Humanism today

The world urgently needs to return to humanism, the emancipatory movement born in the Renaissance and founded on a surge of critical thought, a return to ancient sources, and the development of universities – a notion which seems to some obsolete, to others politically appropriated. Researchers and professors at UCLouvain say that university education, beyond the seven liberal arts which comprise the mastery of figures and letters, can only be humanist, today like yesterday: its goal is to forge citizens who use their talents and skills to serve others and in whom intelligence is inseparable from ethical awareness. In 1425, the institutional bull of the University of Louvain expressed in surprisingly simple and visionary terms the university's founding principles, as well as its vocation, its rootedness in society, and the unique bonds that unite its students, researchers and professors. Thanks to Guido Latré, this modest volume includes a previously unpublished English translation of this essential document of the late Middle Ages. This book is a compass for the mind.