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We think we know what a "republic" is, but what did the Romans mean with their phrase "res publica"? What about the Italian humanists? And how did they distinguish a republic from a tyranny? We take a look at two more chapters from James Hankins's book, Virtue Politics, a groundbreaking examination of Renaissance political theory. These chapters focus on the question of legitimacy: What makes a government legitimate? What makes it illegitimate?

James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

Francesco Petrarch's Invectives: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674011540

New Humanists episode on Nietzsche and slavery: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/14044549-compassion-versus-classical-antiquity-episode-lvii

Cicero's De Officiis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199540716

Robert Harris's Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780743498661

Adrian Goldsworthy's Caesar: Life of a Colossus: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300126891

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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A pandemic. A changing climate. A hopelessly divided country. Christianity threatened by Islam. Universities completely out of touch with normal people. Late medieval Italy was a basket case. All the while, a small group of men was dreaming of the Roman Empire - maybe emulating Rome was the way to save Italy? In his book Virtue Politics, James Hankins elucidates the neglected political thought of the humanists of the Italian Renaissance, which he names "virtue politics." Jonathan and Ryan outline Hankins's arguments.

James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3

N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780800626815

Augustine's City of God: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140448948

Thomas Aquinas' De Regno: https://isidore.co/aquinas/DeRegno.htm

Dante's De Monarchia: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781502885555

Desiderius Erasmus' The Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780691165646

New Humanists episode on T.S. Eliot's Praise for Privilege: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/9884564-t-s-eliot-s-praise-for-privilege-episode-xvi

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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The poet of Joan of Arc, and a notable example of a female writer in the premodern period, Christine de Pizan took a turn at the popular humanist genre of the mirror to princes in her book "The Book of the Body Politics." Jonathan and Ryan take a look at her characterization of virtue, corporal punishment, and what it takes to educate a Caesar.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Christine de Pizan's The Book of the Body Politic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521422598

C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060653200

Christopher Schlecht's "Did Dorothy Sayers Get Education Wrong?": https://youtu.be/--gjw3gaG-U?si=7OLZ-SlExk8_QMp2

Joris-Karl Huysmans's Against the Grain: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199555116

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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In his essay "On Educating Children," a follow-up to his denunciation of pedantry, Michel de Montaigne warns that "natural affection makes parents too soft" and incapable of properly disciplining their children, or even of letting their children take the risks and encounter the dangers they ought to. Book-learning, in Montaigne's essay, takes a backseat to the development of real virtue; erudition is ornament, not foundation.

Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446043

Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146

Rhetorica Ad Herennium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674994447

New Humanists episode "The First English Conversation, feat. Dr. Colin Gorrie": https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/11362004-the-first-english-conversation-feat-dr-colin-gorrie-episode-xxxii

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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When Tim Griffith was coaching soccer and reading ancient Roman rhetorical theory, he realized he had stumbled across a pedagogical goldmine. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan talk with Tim about raising kids as native Latin speakers, the roles that comprehensible input vs. grammar instruction play in the language classroom, prescriptive versus descriptive grammar, and Roman rhetoric. The product of years of experience and study, Tim’s approach to teaching Latin has borne fruit in his students at New Saint Andrews College, in his curriculum projects at Picta Dicta, and in no small way in the influence he has had on the Ancient Language Institute.

Rhetorica Ad Herennium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674994447

Quintilian’s Institutes of Oratory (Volume I): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674995918

Picta Dicta: https://pictadicta.com/

Shop Picta Dicta at Roman Roads Press: https://romanroadspress.com/latin

Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: Familia Romana: https://amzn.to/3hoLz7V

W.H.D. Rouse’s Latin on the Direct Method: https://books.google.com/books/about/Latin_on_the_Direct_Method_By_W_H_D_Rous.html?id=oMXxMgEACAAJ

New Saint Andrews College: https://nsa.edu/

ALI Latin classes for adults: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-latin/

ALI Ancient Greek classes for adults: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-greek/

