Ch. 13 The Renaissance

Alfonso Mbemba Nzinga

The son of the King of the Congo who adopted a European lifestyle, renamed his capital São Salvador, wore Portuguese dress, and assigned Portuguese titles to his officials.

Christian Humanism

A Renaissance movement in northern Europe that synthesized classical learning with Christian virtues to promote ethical living, education, and broad social reform.

Thomas More

An English humanist lawyer and official who authored Utopia (1516), portraying an ideal socialistic community where societal institutions, rather than human nature, are responsible for vices.

Desiderius Erasmus

A prominent Dutch Christian humanist scholar who published a Greek edition of the New Testament (1516) and The Praise of Folly (1509), advocating for educational reform based on the classics and the Bible.

Philosophy of Christ

A concept defined by Erasmus asserting that Christianity is an internal attitude of the heart and spirit based on the life and direct teachings of Christ, rather than external rituals or scholastic dogma.

François Rabelais

A French humanist author who wrote Gargantua and Pantagruel, using robust comic satire against pedantic and hypocritical institutions while advocating for education and intellectual curiosity.

Jan van Eyck

A Flemish Renaissance painter (1366-1441) known as an early master of oil-based paint, famous for realistic details in works like the Ghent Altarpiece and Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride.

New Monarchs

Fifteenth-century rulers in France, England, and Spain who reasserted royal majesty, suppressed feudal nobility, consolidated territorial state power, and employed middle-class civil servants.

Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges

A 1438 decree by King Charles VII of France asserting general council superiority over the papacy and granting the French crown authority over bishop appointments and ecclesiastical revenues.

Gabelle and Taille

French royal taxes established under Charles VII—the gabelle on salt and the taille on land—which served as the Crown's main revenue sources until 1789.

Concordat of Bologna

A 1516 treaty between King Francis I of France and Pope Leo X granting the French crown control over the selection of French bishops and abbots while restoring papal revenue rights.

Wars of the Roses

Civil wars waged between 1455 and 1471 between the English ducal houses of York and Lancaster, named after their respective white and red rose symbols.

Court of Star Chamber

A judicial offshoot of the English royal council under Henry VII that applied Roman law techniques in secret, without juries or open evidence, to suppress noble lawlessness.

Justices of the Peace

Unpaid local gentry and landowners relied upon by the Tudor monarchy to manage local governance, enforce statutes, and maintain order across English shires.

Reconquista

The centuries-long military campaign by northern Spanish Christian kingdoms to conquer territory from Muslim rulers and integrate or expel non-Christian populations across the Iberian Peninsula.

Hermandades

Local Spanish popular organizations or 'brotherhoods' revived by Ferdinand and Isabella to serve as police forces and judicial tribunals to eliminate noble violence.

Conversos

Also known as Marranos or New Christians, Jewish individuals in Spain who converted to Christianity during periods of anti-Semitic persecution and pogroms.

Spanish Inquisition

A judicial tribunal authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478 and established by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1480 to investigate and punish conversos suspected of secretly practicing Judaism.

Renaissance

The cultural achievements of the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries resting on the commercial and political developments of earlier centuries.

Communes

Sworn associations of free men in northern Italian cities seeking complete political and economic independence from local feudal nobles.

Popolo

A disenfranchised and heavily taxed group of common people in Italian city-states who used force to contest the political exclusivity of the noble communes.

Signori

Despots or one-man rulers who held political power in Italian city-states.

Oligarchies

Regimes in which a small, restricted class of wealthy merchant aristocrats exercised executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government.

Princely Court

The space and personnel surrounding a prince as he conducted administrative, social, and ceremonial activities, used by despots and oligarchs to display wealth and power.

Balance of Power

A system of shifting diplomatic combinations among Italian city-states designed to prevent any single power from dominating the peninsula.

Resident Ambassador

A diplomat stationed permanently in a foreign capital to monitor political and commercial relations, introduced during the Italian Renaissance.

Girolamo Savonarola

A Dominican friar (1452-1498) who attacked the worldly corruption, undemocratic government, and papal authority in Florence before being excommunicated and executed.

Habsburg-Valois Wars

A series of conflicts beginning in 1521 between the German Habsburg dynasty and the French Valois dynasty, frequently fought on Italian soil.

Francesco Petrarch

A fourteenth-century poet and humanist (1304-1374) who viewed the period between the fall of Rome and his own era as a barbarian Dark Age and proclaimed the start of a new intellectual golden age.

Individualism

A Renaissance attitude that stressed personal uniqueness, genius, ambition, and the full development of one's capabilities.

Humanism

An intellectual movement based on the study of the Latin classics to understand human nature, emphasize human potential, and promote eloquent communication.

Secularism

A basic orientation focusing on the material world, sensory experiences, and immediate worldly pursuits rather than eternal spiritual concerns.

Lorenzo Valla

A humanist thinker (1406-1457) who defended sensory pleasure and demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine was an eighth-century forgery using textual analysis.

