George Holmes explores the ideas of the humanists, and traces their influence on the writing of history, political philosophy, and aesthetics. The new humanist secular thought was paralleled, and even directly applied in some cases, by a number of brilliant Florentine artists headed byBrunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio. In architecture, sculpture, and painting these men produced masterpieces which gave form to the humanist ideal of classical inspiration related to real life.Professor Holmes examines this brief but enlightened phase in the history of art and ideas within its historical context, setting it against the background of Florence's fluctuating relationship with an enfeebled papacy and the wider Italian political scene. The Florentine Enlightenment provides afascinating preview of the greatest movement in the cultural history of Europe: the Renaissance.