| This dissertation examines the role knowledge plays in ancient stories about the birth and development of mankind and then traces the reception of these stories in the writings of fifteenth-century Italian humanists. Modern scholarship has traditionally characterized creation stories as either progressivist, that is, looking forward to a better world, or primitivist, lamenting a lost Golden Age or "fall" from Eden. I argue, however, that most accounts are more nuanced than this dichotomy can accommodate, and that the standard approach, which focuses on the overall trajectory of civilization, has overlooked both the negative ethical consequences of technological progress and of the power of man to direct the course of his own development. By examining influential Roman creation stories and their reception in the works of select Italian humanists, it becomes clear that both ancient and Renaissance authors championed knowledge and education as the way to free the individual from life's terrors and to attain peace and prosperity for society. This fundamental belief in the power of education and in the ability of the "wise man" to transform early societies empowered the poet to shape his contemporary society. This transformative potential of society to renew itself provided the impetus for the Augustan reforms in the first century CE and adumbrated the principles driving the New Science that developed in the sixteenth century. |
