Chapter 10: Renaissance and Discovery Study Guide

Historiographical Interpretations of the Late Middle Ages

• The Concept of Herfsttij ("Harvesttide"): Modern Dutch scholars evaluate the late Middle Ages through opposing interpretations of the term Herfsttij.
  • Johan Huizinga: Interprets the era as a period of "waning" or "decline," emphasizing the decay of medieval institutions.
  • Heiko Oberman: Interprets the era as a "harvest," emphasizing the gathering of ripe cultural fruit and the sowing of seed grain for future centuries.
• Creative Fragmentation: The late Middle Ages was characterized by creative fragmentation. By the late fifteenth century, Europe was recovering from two of its three major medieval crises:
  • Demographic Recovery: Population losses from the Black Death were being replenished.
  • Political Centralization: Able monarchs were establishing centralized political order.
  • Religious Crisis: Resolution of the religious crisis did not occur until the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century.
• Representative Art of the Era: Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish, 1399/1400–1464) painted Portrait of a Lady (1460). Dimensions: $0.370 \times 0.270$ framed to $0.609 \times 0.533 \times 0.114$

The Italian Renaissance (1375–1527)

• Burckhardt's Thesis: In Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt designated the Italian Renaissance as the "prototype of the modern world."
  • Burckhardt argued that the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century revival of ancient learning gave rise to secular and scientific values, rational and statistical approaches to reality, individual self-awareness, and the release of the "full, whole nature of man."
  • Associated with large-scale social engineering, political planning, and early economic policy (mercantilism).
• Scholarly Revisionism: Modern historians critique Burckhardt's portrayal as exaggerated, noting significant continuity with the Middle Ages:
  • Renaissance humanists retained a strongly Christian character.
  • Earlier revivals of classical antiquity occurred in the Carolingian renaissance (ninth century), the cathedral school of Chartres (twelfth century), the Aristotelian revival in Paris (thirteenth century), and among Augustinian scholars (early fourteenth century).
• Structural Transition: The Renaissance (French for "rebirth") represents a broad transition from medieval to modern structures:
  • Medieval Society: Fragmented feudal organization, agricultural economy, thought and culture dominated by the Catholic Church.
  • Renaissance Society: Growing national consciousness, political centralization, urban commercial economy based on capitalism, and expanding lay/secular control over culture and religion.
• Chronological Boundaries:
  • Emergence (1375): Coincides with the deaths of Francesco Petrarch (1374), known as the "father of humanism," and Giovanni Boccaccio (1375), author of the Decameron.
  • Termination (1527): Marked by the Sack of Rome in 1527 by Spanish-imperial soldiers of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Pope Clement VII (r. 1523–1534) had aligned with French King Francis I during the French-Habsburg dynastic struggles over Burgundy and Italy. The unpaid, poorly provisioned imperial troops looted and burned Rome.

The Italian City-State

• Economic and Strategic Origins: Between 1300 and 1450, Italian city-states survived better than northern European territorial states due to strategic geography between East and West and lucrative Eurasian trade.
  • Venice, Genoa, and Pisa maintained uninterrupted trade with the Near East throughout the Middle Ages.
  • Italian merchants pioneered business practices: organizational structures, double-entry bookkeeping, market scouting, and commercial monopolies.
  • By the fifteenth century, major Italian cities functioned as the premier bankers of Europe.
  • Following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Italy's overseas trade empire shrank, prompting internal conflict.
• Political Dynamics: Endemic warfare between the papacy (Guelf faction) and the Holy Roman Empire (Ghibelline faction) weakened both powers, enabling urban merchant oligarchies to expand independence and absorb the surrounding countryside (contado).
• Five Major Italian Powers:
  1. Duchy of Milan: Controlled by despotism.
  2. Republic of Florence: Governed by merchant oligarchs and despots.
  3. Republic of Venice: Ruled by an oligarchy of merchants through a patrician senate of $300$
  4. Papal States: Controlled by the papacy in Rome.
  5. Kingdom of Naples: Monarchical territory in southern Italy.
• Social Stratification and Conflict in Florence:
  • Four Social Classes:
  1. Grandi: The old rich, consisting of traditional nobles and wealthy merchants.
  2. Popolo grosso ("fat people"): The newly rich merchant class, capitalists, and bankers who challenged the grandi for control.
  3. Middle-burgher ranks: Guild masters, shop owners, and small business professionals who generally aligned with the new rich.
  4. Popolo minuto ("little people"): The bottom economic class of urban paupers. In 1457, $33.3\%$ of Florence's population (approx. $30{,}000$
  • The Ciompi Revolt (1378): A major uprising of the poor caused by conflict between grandi and popolo grosso, social instability post-Black Death, and the financial collapse of the Bardi and Peruzzi banking houses. It established a four-year period of chaotic rule by the lower classes.
  • Medici Hegemony: Stability returned in 1434 with Cosimo de' Medici (1389–1464). Cosimo controlled the city behind the scenes by manipulating elections and maintaining personal loyalty within the Signoria (a governing council of six, later eight, members chosen from major guilds). Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449–1492; r. 1478–1492), ruled in near-totalitarian fashion following the 1478 assassination of his brother by the rival Pazzi family.
• Despotism and Diplomacy:
  • Podestà: Executive, military, and judicial strongmen hired by merchant oligarchies to maintain law, order, and business activity. Because despots lacked local popular loyalty, they operated via mercenary armies recruited through military brokers (condottieri).
  • Dynastic despots established long-term rule in Milan: the Visconti family (1278) and the Sforza family (1450).
  • Resident Embassies: High Renaissance city-states created resident embassies and dispatched diplomatic ambassadors to monitor foreign military actions and conduct inter-state negotiations.