High Renaissance

The period from 1500 to 1527 when the center of Renaissance art shifted to Rome, defined by classical balance, harmony, and restraint.

Perspective

The linear representation of spatial depth or distance on a flat surface in visual art.

The Courtier

A 1528 treatise by Baldassare Castiglione intended to train and discipline young upper-class men into the refined ideal of a gentleman.

The Prince

A 1513 political work by Niccolò Machiavelli asserting that political authority should focus on maintaining power through realistic and effective means rather than moral ideals.

Movable Type

A printing innovation developed around 1454 in Mainz using individual rearranged metal character blocks to produce texts on paper.

Office of the Night

A special magistracy created in Florence in 1432 composed of married men over age forty-five tasked with prosecuting male sodomy.

Jacob Burckhardt

19th century historian who claimed the Renaissance period was in distinct contrast to the Middle Ages.

Signori

Despots who, along with oligarchies, controlled much of Italy by 1300.

Commenda

A contract between a merchant and a 'merchant-adventurer' who agreed to take goods to distant locations and return with the proceeds for 1/3 of profits.

Condottieri

Mercenary generals of private armies hired by cities for military purposes.

Cosimo de’Medici

Florentine leader (1389-1464) who allied with other powerful families of Florence and became unofficial ruler of the republic.

Lorenzo de’Medici

Son of Cosimo de'Medici, known as 'the Magnificent' (1449-1492), who was a significant patron of the arts.

Peace of Lodi

A 1454 treaty that created a relative 40-year period of peace among the Italian city-states.

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

Italian territory including Naples and the island of Sicily; it was the only Italian city-state to officially have a 'king'.

Ludovico 'the Moor'

Milan's despot who encouraged French king Charles VIII to invade Naples in 1494.

Girolamo Savonarola

Unofficial leader of Florence between 1494-1498 who oversaw a theocracy, pledged to rid Florence of its decadence and corruption, and was burned at the stake in 1498.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Author (1469-1527) who wrote The Prince in 1513 as a political treatise on modern statecraft.

The Prince

1513 political treatise by Machiavelli stating that 'the ends justifies the means' and that 'it was better to be feared than to be loved'.

Cesare Borgia

Son of Pope Alexander VI whose political leadership and ambitions of uniting Italy were observed by Machiavelli.

Sack of Rome

1527 attack by the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V that symbolized the end of the Renaissance in Italy.

Northern Renaissance vs. Italian Renaissance Drivers

Italian Renaissance art was inspired by humanism and the revival of classical antiquity values, whereas Northern European Renaissance art was driven by religious reform, a return to Christian values, and a revolt against Church authority.

Jan van Eyck

Flemish painter (1395-1441) who served as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and created works such as The Virgin and Chancellor Rolin, Ghent Altarpiece, and the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait.

Rogier van der Weyden

Flemish artist (1399-1464) known for his 1435 masterwork panel painting, The Deposition.

Quentin Massys

Antwerp artist (1465-1530) influenced by da Vinci and part of Erasmus's humanist circle, whom Thomas More described as 'the renovator of the old art.'

Francis I

French king and artistic patron who encouraged humanistic learning, invited Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto to France, and collected paintings by Titian, Raphael, and Michelangelo.

The School of Fontainebleau

A group of artists who decorated Francis I's palace between the 1530s and 1560s in an offshoot of Italian Mannerism characterized by refined elegance, elaborate stucco work, and courtly allegory.

Lucas Cranach the Elder

German artist (1472-1553) who served as court painter at Wittenberg from 1505 to 1553 and was noted for painting portraits of Martin Luther.

Matthias Grünewald

German painter (1470-1528) who converted to Lutheranism, possibly supported the peasants in the Peasants' Revolt, and specialized in depictions of intense, painful emotion such as The Mocking of Christ.

Albrecht Dürer

German scholar, scientist, and artist (1471-1528) patronized by Emperor Maximilian I, known for his self-portraits, books on geometry and human proportions, and woodcuts like Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Hans Holbein, the Younger

German artist (1497-1543) who befriended Erasmus in Basel, worked extensively in England, and became court painter to Henry VIII in 1536, known for objective portraits that exposed subject weaknesses.

Hardwick Hall

An English country house designed in the 1590s by Robert Smythson for the Duchess of Shrewsbury, featuring a design that was more medieval in style.

Burghley House

The largest and grandest house of the early Elizabethan era, constructed for William Cecil.

Hieronymus Bosch

Northern painter (1450-1516) admired by Philip II of Spain; known for a pessimistic view of humanity, flat non-perspective figures, and imaginative monster-filled works like The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Antwerp and Brussels master landscape artist (1525-1569) in touch with Erasmian humanists who focused on human vices and follies using expressionless, representative face types.

Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco)

Greek-born Spanish painter (1541-1614) whose distorted, elongated figures, flickering light, and vivid colors expressed the spirit of the Spanish Counter-Reformation.

