Paul Oskar Kristeller

© by Nadine Granoff, September 29, 2004

By unearthing, amassing, and organizing massive amounts of previously unknown manuscripts, Paul Oskar Kristeller made possible a new way of understanding the Renaissance. His theories about the Renaissance signaled a break from the late nineteenth century views of Jacob Burckhardt. For Burckhardt, the Renaissance marked the beginning of the modern world. Kristeller emphasized the Renaissance's continuity with classical antiquity. Kristeller's enormous feat in tracking down primary texts moved Renaissance scholarship far beyond Burckhardt's understanding of it.
Historical accident played a major role in the story of how and why this innovative work came about. Nazism forced Kristeller's exile from his native Germany to Italy. In Italy, his examination of Renaissance philosopher (and translator of Plato) Marsilio Ficino, "...opened his eyes to the enormous amount of unedited and even uncatalogued Renaissance Latin texts in European manuscript collections. He had stumbled upon a vast new field that encompassed much more than just the Platonic tradition." (1)

Kristeller was born in 1905 in Berlin; his father died the same year. He was raised by his mother and her middle-class, mercantile, non-practicing Jewish family. His mother ultimately re-married; Kristeller had one sibling, a half-sister. In elementary school he was initiated in the study of Greek and Latin. Despite his family's misgivings, he was determined to study philosophy and history at college "...my parents accepted my decision, although they were disappointed in their hope of seeing me enter the family business, and also worried about my choosing a career unknown to them and offering no prospect for a well-paid position."(2)

Kristeller spent his intellectually formative years studying with some of the most distinguished scholars of his time. He did his dissertation on Plotinus at Heidelberg under Hoffman. He also studied philosophy (including Ficino) with the German philosopher, Martin Heidegger at Marburg and Freiburg. Classicists of international renown taught him at Berlin: Werner Jaeger, Ulrich von Wilmowitz-Mollendorff, Eduard Meyer, and Eduard Norden. (3)

In 1931, Heidegger sponsored Kristeller for fellowship to travel around Europe in search of manuscripts to buttress his post-graduate work on Ficinio. But the Nazi victory in 1933 ended German government funding for his project. Heidegger gave speeches in favor of the Nazis and joined the Nazi party. (4) Funds for Kristeller's continued research came from Italy with the help of Giovanni Gentile, Professor of Philosophy, and Italy's Minister of Education. Gentile also arranged a teaching appointment for Kristeller at Pisa in 1935, and unsuccessfully tried to get Italian citizenship for him. The University of Pisa awarded him a Ph.D. for his work on Plotinus at Heidelburg. In 1937, Kristeller published primary material on Ficino as well his Ficino's circle: Supplementum Ficinianum.

When the "racial purity" laws took effect in Italy in 1938, Kristeller was released from his teaching job at Pisa. Roland Bainton, a church historian, helped Kristeller get a one year teaching appointment at Yale University. Gentile helped to pay for his fare to the United States.
In the United States, Kristeller married a fellow German-Jewish emigre, Edith L. Lewinnek, a physician. Both of Kristeller's parents died in the Holocaust. Shortly after World War II, Kristeller convinced Fritz Saxl of the Warburg Institute in London (where it had moved from Hamburg in 1933) to publish the manuscripts Kristeller had been marshalling since the 1930s. This was the first step towards what would become Kristeller's opus magnum, the six volume, multi-decade project Iter Italicum.

Until 1948 when he got tenure, Kristeller had a series of one-year appointments in Philosophy at Columbia University. Some of his best known, and sought after works were published in the 1950s: "The Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics," Journal of the History of Ideas 1951, and in 1956, the first volume of Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters. In 1956, he was appointed J.E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic, and Humanist Strain was published in 1961. Kristeller retired in 1973.

Like his mentor Werner Jaeger, Kristeller was ubiquitous on the academic conference circuit both in America and Europe. From 1975 (two years after retirement) until 1984, he gave lectures at twenty-three conferences. Like Jaeger, he was active as well in learned organizations: a founder of the Renaissance Society of America, active on the board of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Medieval Academy, and the American Philosophical Society. He served on the editorial boards of Journal of the History of Philosophy and Journal of History of Ideas, among others.

At age 79 in 1984, Kristeller received a MacArthur Fellowship, becoming the Fellowship's second oldest recipient. (5) He won several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanties, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. Numerous honorary degrees were bestowed on him, and six Festscriften were dedicated to Professor Kristeller. A seventh, edited by John Monfasani of S.U.N.Y. Albany, and Director of the Renaissance Society of America, will be published in 2005. Kristeller died in 1999 in New York City.

