The Renaissance, Northern Renaissance, and Reformations

Italy:The birthplace of the Renaissance

The Italian renaissance is a rebirth of learning that produces many great works of art, and literature.

Renaissance - to be born again

Italy’s advantages

- The Renaissance

• Renaissance-An explosion of creativity in art, writing, and thought

• Started in northern Italy

• Lasted from 1300 to 1600

- Merchants and the Medici

• A wealthy merchant class develops

• More emphasis on individual achievement

• A banking family, the Medici, controls Florence

- Looking to Greece and Rome

• Artist and scholars, study ruins of Rome, and study Latin and Greek manuscripts

• Scholars moved to Rome after the fall of Constantinople in 1453

  Usury - a sin; loaning money and profiting

Classical and worldly values

- Classics lead to humanism

• Humanism is the intellectual movement focused on human achievements

• Humanist, study, classical history, literature, and philosophy

- Worldly pleasure

• Renaissance Society was secular - worldly

• The wealthy enjoyed fine wine, foods, homes, and clothes

- Patron of the arts

• A patron is a financial supporter of artists

• Church leaders spend money on works of art to beautify cities

• Wealthy merchants were also patrons of the arts

- The renaissance man

• Excels in many fields: The classics art politics and combat

• Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier (1528)

• The book teaches how to become a “universal” person

- The renaissance woman

• Upper class, educated in classics, charming

• Expected to inspire art, but not create it

• Isabella D’este, Patron of artists, wheeled power in Mantua

The renaissance revolutionizes art

- Artistic style changes

• Artist use, realistic style, copied from classical art, often to portray religious subjects

• Painters use perspective - Way to show three dimensions on a canvas

Artists of the Renaissance

- Michael Angelo

• Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel

• Michelangelo based his art on Greek gods

- Leonardo

• Artist was a great drawer

• Would dissect dead humans to understand the organs, muscles, bones, etc

• Would be viewed as sacrilegious

• Credited with inventing the helicopter, help city states with battle weapons

• Drew a fetus in the womb and the virtuous man

Rafael advances realism

• Rafael Sanzio- Famous for his use of perspective

• Favorite subject: Madonna and child

• Favorite painting: School of Athens

Renaissance writers change literature

- New trends in writing

• Writers used the vernacular - Their native language

• Self expression or to portray individual of the subject

- Petrarch and Boccaccio

• Francesco Petrarch , A humanist and poet;

• His muse was a woman named Laura

  • Boccaccio is best known for the Decameron, a series of stories

  • The stories were like The Walking Dead, and they were about wanting to stay away from the plague

  • People didn’t want others to know they were reading the Decameron

- Machiavelli

• Niccolò Machiavelli , author of political guidebook, The Prince

• The Prince examines, how rulers can gain and keep power

The Northern Italian Renaissance

- The spirit of the Renaissance

• Italy impresses visitors from northern Europe

• When the hundred years war ends in 1453 cities grow rapidly

• Merchants in northern cities, grow wealthy and sponsor artist

• England and France unify under strong monarch, who are our patrons

• Northern Renaissance artist with realism

• Humanist interested in social reform based on Judeo Christian

• Joan of arc - Patron; Helped French hundred year war; Captured by English and burned at the stake

- Renaissance style migrate north

• Artists and writers move to northern Europe, fleeing the war in Italy

- German painters

• Albrecht Dürer’s wood cuts and engravings emphasize realism

• Hans Holbein

Artistic ideas spread

- Flemish painters

• Flanders is the artistic center of northern Europe

• Jan van Eyck - Pioneer and oil based painting uses layers of paint

• Pieter Bruegel - Capture scenes of peasant, life with realistic detail

- Northern Writers

• Criticize the Catholic Church and starts Christian humanism

• wants to reform society and promote education

• Northern writing was more sarcastic, and made fun of Royals

- Christian humanism

• Desiderius Erasmus of Holland - The best known Christian Humanist

• His book, the praise of Foley, pokes, fun at merchants and priests

• Thomas Moore of England creates a model society in his book Utopia

• More was beheaded because he rejected a divorce for Henry the eighth because she didn’t have male heirs

- Women’s reforms

• Christine de Pizan - One of the first female writers

• She promotes education and equal treatment for boys and girls

The Elizabeth and age

- Queen Elizabeth I

• Renaissance spreads to England in the mid-1500s

• Known as the Elizabeth age, after Queen Elizabeth I

• Elizabeth reigns from 1558 to 1603

• Most long lived monarch

• Nicknamed the virgin queen

• She creates the Anglican church aka The Episcopal Church

• Guy Faux Tries to kill her

- William Shakespeare

• Shakespeare’s often regarded as the greatest playwright

• Born in Stratford upon Avon in 1564

• His plays were performed at London’s globe theater

• Some theories say that he used ghost writers

Printing spreads Renaissance ideas

- Chinese invention

• Around 1054, Bi Sheng of China Invent a movable type of printing press

• It uses a separate piece of type for each character

Luther leads The reformations

- Church authority challenged

• Secularism, individualism of renaissance challenges, the churches authority

• Rulers challenge the churches power

• The printing press spread secular ideas

• Northern merchants resent paying taxes known as a tithe (10%)

- Criticism of the Catholic Church

• Corrupt leaders, extravagant popes

• Poorly educated priests

- Causes of the reformations

• John Wycliffe and Jan Hus stress the Bibles authority over clergy

• Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas Moore, our vocal critics of the church

• Reading religious works, Europeans form their own opinions about the church

• Thomas Moore - Martyr/Saint

• The reformations have been building for a long time

- The 95 Theses

• Martin Luther protest Friar John Tetzel‘s selling of indulgences

• Indulgences - Pardon, releasing a person from a penalty for sin

• In 1517, Luther post, his 95 pieces attacking “pardon merchants”

• Luther theses circulate throughout Germany

• Luther launches the reformation - A movement for religious reform

• The reformation rejects the popes authority

- Luther challenges the church

• The church: Thought people can win salvation by Goodworks and faith

• Luther: Christian teachings must be based on the Bible not the pope

• Luther: All people are equal and can interpret the Bible without priests

• Pope Leo X issues a decree threatening to excommunicate Luther (1520)

• Luther’s rights of church membership are taken away

• Luther refuses to take back his statements and his excommunicated

- Emperor’s opposition

• Charles V Is the holy Roman emperor

• He issues the edict of worms (1521), Declaring Luther as a heretic

• Luther and his followers begin a separate religious group - Lutherans

Response to Luther

- The peasants revolt

• Inspired by the reformation, German peasants, seek and end to serfdom (1524)

• Princess crush the revolved, about 100,000 people

• This causes Luther to lose a lot of support

- Germany at war

• Some princes side with Luther, become known as protestant

• Charles V Fails to return rebellious princes, to Catholic Church

• Peace of Augsburg (1555) - Each prince can decide religion of his own state

  • Because of the 30 years war

  • Ghetto - A neighborhood for Jews