APEH unit 2: Renaissance

In what ways, is the fifteenth century a period of significant political, economic, artistic, and intellectual change?

How did intellectuals of the period restore or rebirth arts and literature of the Greek and Romans?

Humanists: people that focused on the subjects and ideas created by humans. (Art, Language, Rhetoric, Ethics, Poetry, and History)

Secularism: Minimizing the role of religion in social life, separating religion and the state.

Individualism: realizing self worth and potentiality by exploring talents without the pressure of living up to their social role. Inspired people to leave the life they were given by expanding their skills and abilities in other areas.

Civic Humanist Culture: The practice of using humanities to benefit and better society. An individual must do good in the community to continue growing intellectually and morally.

Vernacular: language spoken by people in certain regions or countries. It was important to write in vernacular language in order to reach a widespread audience, especially of the bible and Christianity.

Michelangelo: Italian Artist of the Renaissance. Early 16th century

Pope Julius II: “warrior pope”

Pope Julius had hired Michelangelo

Renaissance was seen as the rebirth of Greco-Roman civilization that had been “neglected” for many centuries. The Italian Renaissance depicts its revival through the arts and literature.

Jacob Burckhardt created the modern concept of the Renaissance (The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy). Italy was seen as the birthplace of the rise of individuality and secularism.

Religious sentiment:

Renaissance influenced economic, political, and social life; seen for a distinct period of European history, starting in Italy and then spreading to the rest of Europe.

Northern Italy: consisted of independent cities called city-states.

Renaissance was also an era of recovery from the burdens of the Black Death (political disorder and economic declines)

Affected politics, art, and emphasized Greco-Roman culture with Christian thought

Individualism was an important ability in the Italian Renaissance.

A realization of individual potentiality was a new social ideal; being capable of many achievements in many areas of life

Features only really reflected the wealthy upper class that made up a small percentage of the population

Achievements of the Renaissance were done by an elite individual rather than a mass movement of people

Affected the ordinary people in the cities (as the intellectual and artistic accomplishments were visible)

What major social changes occurred during the Renaissance?

European economy recovered through the increase of manufacture and trade

Economic Recovery

Known as the Hansa or the Hanseatic League : commercial and military association between North German coastal towns. They had owned many cities where they had established settlements and commercial bases, such as in England and in northern Europe. Their markets from northern Europe trade consisted of timber, fish, grain, metals, honey, and wines.

Southern outlet in Flanders, port city of Bruges was a meeting point for Hansa merchants and the Flanders Fleet of Venice

Flanders Fleet of Venice: merchants that traded from Benice to England and the Netherlands

Fall of the Byzantine Empire: put restrictions on trade with Italians and the Venetians

Italian city-states began to struggle from competition due to transatlantic discoveries gave new importance to states alone the ocean

Industries Old and New

Woolen industries of Flanders and Northern Italian cities were devastated however..

Florentine woolen industry begins to recover

Italian cities developed luxury industries, such as silk, glassware, and metal and stone items

Printing, mining, and metal architecture (metallurgy) competed with the textile industry for importance

Machinery and techniques for digging mines and separating metals from ore and purifying them were designed. Mining operations were created to produce copper, iron, and silver

Rich minerals in central Europe

Increase of iron production and improvement of metal working were more effective

Banking and the Medici

Florence’s excellence in banking of the fifteenth century was owed to the Medici family

Cloth production into commerce, real estate, and banking

The House of Medici was the greatest bank in Europe

Branches in Venice, Milan, Rome, Avignon, Bruges, Londone, and Lyons.

Enterprises for wool, wilk, and the mining of alum (textile dye)

They were principal bankers for the papacy, that produced large profits and influence at the papal courts

Suffered a decline due to week leadership, bad loans (especially to rulers).

Social Changes in the Renaissance

Three Estates in Social Structure (same as Middle Ages)

First Estate: the Clergy - superiority existed only because of the belief that people should be guided to spiritual ends. Christianity

Second Estate: the Nobility - expected to serve his prince, adhere to the principles of being noble, regal, educated in Classical arts, while dominating society and politics

Third Estate: the peasants and towns people - made up 85-90% of the European population, patricians (trade, industry, baking), petty burghers (shopkeepers, artisans, guild masters, and guild members which provided goods and services for local consumption), homeless workers (earning weak wages), and the unemployed (lived horrible lives)

Bottom of Hierarchy: Slaves

Slavery in the Renaissance

Christians and Muslims used prisoners as slaves during the Reconquista in Spain

Shortage of workers after the Black Plague resulted in the use of slavery

Italian cities used slaves as skilled workers. Girls served in households as nursemaids. Boys were playmates. Most slaves were young females.

