Landmarks in Humanities Chapter 7: Rebirth: The Age of the Renaissance

Transition: Medieval to Renaissance

  • The Black Death:

    • Killed one-third to one-half of the population.
    • Four waves between 1347 and 1375.
    • Brought by flea-bearing rats on commercial vessels.
    • Caused enormous psychological and economic damage.
    • Economic benefits to survivors: increased jobs and more bargaining power.
    • Climatic disasters caused crop failure and famine.
    • Demise of feudal order.

  • The Rise of Constitutional Monarchy:

    • Magna Carta (“great charter”).
    • Middle class invited to participate in the Great Council (Parliament).
    • First example of representative government.

  • The Hundred Years War:

    • Dispute over English claims to continental lands and the French throne.
    • First use of gunpowder.
    • Joan of Arc.
    • Major blow to feudalism.

  • The Decline of the Church:

    • Avignon Papacy (1309–1377).
      • Papacy relocated from Rome to Avignon, France, in response to political pressure from the French king.
      • Unsavory efforts at financial and political aggrandizement.
      • Simony.
      • Indulgences.
    • Great Schism (1378–1417).

The Arts in Transition

  • Social realism: Objective attention to human society and social interaction.

    • Boccaccio: Decameron
    • Christine de Pisan:
      • First feminist writer.
      • Book of the City of Ladies.
        • Attack on misogyny; defense of female right to education.

  • Chaucer:

    • Vernacular literature.
    • Canterbury Tales.
      • Human comedy told in verse.
      • Characters with individualistic personalities.

  • Giotto’s New Realism:

    • Introduced natural and lifelike style.
    • Weighty, robust figures.
    • Gradations of light and shade (chiaroscuro).
    • Lamentation over Jesus.

  • The Ars Nova in Music:

    • Increased rhythmic complexity and aural expressiveness.
    • Isorhythm.
    • Syncopation.
    • Guillaume de Machaut:
      • Messe de Notre Dame.
        • Unified Mass as a single polyphonic composition.
      • Numerous secular works.
      • Ballades.

The Italian Renaissance

  • Movement to recover culture of Classical antiquity began in Italy.
  • Civil wars between city-states.
    • Fought by condottieri.
  • The Medici:
    • Wealthy banking family that ruled Florence for four generations.
    • Great patrons of scholarship and the arts.

Renaissance Humanism

  • Classical humanism: The revival of Greco-Roman culture; major feature of Italian Renaissance.

    • Secular in nature.
    • Used Classical authority for basis of new appraisal of role of individual in the world order.
    • Different from other revivals:
      • Secular instead of sacred.
      • Rational guide to human fulfillment.
    • Studia humanitatis.

  • Petrarch: “Father of Humanism”

    • Devoted life to recovery, copying, and editing of Latin manuscripts.
    • Revived epistolary tradition.
    • Deeply influenced by Cicero, Augustine.
    • Canzoniere (Songbook).
      • Perfected the sonnet.

  • Ficino: The Platonic Academy

    • “Golden Age”.
    • After fall of Constantinople, Greek manuscripts and Byzantine scholars poured into Italy.
    • Ficino translated entire body of Plato’s writings.
    • Platonic Academy in Florence.
      • Popularized idea that platonic (spiritual) love attracts the soul to God.
      • Became major theme among Renaissance poets and painters.

  • Pico della Mirandola: The Dignity of Man

    • Sought “unity of truth” in all philosophic thought.
    • Oration on the Dignity of Man.
      • “Manifesto of humanism”.
      • Argued for free will and the perfectibility of the individual.

  • Castiglione: The Well-Rounded Person

    • The Book of the Courtier.
      • L’uomo universale: the well-rounded person.
      • Men must influence those who rule to govern wisely.
      • Women must entertain men of the court.
      • Focus on manners, not morals.

  • Female Humanists:

    • More opportunities for women versus the medieval era.
    • Cereta, Defense of Liberal Instruction of Women
    • Colonna: poet, writer, moralist, feminist
    • Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men
      • Rebuffed traditional misogynist litany.
      • Worked to uncover psychological roots of misogyny.

  • The Printing Press:

    • Johann Gutenberg perfected movable-type printing press in 1450.
    • Gutenberg Bible, 1455.
    • Revolutionized learning and communication.
    • Information became a commodity for mass consumption.
    • Books readily available to public.
    • Facilitated rise of popular education.

  • Machiavelli and Power Politics:

    • The Prince.
      • Political treatise; called for unification of Italy under powerful and courageous leader.
      • Need for strong state justified strong rule.
      • If necessary, must sacrifice moral virtue.
      • Mastery of power politics can ensure survival of the state.