Italian Humanism

• Historiographical Definitions:
  • Paul O. Kristeller: Defines humanism not as a philosophical system, but as an educational program based on rhetoric and classical scholarship.
  • Studia Humanitatis: A liberal arts curriculum encompassing grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, politics, and moral philosophy. Leonardo Bruni (ca. 1370–1444) named this study humanitas ("humanity"). Bruni studied under Manuel Chrysoloras (ca. 1355–1415), a Byzantine scholar who taught Greek in Florence from 1397 to 1403.
• Key Humanist Figures:
  • Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374): The "father of humanism." Abandoned law for poetry; lived near Avignon; supported the 1347–1349 popular revolt in Rome; served the Visconti in Milan. Author of Letters to the Ancient Dead (addressed to Cicero, Livy, Vergil, and Horace), the Latin epic Africa (tribute to Scipio Africanus), Lives of Illustrious Men, and vernacular love sonnets to Laura. Articulated the humanist motto: "It is better to will the good than to know the truth."
  • Dante Alighieri (1265–1321): Author of Vita Nuova and the Divine Comedy, foundational texts of Italian vernacular literature.
  • Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375): Student of Petrarch; authored the Decameron (one hundred tales recounted by three men and seven women escaping the 1348 Florentine plague) and an encyclopedia of classical mythology.
• Educational Reforms:
  • Guided by Quintilian's (ca. 35–100 C.E.) Education of the Orator (rediscovered 1416).
  • Pietro Paolo Vergerio (1349–1420): Author of On the Morals That Befit a Free Man, defining liberal studies as those worthy of a free person that foster virtue and wisdom.
  • Vittorino da Feltre (d. 1446): Combined physical games and exercise with rigorous reading of Pliny, Ptolemy, Terence, Plautus, Livy, and Plutarch.
  • Guarino da Verona (d. 1460): Rector of the University of Ferrara; streamlined classical language instruction.
  • Baldassare Castiglione (1478–1529): Author of The Book of the Courtier, a practical guide for nobility at the court of Urbino detailing the integration of classical learning, physical/military skill, musical talent, and moral character.
  • Christine de Pisan (1363?–1434): Daughter of King Charles V's physician/astrologer. Authored The Treasure of the City of Ladies (The Book of Three Virtues), documenting historical achievements of women and providing practical household instruction.
• Florentine Platonism:
  • Catalyzed by Manuel Chrysoloras's arrival (1397), the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1439), and the fall of Constantinople (1453).
  • Cosimo de' Medici patronized the informal Platonic Academy, led by Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), who translated Plato's complete works into Latin, and Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494).
  • Pico della Mirandola: Authored Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) as an introduction to $900$
• Critical Philology and Textual Criticism:
  • Lorenzo Valla (1406–1457): Wrote Elegances of the Latin Language (1444). Demonstrated that the eighth-century Donation of Constantine (alleging Emperor Constantine's grant of vast lands to the papacy) was fraudulent by exposing anachronistic Latin terms like fief. Identified errors in the Latin Vulgate Bible. Served as apostolic secretary under Pope Nicholas V (r. 1447–1455).
• Civic Humanism:
  • Humanist scholars serving as Florentine chancellors: Coluccio Salutati (1331–1406), Leonardo Bruni (ca. 1370–1444), and Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459). Applied classical rhetoric to defend Florentine liberty against Milan and Naples.
  • Architectural theorist Leon Battista Alberti (1402–1472).
  • Reaction against late humanist intellectual snobbery led Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) and Francesco Guicciardini (1483–1540) to write histories in the vernacular based on contemporary political reality.

