‘Old’ and ‘age’ in the renaissance concept of time

A fascinating aspect of the renaissance concept of time is how ‘age’ and ‘old’ were understood. As I mentioned in the previous post, in the static, spatial concept of time all the aspects of time existed in the same space, the present. Similarly, past people and knowledge were understood as contemporaneous to those of the present. Change wasn’t assumed between the past and the present.

The passing of time was expressed with sequences. Some things, ideas, or people preceded others – they had come earlier – but they hadn’t gone away. Aristotle preceded Thomas of Aquinas, for example, but wasn’t replaced by him. They were contemporaneous. But they weren’t the same age.

Things didn’t age through time, like for modern people. Age was measured from the point of view of the present. Earlier things in the sequence were older, because they had existed longer, and the latter were, consequently, younger. Aristotle had been around longer and so was older than Aquinas who in turn was older than the scholars of the present.

The same applied to the aspects of time, as demonstrated by the Titian painting, with which I illustrated the previous post too. From the point of view of the present – the man staring out of the painting – the past has existed longer, and so is represented by the old man. The future, in comparison, is simultaneous to the past and the present, but since it hasn’t been around that long, it is represented by the young man.

Age equalled wisdom. Therefore, people and ideas that came earlier, and so were older, were more important than the younger things closer to the present. Earlier knowledge held stronger authority when compared with the present, although a great difference wasn’t seen between older things; from the point of view of the present, the past seemed to shrink.  Aristotle and Aquinas were held to be closer to each other in the sequence than the latter to the present.

Equalling age with wisdom made possible the renaissance idea of decay as well. As present achievements would never reach the age of the past ones, it wasn’t possible to surpass the achievements and knowledge of the earlier times. The closer one came to the present, the worse it seemed in comparison to the past. When the idea was brought to its natural conclusion, it wasn’t a great leap to believe that everything would continue to deteriorate towards the end of all things.

This definition of ‘old’ was slow to change, but when it did, it heralded a change in the concept of time.