The Italian Renaissance.

Renaissance: “rebirth”, or to be born again

  • 1500s to 1600s
  • Birthplace of the Renaissance is Italy
  • It focused on lots of arts, literature, and science.
  • Had brought back many greek and roman cultures that they had known of

Why Italy?

Italy is the birthplace of the Renaissance for several reasons: Geography, Invention of the printing press, economy, and freedom of speech

  • Geography:

    • Italy is in the ruins of parts of the fallen Roman Empire, so they were able to just explore their area and learn about how the people before had lived
    • Using this to their advantage, they learned many things about the way Romans lived, and they had added it to their own ideas
  • Invention of the Printing Press

    • with the church still in charge at this time, it was hard for information to pass through and spread to other places
    • the printing press would print out information and spread them way faster than verbal communication
    • besides faster speed, it’s also more accurate than verbal communication as it’s says the same thing but all written down on papers
  • Freedom of Expression

    • People were allowed to say what they wanted to, with the exception of the church trying to stop them
  • Rich Economy

    • Italy had a pretty big population at that time. 
    • This was a good thing
    • More people could mean that there’s more geniuses amongst the crowd
    • It could also mean more people could come together and talk about ideas
    • Italy also has 2 popular trade cities: Venice and Florence
    • Since Italy is full of merchants that trade with people coming from everywhere, they have enough money to patronize the arts. 
    • This meaning that they were able to buy from artists, financially supporting them

    \n 4 main thinkings that came out of the Renaissance:

  1. Secularism
    • Secular: meaning real, or “of the earth”
    • The people had shifted their focus on religion onto the real world
    • It doesn’t mean that they stopped being religious, just that religion wasn’t the only thing people were living for anymore 
    • examples of this would be the increase of study in literature or science
  2. Humanism:
    • Humanism: of the humans 
    • This was the thinking that humans weren’t meant to be God’s pawn
    • They have their own life to live for, and that was glorified
    • Mankind, anatomy, etc. was basically, was honored through arts 
      • Example: pictures of nudity shows how important the human body was to them
  3. Individualism:
    • Almost like a subcategory for Humanism, Individualism focuses on each and every person and how important they might be for society
    • It basically says that every human being is unique, and society shouldn’t drag them down just because they are different
  4. Skepticism:
    • Skepticism sounds like skeptical, and that’s basically what it was
    • At the time being, the church had all the knowledge of the world. People were to just accept them without proof (no questions)
    • Now, they were questioning the information given to them, and this led to them finding answers to their questions themselves, leading to a scientific discovery period as well

Big People from the Renaissance:

  • Leonardo da Vinci:

    • Pretty popular artist
    • Mona Lisa
    • The Last Supper
  • Michelangelo

    • Another artist, but also a sculptor
    • “David” statue
    • Painted Sistine Church ceiling
  • Shakespeare 

    • Literature writer 
    • popular works of literature and plays
    • Romeo and Juliet 
  • Dante

    • Philosopher 
    • Poet
    • Wrote “The Devine Comedy”

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