform, flourished for some decades with remarkable results on a near commercial scale.)
Another major parallel exists, in that both eras ended with the rise of a new wave of imperialism. The cultural advances of the Greek Classical Period ended with the rise of the Roman Empire that nearly destroyed civilization. The feudal ideology that had dominated the Roman era became so destructive to the empire's own physical platform that the realm of the Empire, as previously noted, lost half of its population, with some regions suffering more then others. That the Greek Classical period was shut down by the Romans is evident by the fact that the population of Greece had been reduced by 87% under Roman rule.
One can hardly imagine the terror that reduces a population, in spite of new births, to 13% of its original size. In such an environment no renaissance could long survive. There was literally nothing left of the old grandeur of classical Greece, even of the Roman Empire itself, when the empire fell victim to the barbarian invasion from the north. The whole region was economically and physically devastated. Once fruitful areas of arable lands lay abandoned. Nor did the invaders meet any great resistance. There was so little glory in the final victory over Rome that the conqueror didn't even bother to assume the role of the new emperor of Rome. He simply made it into a kind of satrapy.
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Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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