Chapter 13 RENAISSANCE

Renaissance Clothing Colors of Renaissance clothing were given meanings as shown by the following: Green = love Gray = sorrow Yellow = hostility Blue = fidelity Red = nobility Black & Gray = lower status people

Renaissance Artist Michelangelo: Pieta statue David statue Sistine Chapel St. Peter’s Church

Sistine Chapel

David Statue

St. Peter’s Church in Rome

Meet Johannes Gutenberg: The Gutenberg press with its wooden and later metal movable type printing brought down the price of printed materials and made such materials available for the masses. It remained the standard until the 20th century. It was in 1440 that Johannes Gutenberg created his printing press, a hand press, in which ink was rolled over the raised surfaces of moveable hand-set block letters held within a wooden form and the form was then pressed against a sheet of paper.

The Press

Inventions of this time...

Clock The first mechanical clock was invented in the early 1300's. With this invention time began to be measured in hours (24 hours equaling a day). Galileo, an Italian scientist, discovered the pendulum in The pendulum greatly improved the constant movement of the hands or bell of a clock. The average error with the pendulum varied only by seconds each day. During the 1600's the metallic gear, or toothed wheel, and the use of the screw in assembling the clocks were first used.

Eye glasses Historians are not certain who invented the first spectacles. In the late thirteen century around 1,287 paintings first appeared with people wearing or holding spectacles. From these paintings we know that spectacles were invented in Italy. In 1352 eyeglasses were only worn by the well educated, very rich noblemen or well read Italian clergy. In 1456 Gutenberg invented the printing press. This created a widespread of books. Once people owned books reading glasses began to be seen in the hands of the common people. These glasses were made with a variety of materials including wood, lead, copper, bone, leather, and even horn.

Telescope & Microscope The first useful microscope was developed in the Netherlands between 1590 and Galileo helped popularize the microscope in the early 17th century. Many people feared the microscope until the 19th century when improvements made to the lenses created a clear image. At this time many advances in medicine and hygiene could be made with the microscope. In 1608 a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey made the first telescope. In 1668 Isaac Newton improved the telescope by adding mirrors instead of lenses. Galileo was the first person to use the telescope to study the heavens. He made many discoveries including that the moon had huge valleys and craters. He also discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter. Galileo discovered the planets revolve around the sun and not around the earth.

Flushing Toilet Sir John Harrington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, made the first flush toilet for himself and his godmother in He was teased by his friends and never made another one although he and Queen Elizabeth continued to use the one he did make.

Meet Galileo Galilei Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. Galileo pioneered "experimental scientific method" and was the first to use a refracting telescope to make important astronomical discoveries. As a professor of astronomy at the University of Pisa, Galileo was required to teach the accepted theory of his time that the sun and all the planets revolved around the Earth. Later he was exposed to a new theory, proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the sun. Galileo's observations with his new telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus's sun-centered theory, making him a heritic. Galileo got into trouble with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1633 the Inquisition convicted him of heresy and forced him to publicly withdraw his support of Copernicus. They sentenced him to life imprisonment, but because of his advanced age allowed him to serve his term under house arrest at his villa outside of Florence. Galileo became blind at the age of 72. His blindness has often been attributed to damage done to his eyes by telescopic observations he made of the Sun in Some also say he was blinded by poison. The truth is probably that he was blinded by a combination of cataracts and glaucoma. Galileo died in 1642—the year Isaac Newton was born.

Meet Leonardo da Vinci Between 1490 and 1495 he developed his habit of recording his studies in illustrated notebooks. His work covered four main themes: painting, architecture, the elements of mechanics, and human anatomy. These studies and sketches were collected into various manuscripts, which are now collected by museums and individuals (Bill Gates recently plunked down $30 million for the Codex Leicester!).