2 RENAISSANCES

condensation. These astronomical illustrations of the egocentric illusion's
distorting effect upon the appearance of Reality were illuminating com-
mentaries on the customary Modern Western u\sa#c of the word
renaissance,

In ordinary Modern Western parlance the singular expression 'the
Renaissance' was used to denote something that had happened in one
local province of one civilization in one age of its history on two phi nest
of its activity, The particular civilization in question was Western
Christendom, the particular province was Northern and Central Italy,1
the particular age was the Late Medieval period of Western history
(circa A.D. 1275-1475), the particular activities were the literary and
visual arts. The occurrence that was identified by being labelled with
this name invented for it ad hoc was the evocation -at thin time and
place, and within these two spheres of cultural action of the 'ghost1 of
a 'dead' civilization; and the revenant thus called tip from Sheol by this
feat of cultural necromancy was the shade of an Hellenic culture to
which the Western culture was affiliated.3

If our reminder of the distorting effect of the egocentric illusion on
our mental picture of the stellar universe has put; us on the alert ugutUHt
the danger of error to which this besetting illusion exposes human
minds in all their mental operations, wo may feel it worth while to re-

' i.e. the aboriginally Western Christian parts of UK* Italian Peninrmhi, itn diritmrf
from a ci-devant Byzantine South (see I. i. 32 and ^tS),

2 This evocation of two facets of the Hellenic mill tire in n Lute Medieval Itulv WIIM {hr
occurrence to which the label inscribed 'the Konniutmncc' properly Httw'hcd; Inu m
popular parlance the usage of the term was sometime.'} incorrectly nttrrmved uml ru»me«
times incorrectly widened. It^was^ometimes confined to denoting the enrichment of tin
Italian renaissance of Hellenism in Latin drc.sa, at u date by which thh \VH.-J nlieiuiy ft
going concern, through the fifteenth-century Italian humanly' ueijuhition from (,'on-
stantinoplc of orifiinaj works of Hellenic literature in the medium of the ('hatful <ti'eek
language (see IX, viii. 102). In reality, this (Jrcek eomribution to a 1-ntc Medieval
Italian renaissance of Hellenism was the by-produet of u contact in tbr SjMU'tMlijncn'-iitm
f between a Late Medieval Italy and a contemporary Orthodox C'hrir.trrufotn which hup*
pencd to be a 'carrier* of those Greek elements of an extinct Hellenic culture thuf the
Italians acquired from this Byxantine source in the fifteenth century, < >n the other hwtui
the meaning of the term 'the Renaissance' wan .sometimes extended'to include the radia-
tion of a Late Medieval Italian sub-culture into the TratMitnmne tunl Trumnljiitif
provinces of Western Christendom ut the transition from the Medieval to the Modern
Age of Western history.

In thus transmitting its own special culture to 'the Harbarian.s', a Uite Medievul Ifwty
did, of course, transmit the achievements of her evocation of 1 lellem'<w immiitf her«»?Iter
current cultural commodities. But the diffusion <»f the Italian ruhure «t thw date WWH,
in itself, not a renaissance but an encounter between two diverse contemporary Western
sub-cultures within the bosom of a Western body social that WJIH their vonuwm Nodal
setting. (The measure of the Rulf by which these two Lute Medieval Wentetn nub-
cultures had come to be divided by the time when their encounter betfjm WMN #iveti in a
striking visual form by the contrast in style, and still greater rontrroit in etlion* between
the native English sculpture and the imported Florentine muster 1'ictm ToiTtaiunt'M
work in the English King Henry VH'g chapel in Westminster Abbey). Tlw ttuiiunixtt"
tion of the non-Italian provinces of the Western World of the ditv wu« u couHetjuenee *»

of Hellenism had started; and, in virtue of thi» lead, the eventual ttifliiNfon *»f « Lute
Medieval Italian culture beyond the Alps and across the Western MeUUerti4ne«»i wtntlti
assuredly have taken place even if there had been no Italian renttltimuu-r «f ] leHeninm ut
all, or if there had been one that had never gone beyond a mere revival of the weeond-
hand Latm version of the Hellenic literature, without any MWnth-mrtury hnlmn
recourse to Hellenism's Greek fountain-head (see IV. iv, »7s, nn, * awtl a, HriU 161, n, *,
and IX, viii, ioa, n, *).