Renaissance Art and Slavery

• High Renaissance Art (1450–1527):
  • Technical Innovations: Development of chiaroscuro (the use of shading to enhance naturalness) and linear perspective (adjusting figure sizes to create three-dimensional spatial continuity).
  • Giotto (1266–1336): Father of Renaissance painting; introduced naturalistic depictions of the physical world.
  • Masaccio (1401–1428) and Donatello (1386–1466): Advanced literal, naturalistic painting and sculpture.
  • Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): Exemplified the universal person (l'uomo universale). Painter (Mona Lisa), military engineer for Francis I, anatomist, and botanist. Illustrated human anatomical proportions in the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490), following Marcus Pollio Vitruvius.
  • Raphael (1483–1520): Painted tender Madonnas and the Vatican fresco The School of Athens, depicting classical philosophers with the physical features of High Renaissance masters.
  • Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564): Sculpted the $18$
  • Mannerism: Emerging in the late High Renaissance, Mannerism rejected symmetry and simplicity to express affected, strange, and subjective individual perceptions. Represented by Tintoretto (d. 1594) and El Greco (d. 1614).
• Slavery in the Renaissance:
  • Established in the twelfth century through Spanish sales of captured Muslims to Italian buyers. Plantation slavery developed in Cyprus, Crete, and Sudan for sugarcane cultivation.
  • The post-Black Death labor shortage caused a surge in slave imports across Italy. Slaves included Tatars, Circassians, Greeks, Russians, Georgians, Iranians, Asians, and Africans. By the late fourteenth century, slave ownership was widespread among Tuscan households.
  • Under Italian law, owners possessed total authority to buy, sell, alienate, rent, and judge their slaves. Tatars and Africans experienced the harshest treatment, though many household slaves were integrated into family units.

Italy's Political Decline: The French Invasions (1494–1527)

• Treaty of Lodi (1454–1455): An alliance linking Milan, Naples, and Florence against Venice and the Papal States to maintain internal balance of power. Unravelled in 1494 when Naples, supported by Florence and Pope Alexander VI, threatened Milan.
• First French Invasion: Ludovico il Moro (despot of Milan) invited King Charles VIII (r. 1483–1498) of France to reenter Italy and pursue French dynastic claims to Naples.
  • Charles VIII's March (1494): Charles crossed the Alps in August 1494. Piero de' Medici attempted to placate Charles by handing over Pisa, leading to Piero's exile by Florentines.
  • Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498): Dominican preacher who convinced Florence that the French invasion was divine punishment. Governed Florence for four years until he was executed in May 1498.
  • League of Venice (March 1495): Counter-alliance formed by Ferdinand of Aragon, Venice, the Papal States, Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493–1519), and later Ludovico il Moro. Drove Charles VIII out of Italy.
• Second French Invasion: King Louis XII (r. 1498–1515) invaded Italy, allied with Pope Alexander VI (Borgia, r. 1492–1503).
  • Papal-French Deal: Pope Alexander VI annulled Louis XII's marriage to Charles VIII's sister (allowing Louis to marry Anne of Brittany), made the Archbishop of Rouen a cardinal, and withdrew from the League of Venice. In exchange, Cesare Borgia married Charlotte d'Albret (sister of the King of Navarre), received French military aid, and conquered Romagna, becoming Duke of Romagna.
  • Louis XII invaded Milan in August 1499 (imprisoning Ludovico il Moro). In 1500, Louis XII and Ferdinand of Aragon divided Naples.
• Pope Julius II (r. 1503–1513): Known as the "warrior pope." Suppressed the Borgias and brought Romagna under papal jurisdiction. Satirized anonymously by Erasmus in Julius Excluded from Heaven.
  • Second Holy League (October 1511): Formed by Julius II, Ferdinand of Aragon, Venice, Emperor Maximilian I, and the Swiss. Defeated the French at Novara (1513).
• Third French Invasion: King Francis I (r. 1515–1547) defeated Swiss forces at Marignano in September 1515.
  • Concordat of Bologna (August 1516): Granted the French Crown control over the French clergy in exchange for recognizing papal supremacy over church councils and the pope's right to collect annates in France. Triggered the Habsburg-Valois Wars.
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527): Witnessed Italian destruction by foreign armies. Promoted the concept of virtù (the ability to act decisively and heroically for one's patriotic homeland).
  • Concluded that internal feuding left Italy vulnerable, requiring a strong dictator to unify the nation.
  • Wrote The Prince (1513), dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Urbino (grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent). Advised rulers that fraud, brutality, and deception were necessary political tools to achieve Italian unity.

