Y’all know I love the 15th century. Not “the Renaissance”, although “the Renaissance” — insofar as that’s a useful concept of historical analysis, which is not very — was in full swing in Italy by 1400, and soon enough north of the Alps, too. The professional periodization and terminology can be confusing here — the “Northern Renaissance” can refer to different things, sometimes a hundred or more years apart, depending on whether you’re talking about visual arts or poetry or what have you. So I prefer to confine the term “Renaissance” to Italy. Unless I’m talking specifically and exclusively about Italy, I’ll refer to the period as “the 15th century”.
I love it because it’s clearly a watershed moment in human thought. I don’t mean the rediscovery of the classical past; I mean the shift between a more cyclical orientation towards life, versus an orientation around linear time. Time as the regular procession of the seasons, vs. time as a stream or river.
Some examples will help. The 15th century saw not just the creation of archives-based history, but the techniques in various fields that make archival work possible. For instance, the Donation of Constantine was definitively proved to be a forgery in the 15th century, on the basis of philological evidence. Before that point, the people using the Donation – both ways — wouldn’t have cared too much if they knew it was a fake. Not because they were opportunists (although they were), but because “factual accuracy”, to use one of my favorite of the Media’s many Freudian slips, just didn’t matter much back then.
When they said “the Donation of Constantine” they meant “hallowed by tradition”, and if you’d proved to them that the Donation was fake, they’d just keep on keepin’ on — ok, then, “hallowed by tradition” it is, everyone update your style books accordingly.
Severian, “The Ghosts (II)”, Founding Questions, 2022-05-18.
February 19, 2026
QotD: The Donation of Constantine
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