Thinking critically about its implications, what is humanism?

While humanism as a philosophical idea is typically
associated with the Renaissance, its roots are in the Classical period of Greece and
Rome.  In many Greek and Roman works, while the subject treats the deeds of gods and
goddesses and their relationship with humans, authors explored the nature of the human
condition.  Gods and goddesses were subject to the same weaknesses (and sometimes even
more so) as the human population.  At its root, humanism reflects on the human condition
and on humanity.  After the fall of Rome, humanism did not re-emerge until the Italian
Renaissance in the mid- to late fourteenth century.  Rather than maintaining the Middle
Ages' emphasis on humanity's relation to the divine, the focus of writers, artists, and
sculptors again turned toward humanity as an end in itself.  In works such as Da Vinci's
Vitruvian Man, the viewer can see the emphasis on the physical
structure of human beings, in the same way that works by Machiavelli and More explore
human nature, as their texts serve as a response to certain realities they perceived in
human nature. 

While numerous works in the Renaissance
provide insight into the nature of humanism, Erasmus's The Praise of
Folly, Sir Thomas More's Utopia, and Machiavelli's
The Prince tend to stand out from others as in depth explorations
of the human condition, particularly of human frailties.