All the Stuff Left to Cover i.e., the Renaissance and the Beginning of the Reformation

Causes of the Renaissance H.R.E. Frederick II lost Northern Italy; it breaks up into a number of independent city states

The Crusades brought trade to Northern Italy (mostly Venice and Genoa)

The Black Death resulted in better-off peasants …IN GENERAL, GREATER WEALTH BROUGHT A CERTAIN JOY IN LIFE, IN BEING HUMAN…

The Hundred Years’ War brought a lot of money to Italy (England borrowed money from bankers, France bought armor) Englishmen who were peasants at home could be violent mercenaries for individual Italian city-states, contributing to their competition Sir John Hawkood, an English mercenary captain who left France for Italy

The Ottoman Turks invasions caused many Greeks to flee to Italy, bringing their books with them.

Even the Avignon Papacy had a part to play. How? Well, the Renaissance is all about Humanism, and the “Father of Humanism” is Francesco Petrarch. And Petrarch worked as an ambassador for the Avignon papal court. Petrarch would visit monasteries all over Europe on his travels for the Pope, and he would often examine old books, mostly by ancient Roman authors, especially his favorite, Cicero.

WHAT THE RENAISSANCE IS ALL ABOUT: HUMANISM IN LETTERS AND ART “Humanism” in the Renaissance sense has two basic ideas: 1.A focus on the study and cultivation of what is human for its own sake; “man” is examined and perfected in himself, rather than simply as a part of the universe 2.The study of the humanities (“studia humanitatis” was the term of the time): a turn away from law, theology, philosophy and medicine, and toward history, ethics, literature, rhetoric and rhetoric. PETRARCH

In art, there was also a “rebirth”, mostly due to the efforts of Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi wrote a treatise on linear perspective, i.e., the ability to create the appearance of distance by drawing lines toward a vanishing point on the horizon. But he is most famous for his engineering of the dome of the Duomo of Florence, and amazing architectural feat that many thought couldn’t be done.

This was the age of the famous great artists, such as Leonardo Da Vinci… The Mona Lisa The Vitruvian Man The Last Supper

…RAPHAEL SANZIO… The Fire in the Borgo

…and, of course, Michelangelo Buonarotti The Pieta The David The Sistine Chapel, ceiling and apse

In general, the Italian artists were noted for their attention to the idealized human form (Michelangelo studied peasants and Leonardo cut up dead bodies to study muscles, even though the pope told him not too), and of their aim for a glorious setting, separated from the viewer.

But Italy wasn’t the only place where the early Renaissance took hold. There was also the Northern European Renaissance, in Flanders and Germany.

In the Northern European Renaissance, the painting was very different; it was oil paint on canvas (instead of tempera paint on plaster); and the details of everyday life were included, and the aim was to draw the viewer into the painting. Arnolfini and His Bride, by Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck

The cultivation of letters was also very different. The Northern European Renaissance was known for a movement we call “Christian Humanism,” i.e., a humanism based on Christian roots. The best example of this was Desiderius Erasmus, the “Prince of Humanist,” who translated the Bible from Greek into Latin and encouraged the study of the Fathers of the Church (ancient Christian writers). This version of Humanism was a quieter version of Humanism: the ideal Renaissance man in this version was a contemplative student, who studied, studied, studied (unlike Italy, where the Renaissance man was supposed to be involved in the politics of his city).

Though he championed Christian humanism, Erasmus did criticize the abuses in the Church, especially in his most famous work, In Praise of Folly. In fact it has often been said that “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”

Of course, neither Erasmus, nor Martin Luther, nor anyone in the Renaissance would have gotten anywhere if it wasn’t for the German Johannes Gutenberg, who, some time in the 1440’s, invented the printing press, a machine that could make several copies of one page in minutes by the use of movable type. Books became abundant, available, and cheap. Ideas, both old and new, could now spread much more easily and quickly.

POLITICS DURING THE RENAISSANCE The art of the Renaissance required patronage, i.e., people to pay for the art projects. The most famous art city of the Renaissance was Florence, where the art was patronized and the city was ruled by one family: the DE MEDICIS.

Ironically, although many of the Italian city-states modeled their governments on the Roman Republic, and Florence in particular had a long tradition of rule by the guilds (the trade unions of various craftsmen), the De Medicis became the de facto rulers of Florence for the simple reason that they were successful bankers, and everybody in Florence owed them money or favors. This started with the patriarch of the family, Cosimo De Medici. Cosimo de Medici Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo il Magnifico was, at first, a very popular ruler of Florence, who especially poured a lot of money into the arts. It was under him that Florence became the Renaissance art superpower. Lorenzo il Magnifico

But Lorenzo soon ran into problems. For one thing, he depleted the De Medici wealth very quickly. Also, there were still other banking families that were very jealous of the De Medici family. In fact, on one occasion, the Pazzi and Salviati families tried to murder Lorenzo while he was attending Mass at the Duomo in Florence. It turned out to be a huge conspiracy: the priest was in on it, as was the Archbishop of Pisa, etc. Lorenzo had all these people executed, and told Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael to paint pictures of their hanging dead bodies, as a warning to others.

And not everybody liked the new humanistic ways of Florence. In particular, one Dominican friar named Girolamo Savonarola preached against the sinful vanities of the Renaissance.

Savonarola told the Florentines that if they did not repent,