In 1990, he gave the American Council of Learned Societies Charles Homer Haskins, Life of Learning Lecture, in which he articulated some of his views about history and historians:

I have no illusions about the good old days (they had their own troubles,), and I am aware of the limits imposed on philosophy, science, and scholarship in this immense world which is complex and irrational and to a large extent (contrary to what many people believe) removed from our own control or manipulation...Yet I like to justify my fascination with the past, and especially with the history of philosophy and of learning, by stating my belief that the past remains real even after it has disappeared from the scene. It is the task of the historian to keep it alive, and to do justice also to the defeated and the neglected, at least to the extent to which they deserve to be remembered.

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Selected Publications, mostly in English (out of a total of nearly 600)

Der Degriffe der Seele in der Ethick des Plotin. [dissertation] Heidelberger Abhandlungen zur Philosophie und ihrer geschichte. Tübingen: Verlag von J.C. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), (1929).

"L'unita del mondo nella filosofia di Marsilio Ficino," Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 15 (1934), pages 395-423.

"La posizione storica dei Marisilio Ficino," Civilta Moderna 5 (1935), pages 438-45,

"Un uomo di Stato e umanista fiorentino: Giovanni Corsi," La Bibliofilia 38 (1936), pages 242-57.

Supplementum Ficinianum: Marsilii Ficini Florentini Philosophi Platonici Opuscula Inedita et Dispersa. Florence: Leo S. Olschiki, (1937), 2 vols.

"Florentine Platonism and Its Relations with the Humanism and Scholasticism," Church History 8 (1939), pages 201-11.

"The Theory of Immortality in Marsilio Ficinio," Journal of the History of Ideas 1 (1940), pages 299-319.

"Renaissance Platonism," in Facets of the Renaissance. (ed. William H. Werkmeister0 Los Angeles: University of Southern California Press, (1959), pages 87-107.

"Augustine and the Renaissance," International Science 1 (1941), pages 7-14.

"An Unpublished Description of Naples by Francesco Bandini," Romantic Review 33 (1942), pages 290-306.

The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino. (trans. Virginia Conant) No. 6 of Columbia Studies in Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press, (1943).

"Augustine and the Early Renaissance," Review of Religion 8 (1943-1944), pages 339-358.

"Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance," Byzantion 17 (1944-1945), pages 346-74.

"The Philosophical Significance of the History of Thought," Journal of the History of Ideas 7 (1946), pages 360-366.

"The Philosophy of Man in the Italian Renaissance," Italica 24 (1947), pages 255-74.

The Renaissance Philosophy of Man: Selections in Translation. (ed. Ernst Cassier, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John H. Randall, Jr. ) Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1948).

"A Modern System of the Arts: A Study in the History of Aesthetics," Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951) pages 496-527.

"Latin Manuscript Books before 1600, part II: A Tentative List of Unpublished Inventories of Imperfectly Catalogued Extant Collections," Traditio 9 (1953), pages 393-418.

"Tasks and Experiences in the Study of Humanist Manuscripts," Renaissance News 7 (1954), pages 75-84.

"Two Unpublished Questions on the Soul by Pietro Pomponazzi," Medievalia et Humanistica 9 (1955) pages 76-101.

Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters. Storia e Letteratura, 54. Rome: Edizioni dei Storia e Letteratura, (1956).

"The University of Bologna and the Renaissance,' Studi e memorie par la storia dell'Universitatis di Bologna, New Series 1. Bologna, (1956), pages 313-23.

"Marsilio Ficino as a Beginning Student of Plato," Scriptorium 20 (1956), 41-54.

"Renaissance Research in Vatican Manuscripts," Manuscripta 1 (1957), pages 67-80.

Latin Manuscript Books before 1600: A List of the Printed Catalogues and Unpublished Inventories of Extant Collections. New York: Fordham University Press, (1960).

"Some Problems of Historical Knowledge," The Journal of Philosophy 58 (1961), pages 85-110.

"The Platonic Academy of Florence," Renaissance News 14 (1961), pages 147-59.

"Changing Views of the Intellectual History of the Renaissance since Jacob Burckhardt," in The Renaissance: A Reconsideration of the Theories and Interpretations of the Age. (ed. Tinsley Helton), Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, (1961), pages 27-52.