ALI Latin for Kids Program: https://ancientlanguage.com/latin-for-kids/

ALI Latin for Kids Self-Study Course: https://ancientlanguage.com/latin-curriculum/

Erasmus' De Copia: https://amzn.to/3Phf9MH

Paul Distler's Teach the Latin, I Pray You: https://amzn.to/4cflhPC

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We threw off the monarchy... now what? Having established a republic on American soil, the Founding Fathers were faced with the question of how to educate a new generation of people who would protect American liberty. The most underrated of the Founding Fathers, Dr. Benjamin Rush, devoted considerable time and attention to this question. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan are joined by Clifford Humphrey to discuss Rush's "Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic."

Clifford Humphrey's Are "Merely Christian" Colleges Enough?: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/are-merely-christian-colleges-enough

Carl Trueman's Mere Christianity on Campus: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/mere-christianity-on-campus

Clifford Humphrey's The Ends of "Mere Classical" Schools: https://americanreformer.org/2023/04/the-ends-of-mere-classical-schools/

Our American Stories' episode on Benjamin Rush: https://www.ouramericanstories.com/podcast/history/founding-father-benjamin-rush

Benjamin Rush's Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic: https://explorepahistory.com/odocument.php?docId=1-4-218#

Ian Dagg's Regime and Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9783031373824

Plutarch's Greek Lives (includes Lycurgus): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199540051

Joseph Addison's Cato: A Tragedy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780865974432

Eric Nelson's The Hebrew Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674062139

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Leonardo Bruni was the titan of Renaissance historians and a prolific humanist. In a long letter to an aristocratic Italian woman, Battista Malatesta, he lays out his philosophy of humanistic education, which is meant to help the student achieve glory. But laziness or ineptitude, he says, threatens the student always, and will drag her down to crawl alongside other mediocrities. Bruni insists on deep reading of the greatest orators, poets, and historians, alongside biblical and theological study.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

I Tatti Renaissance Library's Humanist Educational Treatises (containing Bruni's entire letter in Latin and English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674007598

Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People (Volume I): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068

Donald Phillip Verene's The Art of Humane Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801440397

C.S. Lewis's On Stories (includes The Parthenon and The Optative): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062643605

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Michel de Montaigne was a native Latin speaker in modern Europe and yet a great innovator in French letters; among other things, he invited the genre known as the essay. His elegant, searching essays are intended to expose the reality of his own soul - and that of his readers. In "On Schoolmasters' Learning," this most studios of men wonders aloud whether education is actually good for you. After all, look at all the people obsessed with books and yet completely useless for anything productive. Maybe study actually harms your soul?

Michel de Montaigne's Complete Essays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446043

Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/49k1zjc

Aristophanes' Clouds: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801485749

The Cost of Glory | Lucullus I: https://share.transistor.fm/s/4ef111e2

Plato's Hippias Major: https://amzn.to/3SI8PA6

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Aeneas Silvius was an accomplished Renaissance humanist, author of erotic literature, and influential aide to emperors and popes (and an antipope). Then, he became a pope himself. As Pope Pius II, he then added memoirist, urban planner, and antiquarian to his list of accomplishments. He contributed to the popular Renaissance "mirror of princes" genre in a letter to a young boy-king in Central Europe, where he makes the case for reading pagan poetry as a Christian.

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Jonathan and Ryan turn to a set of selections from the Prince of Humanists himself, Desiderius Erasmus. In Liber Antibarbarorum, Erasmus pillories the precious Christians who refuse to read pagan authors on account of their own squeamish consciences. In Education of a Christian Prince, and On the Education of Children, Erasmus gives principled arguments for humanistic education and practical advice for those responsible for carrying it out.

Roland Bainton's Erasmus of Christendom: https://amzn.to/3v8NlTC

Desiderius Erasmus' Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780691165646

Desiderius Erasmus' Education of a Christian Prince: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521588119

Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780664241582

Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Eric Adler on The New Thinkery: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-adler-on-the-new-humanism/id1524739522?i=1000638422051

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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