Concubines: a woman that lived with a man, but with a lower status than his wife (mistress)

Most illegitimate children (children of a man and his slave or concubine) were not fortunate to be born

Family

Included extended family and servants, if they were rich

Parents arranged marriages to strengthen family ties or business

Dowry: amount of money the wife’s family presented to the husband

The size indicated if they were moving up or down in status

Father-husband was the center of the Italian family: responsible for legal matters, finances, and determined his children’s lives

Children were only free if they went to a judge to be emancipated. (early teens to late twenties)

Wife managed the household, bare children

Wealthy women had their children nursed by wet nurses, so that they could quickly conceive children simultaneously

Upper Class families wanted to have lots of children so that they ensure there is a male heir to their family fortune

Italian States in the Renaissance

How did Machiavelli’s works reflect the political realities of Renaissance Italy?

Milan, Venice, Florence, the Papal States, and Naple claimed authority of the Italian peninsula.. These were the five major states

Florence

Cosimo de’ Medici controlled the oligarchy (small merchant) that ruled Florence

Medici family publicly supported republican forms of government, but ran the government in secret

Lorenzo the Magnificent and Cosimo were able to dominate Florence with the use of political allies and patronages

The Bank of Amsterdam was the chief financier of mercantilism. The Huguenots were French Protestants and have little or nothing to do with mercantilism. The landed gentry did not support mercantilism because it compromised their economic position. The Medicis were an Italian banking family, but their bank ceased to exist by the sixteenth century.

Papal States

Central Italy

Papal residence in Avignon and the Great Schism had allowed Urbino, Bologna, and Ferrara to become independent of papal authority

Renaissance popes had wanted to reestablish their authority over the Papal States

Kingdom of Naples

Southern italy and the land of Sicily

Caused conflict between the French and the Aragonese. The Aragonese won in the mid fifteenth century.

Population consisted of poverty-struck peasants dominated by unruly nobles.

Little cultural glories of the Renaissance

Independent City-States

Independent city-states that were ruled by superior families that were the center of Renaissance culture

Mantua - Gonzaga (enlightened)

Ferrara - d’Este Family

Urbino - Montefeltro dynasty

Urbino

ruled by Montefeltro dynasty (Fedrigo da Motefeltro)1444-1482

Learned the skills of fighting and provided for his people by being hired as condottieri

Not a good ruler, bu reliable and honest

Patron of the Renaissance, Urbino became well known as a Renaissance center

He was very charitable

The Role of Women

Women in the independent city-states were known as intelligent and powerful women

They were very educated and attracted artists and intellectuals to their courts

Battista Sforze: wife of Federigo .. ruled Urbino while her husband was absent as a member of the Italian troops

Isabelle d’Este: daughter of Ferdinand .. “first lady of the world,” created finest library all of Italy, she ruled Mantua and was a clever negotiator

Warfare in Italy

Balance of power: used to prevent domination of one state at the expense of the others

Peace of Lodi: peaceful alliance (Milan, Florence, and Naples vs Venice and the papacy. Though allowed balance, it did not keep cooperation among the major powers.

Italy became a power battle between the french and spanish monarchies

Beginning of Italian Wars- French invasion of Italy

Charles VIII 8, with an army of 30,000 attacked Italy and took control of the Naples.

Italian states asked for the Spanish’s help

For 15 years, they compete to dominate Italy

Italy does not unify until 1870

Niccolo Machiavelli (political science critic)

After the Medici family

The Prince is written from knowledge of Ancient Rome and Italy’s political problems

Small Italian states were no match for the larger monarchical states outside of Italy

He contradicted the theory that a prince or ruler should behave according to Christian moral principles. He gives the advice that princes should strive to be feared than loved by the people. His subjects carry out deeds for the benefit of himself.

Desiderius Erasmus (opposition of Machiavelli)

Works for the Church, but doesn’t agree with their methods

The Praise of Folly makes fun of the Church.

Education of a Christian Prince contrasts Machiavelli. Erasmus believes that rulers should rule for the benefit of the people. Mass suffering for one ultimate person is not right, as it is ineffective.

New Technology

Printing Press: Before the printing press, creating books were a tedious and lengthy process. Illuminated Manuscripts. Johannes Gutenberg created the first one in Europe. This allowed for more ordinary people to also gain access to books, not just the upper class. New books were manufactured in more languages instead of only Italian.

The invention of the printing press allowed for a wider, quicker, and more effective way to spread books. Knowledge and ideas were disseminated at a faster rate, contributing to the flourish of intellectuals and cultural advancements.

The Bible helped spread Christianity and promoted religious reform.

The works of Shakespeare made him famous.

