The term “universal man” was coined by Jacob
Burckhardt, the Swiss historian and exponent of cul-
tural history, in his classic study, Die Kultur der
Renaissance in Italien (1860). He used it to charac-
terize the fully developed personalities of fifteenth-
century Italy, meaning by the uomo universale a dis-
tinctive social type: one who combines comprehensive
learning with the practice of one or more of the arts
or professions.
Although the idea has its source and most significant
development in the context of Renaissance history, it
also plays a role in pedagogical thought (discussed
below) and social criticism. In these domains, it repre-
sents a cultural ideal—as it did for the Renaissance.
Contemporary discussions of the complete man as an
educational and social goal are marked, however, by
nostalgia rather than by genuine aspiration. Renais-
sance universality is most often used as a foil, setting
off by sharp contrast the specialization of knowledge,
the one-sided personal development, and the philis-
tinism fostered by modern technocratic society and
its scientific culture. In the abundant literature on
Leonardo da Vinci, for example, Morris Philipson has
found a reflection of our own cultural discontent. If
Leonardo has become a sort of archetype, it is “...
as an ideal of fulfillment in an age of frequent frustra-
tion, as an idea of completeness in an era of frag-
mentation, as a joyous expression of how optimis-
tic-dreamer and practical-planner might be combined
in this world of narrow specialties giving lip-service
to the gods of 'creativity'” (Leonardo da Vinci, Aspects
of the Renaissance Genius [1966], p. vii).
This sense of wholeness, the versatility and unity of
personality which Leonardo represents, seems to be
denied us. Yet it is precisely because these charac-
teristics are rarely realized today that the idea of uni-
versal man attracts (and deserves) attention. When a
human type of great social worth threatens to pass out
of existence, it is well to reflect upon its nature, to
determine which of its features are peculiar to the age
that brought it forth and which can be thought of as
being of general cultural value. This can best be done
by turning to the historical literature from which con-
temporary social and educational thought derives its
conceptions of the universal man. His thought and
mode of life, the intellectual and social conditions that
once sustained him: these are subjects developed in
several studies of Renaissance culture and of its repre-
sentative personalities.
