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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