Class 9

Renaissance 1453 – 1543

In some Italian cities, it started a hundred years earlier  

The plagues and the Hundred Year Wars just ended

Survivors’ joy and enthusiasm for bodily health and wealth 

           Rebirth of  hedonism, materialism and vanity

  • Egocentric individualism  - the monarchs, aristocrats, bankers, merchants, landlords and even bishops obsessed with the show of power & splendour 

  • Narcissism - an obsessive show of material wealth: luxurious dress, palaces and gardens, expensive sculptures and paintings. Musicians, painters & dancers at the court      

  • A snobbish fashion to like the Greco-Roman arts. 

A re-birth of only some aspects of the Roman lifestyle:

  • ludistic, hedonic, materialistic pleasures

  • egocentrism and individualism

-   love of arts

But not the re-birth of the Greco-Roman ethos of virtues and 

self-perfection

Populism and festivities 

used by monarchs, rich clans of merchants and bankers 

to challenge the Church’s moral authority

Inquisition as an attempt to stop the wave of “heresies”

The Roman Church was also involved in the Zeitgeist, thus  

  • remodelling St. Peter’s Basilica & Vatican Palaces 

  • hiring famous architects, painters & sculptors. 

 

Leonardo da Vinci   

    

The Last Supper in a monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.

Mona Lisa was painted in Florence. Now in the Louvre Museum in Paris

Interest in anatomy, optics, town planning, engineering, defence, and flying machines. The observation of human mimics.

Vatican painter invited by Pope Leo X   

Engineer and architect to the King of France at Chateau d’Amboise. 

Died there & buried. 

Michelangelo Buonarroti

  • Painted and resided on the Medici court in Florence.

  • Moved to Rome;  invited by the Pope to paint in the Vatican Palaces.

The Last Judgement         the wall painting (Sistine Chapel)

The biblical scenes, e.g. The Creation of Adam, The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden - ceiling frescos (Sistine Chapel).

The Pieta, his sculpture is now in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican

David, Moses       the sculptures     Florence

Raphael Santi

  • He lived only 38 years.

  • A lonely, unemotional, aloof (schizoid?) person.

  • Influenced by Leonardo, he painted even more Madonnas than Leonardo.

  • In his painting "The School of Athens" he portrayed Plato as Leonardo and Heraclitus as Michelangelo. 

The Gothic style was gradually replaced by the Renaissance style.

Beauty & health of the human body is glorified in the arts.

  • Dutch-Flemish style: realistic (naturalistic) portraits: peasant life and Biblical scenes. 

  • Dante “The Divine Comedy”.

  • Francesco Petrarch philosopher & poet writing in Italian 

  • Economic growth of small city-states, trade, mobility, navigation and military technology. 

The Silk Road was controlled by Mongolian hordes and irregular bandits.  The transportation of silk, cotton, pepper, and spicy herbs became a dangerous and expensive business.  

1492  Christopher Columbus – An Exploration of the New World

1493  Marco Polo  - An Exploration of  China  

1497  Vasco da Gama -                exploration of  India

1519  Ferdinand Magellan -       exploration of the Philippines

                                                      expedition around the world 

1520 - 1522   Spanish conquistadors  take Mexico and

                                                        S. America, without Brazil

The Brazilian territories taken by the Portuguese conquerors

Niccolo Machiavelli  1469 - 1527

  • New domains of training: business & political science.

  • Niccolo Machiavelli: 

    “The Prince”

   How to control society and govern through

    cynical socio-techniques, manipulations, diplomacy intrigues and propaganda

    divide et impera

Papal Inquisition, a court/tribunal was to protect Christian dogmas (Nowadays, the legal system also protects the political and ethical dogmas, e.g. democracy, and human rights.).

It was inactive until 1478 when the Spanish rulers Ferdinand & Isabella used it to fight the political opponents " heretics." Spanish Inquisition led by Thomas de Torquemada executed ca 2000 people. 

The Reformation - a historic split of the Roman Church 

into Protestantism vs. Catholicism

triggered in 1517 by  Martin Luther an Augustinian monk in Wittenberg, Germany.     

His 95-item manifesto sparked an uncontrollable, 

bloody revolt, wars and divisions for centuries to come.

Nicolaus Copernicus: 1473 - 1543  Torun, Krakow Poland. Astronomer & canon of the Catholic Church

On the revolution of the celestial spheres 

Heliocentric instead of geocentric system.

Daring to be “politically incorrect”

Renaissance -  a revolution

Renaissance brought many achievements in arts, medicine, navigation, and astronomy. On the other hand, the Renaissance introduced a lifestyle based on egocentrism, materialism and individualism. 

“Renaissance the most mentally disturbed civilization:  bloody wars, public executions, Inquisition, political intrigues, loss of morality, loss of spirituality, egocentrism and egoism”

Post-Renaissance 

(16th  and the beginning of 17th c.)

The heliocentric system was later improved by Johannes Kepler  1571-1630

Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) Dominican monk, 

                                               mathematician and astronomer;  

                                 an inspiration for I. Newton  1642 – 1726

Psychologically insightful literature: 

William Shakespeare    and     Miguel Cervantes

Galileo Galilei.   1564 - 1642 

  • Teaching mathematics and astronomy (Copernican) 

    at Pisa and Padua Universities  

  • Observations of the moon using a telescope 

  • 1624   Pope Urban VIII, former Cardinal Maffeo de Medici ) grants the right to write “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems – Ptolemaic and Copernican”

  • 1634 Galilei was forced by the Committee of Cardinals  to promise 

     not to publish or teach on the Copernican system.   

 

  • He was forbidden to leave his house until the end of his life. 

  • 1642 Galileo Galilei dies - Isaac Newton is born. 

  • Primary & secondary qualities of a perceived object.

Francis  Bacon:   1561 – 1621

                British politician and manager of science.

Methodological discipline in presenting scientific concepts. “Novum Organum”.      

Four types of bias:

  • The use of old prejudices and stereotypes                         (Idols of the cave) 

                  Only one cave exists from which we see everything

  • Uncritical reliance on sense perception                              (Idols of the tribe)

               Only what we see makes sense

  • Uncritical reliance on authority                                          (Idols of the theatre)

               Dogmatic, authoritarian view

  • Bias of verbal attribution                                            (Idols of the marketplace)

               Confusing the label with the concept and the concept with the reality

Other events in the post-Renaissance time

Ottoman Turkish Empire at its peak 

Henry VIII establishes the Anglican Church

Queen Mary of Scottland executed