Early Renaissance Art

  • Two periods:

    • Early Renaissance (ca. 1400 to 1490)
      • Centered in Florence
    • High Renaissance (ca. 1490 to 1520)
      • Centered in Rome and Milan

  • New sources of patronage.

    • Enhanced social, financial status of artists

  • Artist as hero and genius

    • Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Architects, and Sculptors

  • Early Renaissance Architecture:

    • Devoted to architectural principles laid out by Vitruvius.
      • Human proportions mirror the universal order
    • Brunelleschi
      • Designed dome of Florence Cathedral
      • Defended Classical principles of symmetry and design
      • Pazzi Chapel
    • Alberti
      • Enthusiastic for harmonious proportions
      • Ten Books on Architecture

  • Early Renaissance Painting:

    • Attempted to recreate “look” of nature through various illusionistic techniques
    • Linear (one-point) perspective
    • Brunelleschi’s laws of linear perspective
      • Manner in which parallel lines in a given visual field appear to converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon

  • Masaccio

    • First to master linear perspective
    • Painted frescoes for churches in Florence
    • The Tribute Money

  • Botticelli

    • Birth of Venus
      • Tribute to physical and spiritual beauty
      • Neoplatonic ideas
      • Goddess of earthly and divine love

  • Early Renaissance Sculpture:

    • Donatello
      • David
        • Classical in proportion and stance, yet seductive and sensuous
    • Ghiberti
      • “Gates of Paradise”
        • Bronze Relief panels on Florentine Baptistery of San Giovanni
        • Biblical stories
        • Linear perspective, atmospheric detail, and architecturally complex

  • Verrocchio

    • Sculpture of likeness of Lorenzo de’ Medici
      • Renaissance portraiture was hallmark of new self-consciousness and growing civic pride.
    • Equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni
      • Recalls Roman statue of Marcus Aurelius
      • Scientific naturalism, anatomical detail, and dramatic movement

High Renaissance Art

  • Artistic activity shifted to Rome

  • High Renaissance Architecture:

    • Bramante: Saint Peter’s Cathedral
      • Modeled on the Classical tholos
    • Palladio, Four Books on Architecture
      • Symmetry and centrality controlling elements
      • Villa Rotunda, Vicenza, and Italy

  • Leonardo da Vinci:

    • Scientist, artist, mathematician, composer, and inventor.
    • Exalted the importance of empirical study to discover general rules of nature
    • Mona Lisa
    • Last Supper

  • Raphael:

    • Compositions notable for clarity, harmony, and unity of design
    • The Alba Madonna
    • The School of Athens
      • The great philosophers and scientists of ancient history
      • Epitome of the Grand Style: spatial clarity, decorum, balance, unity of design, and grace

  • Michelangelo:

    • David
      • Renaissance ideals of terribilitá and virtù
    • Sistine Chapel
      • Creation and Fall of Humankind
      • Maximized grandeur of figures
      • Creation of Adam
    • Dome of Saint Peter’s

  • The High Renaissance in Venice:

    • Art of color and light
    • Favored oil medium
    • Titian
      • Venus of Urbino
      • Style became definitive expression of Venetian High Renaissance painting

The Ottoman Empire

  • Ottoman Empire marked last great age of Muslim world power
  • Under shah (“king”) Suleiman, left cultural landmarks comparable to European Renaissance
    • Centrally-planned mosques, public baths, and palaces
    • Golden Age of literature and art

Renaissance Music

  • More secular music committed to paper

  • Music composed by professionals and amateurs

  • Virtuosity in performance was a hallmark

  • Josquin des Prez

    • Flemish composer; “the prince of music”
    • Unified polyphonic Mass around single musical theme
    • Word painting: use of music to convey the literal meaning of text
    • Ave Maria

  • The Madrigal:

    • Composition for three to six unaccompanied voices
    • Usually polyphonic; often included playful imitation and word painting
    • Functioned as popular entertainments
    • Leading composers were Flemish
      • Adrian Willaert
      • Roland de Lassus
      • Maddalena Casulana

  • Instrumental Music:

    • Music for solo instruments was popular.
      • Lute was a favorite
    • Keyboard music for small organs, the clavichord, and the harpsichord
    • Instrumental compositions began to regularly appear.

  • Renaissance Dance:

    • Established dance as independent discipline
    • Guglielmo Ebreo
      • Importance of grace, memorization of fixed steps, coordination of music and motion
      • Balli
    • Three favorite forms of Italian court dance
      • Basse
      • Saltarello
      • Piva