"The European Diffusion of Italian Humanism," Italica 39 (1962), pages 1-20.

Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries, Volume I: Italy, Agrigeno to Nuovara. London: The Warburg Institute, and Leiden: E.J. Brill, (1963).
Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, (1964).

"Some Original Letters and Autograph Manuscripts of Marislio Ficino," in Studi di Bibliograpfia in onore di Tammaro De Marinis, vol. 3. Verona and Vatican City: distributed by the Vatican Library, (1964).

"Philosophy and Humanism in Renaissance Perspective," in The Renaissance Image of
"The Humanist Barolemeo Facio and His Unknown Correspondence," in From the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation: Essays in Honor of Garrett Mattingly. (ed. Charles H. Carter) New York: Random House, (1965), pages 56-74.

Man and the World. (ed. Barnard O'Kelly) Columbus: Ohio University Press, (1966), pages 536-58.

Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries. Volume II: Italy, Orvieto to Volterra: Vatican City. London: The Warburg Institute, and Leiden: E.J. Brill, (1967).

"The European Significance of Florentine Platonism," in Medieval and Renaissance Studies: Proceedings of the Southeastern Institute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Summer 1967, (ed. John M. Headley) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, (1968).

"The Contribution of Religious Orders to Renaissance Thought and Learning," The American Benedictine Review 21 (1970), pages 1-55.

"Erasmus from an Italian Perspective," Renaissance Quarterly 23 (1970), pages 1-14.

"A Little-Known Letter of Erasmus, and the Date of His Encounter with Reuchlin," in Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace K. Ferguson, (ed. J.G. Rowe and W.H. Stockdale) Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (1971).

Editor in Chief: Union Academique Internationale. Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries: Annotated Lists and Guides, vol. 2. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, (1971).

"The Impact of Early Italian Humanism on Thought and Learning," in Developments in the Early Renaissance (ed. Bernard S. Levy) Albany: State University of New York Press, (1972), pages 120-157.

Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays, New York: Harper and Row (Harper Torchbooks), (1972).

"Francesco Patrizi da Cherso," Emandatio in libros suous novae philosophiae," Rinascienmento. Florence: (1973), pages 215-18.

"Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning. Three Essays." (ed. and trans. Edward P. Mahoney). Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, (1974).

Humanismus und Renaissance, I: Die antiken und mittelalterlichen Quellen. (ed. Eckhard Kessler; trans. Renate Schweyen-Ott) Humanistisache bibliothek, Abhandlungen unde Texte. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, (1974).

The Latin Poems of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Supplementary Note," in Poetry and Poetics from Ancient Greece to the Renaissance: Studies in Honor of James Hutton. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 38 (ed. G.M. Kirkwood), Ithaca: Cornell University Press, (1975), pages 185-206.

"Methods of Research in Renaissance Manuscripts," Manuscripta 19 (1975) pages 3-14.

Associate Editor. Union academique internationale, Catalogues translattionun et commentariorum: Medieval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries: Annotated Lists and Guides, vol. 3 (ed. F. Edward Cranz), Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press (1976).

"The Search for Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120: 5 (1976), pages 307-10.

"Philosophy and Medicine in Medieval and Renaissance Italy," in Organism, Medicine and Metaphysics; Essay in Honor of Hans Jonas, Philosophy and Medicine, 7 (ed.: Stuart F. Spicker) Dordrecht: D. Reidel, (1978), pages 29-40.

"Between the Italian Renaissance and the French Enlightenment: Gabriel Naude as an Editor," Renaissance Quarterly 32: 1 (1979), pages 41-72.

"Learned Women of Early Modern Italy: Humanists and University Scholars," in Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past (ed.: Patricia H. Labalme), New York: New York University Press, 1980, pages 91-116.

Marsilio Ficino letterato e le glosses attribuite a lui nel codice Caetani di Dante. Quaderni della Fonazione Camillio Caetani, 3. Rome: Citta nuovas, (1981). 77 pp.

"The Renaissance in the History of Philosophical Thought,": The Renaissance, Essays in Interpretation. Dedicated to Eugenio Garin. London: Methuen, (1982), pages 127-52.

"The Editing of Fifteenth-Century Texts: Tasks and Problems," Italian Culture 4 (1983) pages 115-22.

"Creativity and 'Tradition,'" Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1983), pages 105-113.

"Latin and Vernacular Culture in Fourteenth- and Fifteen Century Italy," Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association 6 (1985), pages 105-25.