Revival of Monarchy in Northern Europe

• Shift to National Monarchies: Post-1450 monarchs centralized authority over taxation, warmaking, and law enforcement, subduing the feudal nobility and church.
• King-Town Alliance: Rulers allied with urban commercial classes. Townspeople, rather than nobles, staffed administrative positions as lawyers, accountants, military tacticians, and diplomats.
• Administrative and Financial Instruments:
  • Local royal officials: Corregidores (Castile), justices of the peace (England), bailiffs (France).
  • Standing national armies composed of mercenary infantry (Swiss and German), replacing noble feudal cavalry.
  • Fiscal mechanisms: Rents from royal domains; national commodity taxes like the French gabelle (salt tax) and Spanish alcabala ($10\%$ sales tax); direct peasant taxes like the French taille; sale of public offices; high-interest government bonds.
• France:
  • Charles VII (r. 1422–1461) created a professional army (inspired by Joan of Arc) and established a national administration with merchant banker Jacques Coeur.
  • Louis XI (r. 1461–1483) exploited the collapse of the English Empire after the Hundred Years' War and the fall of Charles the Bold (r. 1467–1477), Duke of Burgundy, who died at the Battle of Nancy (1477). Louis XI and Emperor Maximilian I divided Burgundian territories. Louis XI expanded French borders, created a national postal system, and developed a silk industry.
• Spain:
  • Dynastic union of Isabella of Castile (r. 1474–1504; pop $5$
  • The crown controlled the Mesta (sheep-farming organization) and secured the allegiance of the Hermandad (league of cities) to limit noble power.
  • Military conquests: Granada conquered from the Moors (1482–1492); Naples acquired (1504); Kingdom of Navarre annexed (1512).
  • Religious Conformity and Inquisition: Spanish Inquisition established in 1479 under Tomás de Torquemada (d. 1498) to monitor conversos (converted Jews) and Moriscos (converted Muslims). Jews exiled in 1492; non-converting Moors in Granada exiled in 1502 by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1437–1517).
  • Dynastic Marriages: Eldest daughter Joanna ("the Mad") married Archduke Philip (son of Emperor Maximilian I), producing Charles I (Emperor Charles V). Daughter Catherine of Aragon married Prince Arthur, and later King Henry VIII of England.
• England:
  • Wars of the Roses (1455–1485): Civil conflict between the House of York (white rose) and House of Lancaster (red rose) following the deposition of King Richard II (r. 1377–1399). Edward IV (r. 1461–1483, Yorkist) seized power from Henry VI (r. 1422–1461). Richard III (r. 1483–1485) usurped the throne from Edward IV's sons.
  • Tudor Dynasty: Henry Tudor defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field in August 1485, becoming Henry VII (r. 1485–1509). Married Elizabeth of York to unite the houses.
  • Court of Star Chamber (1487): Royal court created to try over-mighty nobles who intimidated lower judicial bodies. King's councilors sat as judges, ending feudal judicial distortion.
• The Holy Roman Empire:
  • Remained divided into approx. $300$
  • Golden Bull (1356): Agreement between Emperor Charles IV (r. 1346–1378) and territorial princes establishing a seven-member electoral college: Archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne; Duke of Saxony; Margrave of Brandenburg; Count Palatine; and King of Bohemia.
  • Reichstag (Worms, 1495): Imperial diet under Emperor Maximilian I (r. 1493–1519) that instituted an imperial ban on private warfare, a Supreme Court of Justice, and an imperial Council of Regency.

