The Renaissance

The Renaissance (1350-1550) - The Beginning of the Modern World

Greek and Roman Knowledge Survived in:

• Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire

• Arab Countries

• Christian monks (few that were able to read and write books)

Rich Italian Cities

• Prospered by trade

• Had good connections to Muslim and Byzantine traders

• Financed wars for European nobles

• Milan: metal goods and armor

• Florence: banking and textiles

• Venice: luxury goods from Asia

Florence → Most Important

• Wool trade

• Sold insurance

• Created banking

• Medici promoted trade., art, scholarship and civic pride (were patrons- give money to an artist)

Why Italy?

• Renaissance = Rebirth

• Greek and Roman ruins were nearby

• Italians had money to pay for artists/scholars

• Scholars came from Constantinople when it fell to the Turks in 1453

Spirit of the Renaissance

• Rediscovered knowledge (classical Greek and Roman)

• Crusades peaked curiosity

• Greek and Roman knowledge might solve problems

Humanists

• Studied fields other than religion

• Latin, Greek, History, Math

• Petrarch was first great humanist

Fascination with Ancient Cultures

• Used humans as models

• Brunelleschi studied Roman buildings

• Donatello created statues in ideal form

• New inventions

Human Potential

• Each person could create great things

• People should be educated in classical knowledge

• Human achievements on earth, not afterlife

Renaissance also in Northern Europe

• Northern Renaissance less secular oriented than Italy

• Christian Humanism

• Less classical subject matter

• Rarely showed nude figures

Notable Figures

• Albrecht Durer

  • Painter, mathematician, printmaker, theorist

  • Works: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death, Fame, Conquest, and War; The Four Apostles; Dead Bluebird; Head of Stag; Madonna and Child (Haller Madonna)

• Vesalius

  • anatomist

  • Works: De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem (7 books on the fabric of the human body), dedicated to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

  • pushed for dissection as a tool for anatomical study

• William Shakespeare

  • Wrote 38 plays, owned Globe Theater, introduced over 1700s words, foundation of english literacy

  • Work

• Cervantes

  • wrote Don Quixote → first modern novel

  • satire of the middle ages

• Leonardo Da Vinci (1400s-1500s)

  • artist, architect, engineers, sciences (“true renaissance man”)

  • Works: The Last Supper (one point-perspective), Mona Lisa (mysterious smile), Gilder (aerodynamics + physics, anatomy of birds), Air Screw (physics and aerodynamics), Anatomy, Madonna and Child with St. Anne

• Pieter Bruegel the Elder

  • Flemish painter (traveled Italy)

  • Works: The Peasant Wedding (simplicity of peasant life, humanism depicting everyday life); Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (daily life more important than mythology); The Triumph of Death (lots of despair, creates perspective)

• Machiavelli

  • writer of the Prince, political scientist, political consultant, campaign manager, diplomat

  • Works: The Prince (ruler must maintain power at all costs, even with machiavelli)

• Michelangelo

  • florentine painter

  • Works: the Pieta, the David, the Last Judgement

• Palladio

  • classical architect, layed out principles

  • Works: Villa Rotunda; different columns (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian); Palladian windows (sicilian/Venetian); symmetrical facades and floor plans; porticos

• Brunelleschi

  • Goldsmith (guild: Arte Dell Sella), sculpture, architect

  • Works: Duomo (geometry, coffered ceiling, oxen cranes, scaffolding, amphibious boat

• Copernicus

  • astronomist, theologist

  • Works: De revolutionibus orbium coelestium: heliocentric ideas based on Ptolomey; challenged authority of the Catholic Church

• Sir Thomas More

  • author

  • Utopia, entailed an ideal society (resembles communism), perfect and equal society → humanism and reason

• Humanism- belief in the potential of individual