Describe the characteristics of the Renaissance and understand why it began in Italy. Identify Renaissance artists and explain how new ideas affected the arts of the period. Understand how writers of the time addressed Renaissance themes.

The Renaissance was the rebirth of the Greek and Roman culture and arts. The Renaissance was a time of creativity and change in many areas – political, social, economic, culture, and the way people viewed themselves and their world.

Spurred by a reawakened interest in the classical learning of Greece and Rome, creative Renaissance minds set out to transform their own age. This era, they felt, was a time of rebirth after what they saw as the disorder and disunity of the medieval world.

In reality, Renaissance Europe did not break completely with its medieval past. After all, monks and scholars of the Middle Ages had preserved much of the classical heritage. Latin has survived as the language of the church and the educated people. The mathematics of Euclid, the astronomy of Ptolemy, and the works of Aristotle were known to late medieval scholars.

The Renaissance did produce new attitudes toward culture and learning. Unlike medieval scholars, who were more likely to focus on life after death, Renaissance thinkers explored the riches and variety of human experience in the here and now. There was a new emphasis on individual achievement.

The Renaissance began in Italy, then spread north to the rest of Europe. The Renaissance was marked by a new interest in the culture of ancient Rome.

Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance for several reasons. Because Italy had been the center of the Roman empire. Architectural remains, statues, coins, and inscriptions – all were visible remains of Roman grandeur.

Italy differed from the rest of Europe in other ways. Its cities survived the Middle Ages. In the north, city-states like Florence, Milan, Venice, and Genoa grew into prosperous centers of trade and manufacturing. Rome, in central Italy, and Naples, in south, along with a number of smaller city-states, also contributed to the Renaissance cultural revival.

A wealthy and powerful merchant class in these city- states further promoted the cultural rebirth. These merchants exerted both political and economic leadership, and their attitudes and interests helped the Italian Renaissance. They also spent lavishly to support the arts.

Florence, more than any other city, came to symbolize the energy and brilliance of the Italian Renaissance. It produced a dazzling number of gifted poets, artists, architects, scholars, and scientists in a short span of time.

In the 1400s, the Medici family of Florence organized a successful banking business. Before long, the family expanded into wool manufacturing, mining, and other ventures.

The Medicis ranked among the richest merchants and bankers of Europe. Money translated into culture and political power. Cosimo de’ Medici gained control of the Florentine government in 1434.

The Renaissance supported a spirit of adventure and a wide-ranging curiosity that led people to explore new worlds.

Based on the study of classical culture, humanism focused on worldly subjects rather than on the religious issues that had occupied medieval thinkers. Most humanist scholars were pious Christians who hoped to use the wisdom of the ancients to increase their understanding of their own time.

Humanists believed that education should stimulate the individual’s creative powers. They returned to the humanities, the subjects taught in ancient Greek and Roman schools.

The Renaissance attained its most glorious expression in its paintings sculpture, and architecture. Wealthy patrons played a major role.

Humanist Concerns: Renaissance art reflected humanist concerns. Like artists in the Middle Ages, Renaissance artists portrayed religious figures. However they often set these figures against Greek and Roman backgrounds. Painters also produced portraits of well-known figures of the day. Renaissance artists studied ancient Greek and Roman works and revived many classical forms.

New Techniques: Roman art had been very realistic, and Renaissance painters developed new techniques for representing both humans and landscapes in a realistic way. Renaissance artists learned the rules of perspective. By making distant objects smaller then those close, artists make scenes appear three-dimensional. Use shades to make shapes look round and real. Painters and sculptors studied human anatomy and drew from live models.

Architecture: Renaissance architects rejected the Gothic style of the late Middle Ages as cluttered and disorderly. They adopted the columns, arches, and domes that had been favored by the Greeks and Romans.

Renaissance Florence was home to many outstanding painters and sculptors. The three most celebrated Florentine masters were: Leonardo da Vinci Michelangelo Raphael.

Leonardo da Vinci was born in He made sketches of nature and of models in his studio. He dissected corpuses to learn how bones and muscles work.

His most popular painting is the Mona Lisa The Last Supper, showing Christ and his apostles on the night before the crucifixion.

Leonardo thought of himself as an artist, but his talents and accomplishments ranged over many areas. His interests extended to botany, anatomy, optics, music, architecture, and engineering. He made sketches for flying machines and undersea boats centuries before the first airplane or submarine was actually built.

Only 17 paintings Notebooks Drawings of unfinished works Diverted rivers to prevent flooding Principles of turbine Cartography Submarine Flying machine Parachute …And much more….

Like da Vinci, Michelangelo was a many –sided genius – sculptor, engineer, painter, architect, and poet. He shaped marble into masterpieces like the Pieta, which captured the sorrow of Mary as she cradles the dead Christ on her knees.

Michelangelo’s status of David, the biblical shepherd who killed the giant Goliath, recalls the harmony grace of ancient Greek tradition.

One of Michelangelo’s greatest projects was painting a huge mural to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It was an enormous task, depicting the biblical history of the world, from the Creation to the Flood. For four years, the artist lay on his back on a wooden platform suspended few inches below the chapel ceiling.

Michelangelo was also a talented architect. His most famous design was the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. It served as a model for many later structures, including the United States Capitol building in Washington D.C.

World’s greatest sculptor See the figure inside the stone and remove excess Painter Mannerism Poet Architect Engineer

Raphael studied the works of those great masters. His paintings blend Christian and classical styles.

He is probably best known for his tender portrayals of the Madonna, the mother of Jesus.

In The School of Athens, Raphael pictures an imaginary gathering of great thinkers and scientists, such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the Arab philosopher Averroes. With typical Renaissance self-confidence, Raphael included the faces of Michelangelo, Leonardo and himself.

Poets, artists, and scholars mingled with politicians at the courts of Renaissance rulers. A literature on “how-to” books sprung up to help ambition men and women who wanted to rise in the Renaissance world.

The most widely read of these handbooks was The Book of the Courtier. Its author, Baldassare Castiglione, describes the manners, skills, learning, and virtues that a member of the court should have. Castiglion’s ideal courtier was a well-educated, well-mannered aristocrat who mastered many fields, from poetry to music to sports.

Castiglione’s ideal differed for men and women. The ideal man, he wrote, is athletic but not overactive. He is good at games but not a gambler. He plays a musical instrument and knows literature and history but is not arrogant. An ideal woman offers a balance to men. She is graceful and kind, lively but reserved.

Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a different kind of handbook. Machiavelli had served Florence as a diplomat and had observed kings and princes in foreign counts. He also had studied ancient Roman history. The Prince, published in 1513, Machiavelli combined his personal experience of politics with his knowledge of the past to offer a guide to rulers on how to gain and maintain power.

The Prince looked at real rulers, such as the Medicis, in an age of ruthless power of politics. Machiavelli stressed that the end justifies the means. He urged rulers to use whatever methods were necessary

The Prince Machiavelli believed: “One can make this generalization about men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, they shun danger and are greedy for profit” Machiavelli observed city-state rulers of his day and produced guidelines for the acquisition and maintenance of power by absolute rule. He felt that a ruler should be willing to do anything to maintain control without worrying about conscience.