The Northern Renaissance

• Characteristics: Stimulated by Italian learning imported by students, merchants, and the Brothers of the Common Life (a lay religious movement in the Netherlands permitting shared religious life without formal vows). Northern humanists were more devoted to religious reform and accessible to lay audiences.
• The Printing Press:
  • Invented in Mainz, Germany, by Johann Gutenberg (d. 1468) in the mid-fifteenth century, utilizing movable type.
  • Replaced expensive vellum ($170$
  • Gutenberg printed the first movable-type Bible in 1454. By 1500, printing presses operated in over $60$
• Desiderius Erasmus (1466?–1536):
  • Promoted philosophia Christi: simple, ethical piety in direct imitation of Christ, contrasting with Scholastic dogma and ritualism.
  • Authored Colloquies (anticlerical educational dialogues) and Adages (collection of over $5{,}000$
  • Edited works of early Church Fathers and published a Greek edition of the New Testament (1516), followed by a new Latin translation (1519), used by Martin Luther for his 1522 German translation. All works placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
• Humanism and Regional Reform:
  • Germany: Rudolf Agricola (1443–1485), father of German humanism. Conrad Celtis (d. 1508) and Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523) added nationalist sentiment. Von Hutten defended Johann Reuchlin (1455–1522) during the Reuchlin Affair (1506 attack on Hebrew books by convert Pfefferkorn and Cologne Dominicans), co-authoring the satirical Letters of Obscure Men (1515).
  • England: Humanism introduced by William Grocyn (d. 1519), Thomas Linacre (d. 1524), and John Colet (1467–1519). Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) wrote Utopia (1516), depicting an ideal communist society based on reason and tolerance. More was executed in July 1535 for repudiating Henry VIII's Act of Supremacy (1534).
  • France: Led by Guillaume Budé (1468–1540) and Jacques Lefèvre d'Etaples (1454–1536). Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet (1470–1533) and Marguerite d'Angoulême (1492–1549, sister of King Francis I) cultivated reform-minded humanists, including young John Calvin.
  • Spain: Humanism operated in service of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1437–1517), Grand Inquisitor, founded the University of Alcalá (1509) and produced the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (six volumes placing Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts in parallel columns).

Voyages of Discovery and New Empires

• The Portuguese Empire:
  • Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) captured the North African Muslim city of Ceuta in 1415, launching exploration of the West African coast for gold, spices, and converts. Between 1450 and 1500, Portuguese traders imported $150{,}000$
  • In 1455, the papacy granted Portugal exclusive rights to lands and spoils from West Africa to India. Explorers searched for the legendary Christian ruler Prester John.
  • Bartholomew Dias (ca. 1450–1500) rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1487. Vasco da Gama (1469–1525) reached India in 1498, returning with cargo worth $60\times$
• Spanish Voyages of Columbus:
  • Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) departed the Canary Islands and reached San Salvador (Watlings Island) on October 12, 1492, believing he had reached Japan (Cipangu), based on Marco Polo's writings and Martin Behaim's spherical globe map.
  • Met by Taino (Arawak) Indians. On his third voyage (1498), Columbus reached the South American mainland.
  • Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512) and Ferdinand Magellan (1480–1521) mapped the South American coast. Magellan's crew completed the first global circumnavigation (1519–1522; Magellan killed in the Philippines).
• Spanish Empire in Mesoamerica and South America:
  • Aztec Conquest: Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) landed in Mexico in 1519 with $500$
  • Inca Conquest: Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478–1541) landed on the South American coast in 1532 with $200$
• Colonial Church and Exploitation:
  • Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566) condemned Spanish brutality in The Tears of the Indians, inspiring the "Black Legend" (the belief that Spanish conquest was uniquely inhumane). Royal protections for Indians were enacted post-1550.
  • Economic Institutions:
  • Mining: Silver mining centered at Potosí (Peru) and northern Mexico. The Spanish crown extracted the quinto ($20\%$
  • Agriculture: The hacienda (large estate owned by peninsulares or creoles) produced food and leather for mining centers. West Indian plantations utilized African slave labor to produce sugar.
  • Labor Servitude: Encomienda (formal grant of Indian labor); Repartimiento (mandatory annual labor days, known as mita in Peru); Debt peonage (free labor tied to estates via debt); African slavery.
  • Demographic Collapse: Due to zero immunity against smallpox and measles, New Spain's Native American population dropped from $25$
• Impact on Europe:
  • Intellectual rise of cultural relativism and skepticism, illustrated by Michel de Montaigne's (1533–1592) essay On Cannibals (1562).
  • Precious metal influx sparked a steady $2\%$
  • Capitalist expansion financed by great private banking families, such as the Fuggers of Augsburg, who lent Charles I of Spain over $500{,}000$

Questions & Discussion

• Question: Which country took the lead in exploration in the fifteenth century?
  • Answer: Portugal.
• Question: Renaissance society first took on its distinctive shape in the:
  • Answer: Merchant cities of Italy.
• Question: What was Erasmus's primary intellectual goal regarding classical and Christian ideals?
  • Answer: To unite Classical and Christian ideals through a simple, ethical piety (philosophia Christi).
• Question: The writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas contributed directly to the emergence of:
  • Answer: The "Black Legend" regarding Spanish conquest in the New World.