The Renaissance Foundations of Anthropology

Abstract

HE comparative point of view of anthropology rests on a recognition T that there are physical and cultural differences among human populations which must be taken into account in any attempt to generalize about mankind. I t is anthropology's recognition of the scientific importance of such differences which chiefly distinguishes it from other disciplines concerned with man and human behavior. The history of this idea is therefore a particularly important part of the history of anthropology.' I t is the thesis of this paper that the anthropological tradition of interest in differences among men had its beginnings in the Italian Renaissance of the 14th and 15th centuries and specifically in Renaissance archaeology. The first differences which were recognized as significant to a general understanding of mankind were the cultural and linguistic differences between Classical antiquity and what was then the present. I t was only after the beginnings of an archaeological perspective had been established that the interest in differences was extended to contemporary contrasts. Renaissance studies of Classical antiquity not only stimulated a general interest in differences among men, they also provided models for describing such differences. When the problem of describing contemporary non-Western cultures arose, there were Renaissance studies of Roman customs and institutions to serve as precedents. Similarly, Renaissance grammars and dictionaries of Classical Latin and Greek became models for the description of spoken languages in all parts of the world, and the study of the ancient monuments of Italy and Greece became the basis for archaeological reporting elsewhere. The beginnings of physical anthropology were delayed, because the study of Classical antiquity in this case offered little precedent. In order to demonstrate the Renaissance origin of the comparative point of view of anthropology, it is necessary to show first that there was no continuous anthropological tradition of comparative studies stretching back through the Middle Ages to Classical antiquity, and second that the interest in differences of custom and language and in local antiquities, characteristic of some writers of the period of the voyages of discovery, was related to a fundamental change in men's attitude toward Classical antiquity which was the essence of the Italian Renaissance.