A Poet passed this Way
by PhotosOnTheMove

At IE Humanities in @ minute you’ll find short stories, essays, poetry, and other writing from a wide range of authors, chosen and read by members of the IE community, which is to say people from all over the world.

IE Business School’s approach to education is hands on, it’s about managing things and learning how ideas can be applied to the real world. That said, we also understand the importance of theory, applying Leonardo da Vinci’s belief that “Those who fall in love with practice without science are like the helmsman who joins the fleet without rudder or compass.”

Like so many of his Renaissance contemporaries, Leonardo drew inspiration from what the Romans, a millennium earlier, called Humanitas: the love of what makes us human, combined with education and other virtues.

When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, the writers and artists of ancient times would appeal to the Humanitas of their rulers. For example, after being banished from Rome to Thrace, Ovid wrote to local ruler King Cotys seeking his protection, as he explains in his Letters from Pontus. The writers of classical antiquity understood that Humanitas was an essential part of all human activity and that it was strengthened through cultivation of the arts.

The works you’ll find here are a humble contribution to the cultivation of Humanitas, and this introduction our captatio benevolentiae, requesting the indulgence of you, the reader, bearing in mind that we’re simply a few aficionados of literature.

Félix Valdivieso