Galileo spread his scientific works and brought in the Scientific Revolution

Martin Luther spread his writings and brought in the Protestant Reformation

Individualism

Division between North and South Italy

Northern Italy

• Northern Renaissance is known for religious piety

• Focused on scenes of nature, religion, society, and Christianity

• Less patrons of the arts

• Different paints

• Wanted schools to educate based on God, rather than politics

• Developed a more religious renaissance

• Christian Humanism: Desiderius Erasmus believed that education in the bible and the classics is true societal reform. Renewal should be based on the word of Christ.

Southern Italy

• Southern Italy: mathematics, secularism, and flourish of arts

• Focused on classical Greek and Roman

• Patrons of Arts

• secular

Spain

Was ruled by the Muslims… Not racist

Spanish try to take their land back and are hardcore Spanish Christianss

There are two parts of Spain: Castile(Isabella) and Aragon(Ferdinand)

Isabella and Ferdinand unite their kingdoms through their marriage, keeping the same parliaments, speech, and customs

Strong military forces made it the best in Europe by the 16th century

Muslims had control of Constantinople, however due to this conflict, Spain isn’t able to advance through and travel to Asia. Isabella and Ferdinand hire Christopher Columbus. This mistake allows the discovery of America.

Holy Roman Empire

Habsburg family

The Catholic Church

Church develops many scandals and are called out for their horrible explanations. Many men bought their way into the position of the pope and do not seem to represent Jesus or the Church. They were blinded by the money advantages and wealth in the position. People began to call out the exploitation of these men.

Jan Hus writes and published about the crimes of the Pope and emphasizes how it does not make sense with the rules of Christianity. He is arrested and burnt at the stake in Rome.

Heresy: If you are caught condemning or disagreeing with the the Church’s practice, the Church is out to get you.

John Wycliffe: condemned the church by publishing a list of their indecencies, translated the bible, Followers were Lollards

Erasmus: emphasized the exploitation of the church using irony and humor, so that it would get by the Church

Pantheism: God can be seen in nature and in earthly objects. There is divinity within all aspects of natures.

Neoplatonism: humans are the link between the materialistic and spiritual world.

“New Monarchies”: 1450-1648. Monarchies of Europe redeveloped their political, economic, and social structures. Centralized states: they expanded their armies. The decline of Feudalism caused new social classes.

France

• King Louis XI: centralized power in France and took power away from the nobility

• Kin Francis I: created a standing army and gave the monarchy control over the Catholic Church in France

• King Henry IV: ended the wars of Religion and created the Bourbon dynasty which rules France until the French Revolution

Spain

• Queen Isabella I / King Ferdinand II: united Spain

• King Charles I: takes the Spanish Throne and becomes Holy Roman Emperor, expanding the empire to much of Europe and the Americas

Petrarch: Known as the father of Italian Renaissance humanism. He gave up his father’s wish of becoming a lawyer and became a writer. He contributed a lot to the development of the Renaissance during the fourteenth century.

Petrarch believed that the Middle ages (obviously because of the Black Death) was ignorant of Classical antiquity of the ancient Greek.

Humanism began to shift in the fifteenth century and developed into civic-humanism. Intellectuals said that individuals have the duty of serving the state and the society. There was a growing interest in Classical Greek civilization.

Lorenzo Valla was able to disprove the authorative documents of the Church.

Marsilio Ficino: academy leader in Italy. He believed humans responsibility was to become one with God as their fate. Everything is bonded by sympathetic love.

Hermeticism (product of the Florentine intellectual environment) Based on the manuscripts. One type relied on the vast mystery of sciences, while the other was focused on theology and philosophy.

EDUCATION in the Renaissance:

Renaissance humanists believed that human beings could be changed by education.

Books and schools were more prominent.

Northern Renaissance:

• great intellectual and artistic movement that focused on individualism and humanism

• motivated by classical learning

• Religious Reformation: Protestant Reformation challenged the Catholic Church and caused the spread of Protestant beliefs

• Artistic Movements: Artists did lots of experimenting with techniques and styles

• Northern Renaissance focused on realism and the use of light and shadow to add depth and texture

• Scientific Advancements: Scholars contributed more to astronomy, mathematics, and anatomy.

• Desiderius Erasmus is a significant figure who was a humanist that criticizes religion within the Catholic Church.

• William Shakespeare: Engligh playwright and poet

Italian Renaissance:

• emergence of classical art, literature, and philosphy

• focused on humanism and individualism

• surge of ancient Greek and Roman texts

• flourish of arts, sciences, and humanities

The impact of the Italian Renaissance is its influence on Western culture. It developed many art styles and inspired literature.

German Peasants' War (1524-1525) was fundamentally about peasants and commoners protesting against feudal oppression and seeking greater freedoms and rights. They were inspired by the broader Reformation ideas that questioned traditional authorities and advocated for a more direct relationship between individuals and God, which they extended to social and political realms. The demand for the right to fight for their freedoms and rights reflects the core of the peasants' grievances and objectives during the uprising. yeeass