Renaissance

What does “Renaissance” translate to?

Rebirth

When did the Renaissance begin and end, and what was its high point?

It started in the 1300s and ended by 1527, with 1490-1520 being the high point.

What event ended the Renaissance and what other major event eclipsed it?

The Fall of Rome

The Reformation

The surge of interest in what characterized the Renaissance?

Classical ideas, philosophy, and values

What parallel development did the Renaissance see regarding exploration?

The Age of Exploration, which discovered the New World to the West and expanded access to Asia to the East.

What parallel development did the Renaissance see regarding economic and social systems?

The decline of feudalism and the rise of early capitalism, i.e. mercantilism.

What parallel development did the Renaissance see regarding science?

The acceptance of the Copernican model of astronomy over the Ptolemaic.

What three major inventions define the Renaissance?

1. Gutenberg’s printing press

2. Gunpowder

3. Mariner’s compass

The term “Middle Ages” was coined when and by whom to designate what?

1. 1400s

2. Scholars

3. The period between the fall of Roman and Greek civilization and the rebirth of its ideals felt by those scholars in their century.

What intellectual and philosophical movement drove the spirit of the Renaissance, and which did it supplant?

Humanism

Scholasticism

What group initiated humanism and what group was superseded?

Secular men of letters

Scholar-clerics

In what area did humanism begin and achieve fruition?

Italy

Which two major proto-humanist poets predated the movement?

Dante

Petrarch

What major war event helped drive the rise of humanism, when did it occur, and what characterized it?

Fall of Constantinople

1453

Refugee scholars brought classical philosophy and ideals to the West

What did humanism take as its prime subject?

Human nature in all its manifestations and achievements.

What doctrine of combining philosophical and theological systems characterized humanism?

Syncretism

What did humanism take as the two highest human activities, and what did they replace?

Creation and mastery over nature

Penance

Humanism’s effect was in breaking man free of what and inspiring what else?

1. Religious orthodoxy

2. Free, critical inquiry

From Italy, humanism spread to where, and how?

1. Into Northern Europe

2. Via the new printing press invention, which exploded the supply of books.

Which Dutch humanist is considered the greatest of the Northern Renaissance?

Erasmus of Rotterdam

What human activity most famously characterizes the Renaissance?

Art

Renaissance art was done according to what field of study, and what three principles?

1. Mathematics

2. Balance, harmony, perspective

Name the key Renaissance painters of this acronym: RaTiMaDaLoBoAnPeDe

Raphael

Titian

Masaccio

da Vinci

Lorenzetti

Botticelli

Angelico

Pe

Francesca

Name the key Renaissance sculptors of this acronym: MiDoPiVeGh

Michelangelo

Donatello

Pisano

Verrocchio

Ghibert

Name the key Renaissance architects of this acronym: FiMiPaBrAl

Filarete

Michelozzo

Palladio

Brunelleschi

Alberti

What major event wiped out the proto-Renaissance and when?

The Black Death, 1348

The proto-Renaissance occurred between what time periods?

From the late 13th to the mid-14th centuries.

What theological figure did the proto-Renaissance draw inspiration from, and what did he teach?

St. Francis of Assisi

He rejected the prevailing Scholasticism and he praised the value and beauty of nature.

Name the key PROTO-Renaissance artists of this acronym: GiCiDuMa

Giotto

Cimabue

Duccio

Martini

The scientific naturalism of Renaissance artists is defined by what two key areas of study?

Perspective—aerial and linear especially

Anatomy

What two artist-friends left for Rome to study what subjects, and to where did they return?

1. Brunelleschi, the architect, and Donatello, the sculptor

2. Classical architecture and sulpture

3. Florence

Brunelleschi’s greatest achievement is what, and where is it?

The dome of the Duomo, in Florence.

Which cities were conducive to the arts during the Renaissance and why? What rising event enabled art patronization?

1. Florence, Venice, Milan, and Rome

2. Civic pride

3. The rise of early capitalism, mercantilism, enabled rich merchant families to grow.

Which Northern Renaissance artist was commissioned by what merchant family’s agent to produce what famous piece (and when), and what medium did it help inspire others to adopt?

1. Hugo van der Goes

2. The Medici’s Tommaso Portinari

3. The Portinari Altarpiece (1476)

4. Oil

What is the period of time spanning the early 1490s to 1527 known as?

The High Renaissance

What three towering figures characterize the High Renaissance most?

1. Leonardo da Vinci

2. Michelangelo

3. Raphael

Da Vinci is known as epitomizing what type of man?

The Renaissance Man

Why did Da Vinci produce so few paintings, and what else did he produce?

Being a Renaissance man, his polymath nature pulled his interest to anatomy, flight, and plant life, among other areas.