Northern Mannerist Phase

The final artistic stage of the Northern Renaissance, which persisted a generation longer in Northern Europe than in Italy, where Mannerism became outmoded by 1600.

Johan Gutenburg

Inventor of the Printing Press which transformed both the public and personal lives of Europeans - lead to the production of Gutenberg’s Bible (1456)

Henry VII of England

(r. 1485-1509) The first Tudor king, he established a powerful monarchy and ended the Wars of the Roses, uniting the houses of Lancaster and York

Louis XI of France

(r. 1461-1483) A French monarch known as the "Spider King" who centralized power, weakened the nobility, and promoted the use of a bureaucratic state

Ferdinand of Aragon (Spain)

(r. 1479-1516) The King of Aragon who, along with his wife Isabella I of Castile, completed the Reconquista and sponsored Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage

Isabella of Castile (Spain)

(r. 1474-1504) The queen of Castile, she united Spain with Ferdinand of Aragon, sponsored Christopher Columbus's voyages, and played a key role in the Spanish Inquisition

Charles VII of France

(r. 1422-1461) revived French monarchy by implementing significant reforms and strengthening royal authority after the Hundred Years' War

Jerome Bosch

A Dutch painter known for his fantastical and often surreal imagery, Bosch's works explore moral and religious themes, with notable pieces like "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and "The Last Judgment”

Materialism

an ideologically-driven view emphasizing physical matter over spiritual or intellectual values

Machiavellian

relating to the political philosophy of Machiavelli, characterized by cunning, scheming, and opportunism in politics

Jan Hus

A Czech theologian and reformer who criticized the Catholic Church's practices and is considered a precursor to the Protestant Reformation, he was burned at the stake in 1415 for heresy

English Royal Council

A medieval institution consisting of advisers to the king, primarily responsible for governance, lawmaking, and administering the realm

Conquest of Grenada

The capture of the last Muslim kingdom in Spain by the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492, marking the end of the Reconquista

Brunelleschi’s Founding Hospital in Florence

An early example of Renaissance architecture, showcasing the principles of symmetry and harmony while serving as a home for orphans and the sick

Pico Della Miradola

A Renaissance philosopher known for his work "Oration on the Dignity of Man," expressing the humanist belief in individual potential and the importance of free will

Donatello

(1386-1466) The sculptor revived the classical figure, with its balance and self-awareness, creating works such as the iconic David and Mary Magdalene

Baldassare Castiglione

(1478-1529) An Italian diplomat and writer, best known for his work "The Book of the Courtier," which outlines the ideal behaviors and virtues of a courtier in Renaissance society

Lefevre d’Etaples

A French humanist and theologian, he was known for his Latin translations of the Bible and works that emphasized the importance of education and classical texts during the Renaissance

Saint John Chrysostom

A prominent early Church father known for his eloquent preaching and public speaking, he served as the Archbishop of Constantinople and is recognized for his contributions to Christian theology

Benefits of the Printing Press

• The government was able to spread propaganda, literacy of lay people increased and the gap between oral and written culture was bridged

• It also informed the lives of the public and allowed them to have opinions on larger-scale politics and quick communication

What social group did not like the “New Monarchs”?

Nobility, feudal lords and aristocrats

What was Erasmus key to reform?

Erasmus believed that education was the key to moral and intellectual reform, the core of education should be the study of the Bible and Latin classics 

Who were Black slaves treated during the Renaissance?

Showcased and displayed as a sign of wealth. They were valued because they were considered to be more “exotic” and they usually had ordinary servant-level jobs

When was the mechanical clock created?

In the 1300's, they were very common by 1320

What is international style?

It is the type of art that uses rich color, swaying figures, and a more accurate depiction of humanity that transcends any particular country

What did the Northern Humanist believe about nature?

They believed that even though humanity was being corrupted by sin, that people were inherently good and had the ability and capacity to stave off evil and be virtuous

How did English Kings limit the power of Parliament?

Parliament had gained a lot of leverage by controlling the checkbooks, and large amounts of money were spent on war. So the kings simply practiced careful negotiations to avoid war, therefore becoming self-sufficient. They also composed advisory boards like the royal council, which consisted of the middle class, and devised their own systems for making laws and appointing local authorities outside of the nobility

Why is it so easy to invade Italy?

They were politically loyal to their individual city-states making it difficult for them to unify as one state. They failed to make a cohesive system, or any collective foreign policy, and they were viewed as an easy target for invasion and plundering

Balance of Power Dipolmacy

The Italian city-states, though divided, all shared a common desire to remain independent and whenever a city state got too powerful, it jeopardized all the others. So whenever that happened, all the other city states would rally against the most powerful and take them down a few pegs

What two city-states had the biggest slave trade?

Genoa and Venice

Who wrote Dignity of Man?

Pico della Mirandola

When was the movable type invented?

Movable type was invented in 1454 by Joahann Gutenberg, Johann Fust, and Peter Shofer