1. The Age of the Renaissance
Chapter 12
Recovery and Rebirth:
The Age of the Renaissance

2. “…As if on a given signal, splendid talents are stirring.”
--Erasmus, 1517
“…This is the worst age of history.”
--Erasmus, 1536
Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Best of times?…Worst of times?

3. Meaning and Characteristics of the Italian Renaissance
Renaissance = Rebirth
Jacob Burkhardt (Swiss)
Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860)
Three Distinct Characteristics
1. Humanism: Rebirth of Greco-Roman culture (writings, art, history, politics, philosophy)
2. Individualism: Emphasis on individual ability (man as man).
3. Changes in Artistic Style: A break from the medieval past in terms of technique and content.

4. “The Best” The Artistic Renaissance
Early Renaissance
Masaccio (1401 – 1428)
The Tribute Money
Donato di Donatello (1386 – 1466)
David
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446)
Church of San Lorenzo
Sandro Botticelli ( )
Birth of Venus
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519)
Last Supper
Raphael (1483 – 1520)
School of Athens
Michelangelo (1475 – 1564)
The Sistine Chapel
Masaccio

5. “The Best” Literature of the Renaissance
The Literary Giants
Boccaccio
Cervantes
Petrarch
Rabelais
Shakespeare
The Classical Scholars
Leonardo Bruni
Desiderius Erasmus
Lorenzo Valla
The Important Thinkers
Laura Cereta
Christine de Pizan
Niccolo Machiavelli

6. “The Best” Technological Advancements
“The Best” Scientists
Nicholas Copernicus
Galileo Galilei
“The Best” Religious Figures
Jan Hus
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Teresa of Avila
Ignatius of Loyola
“The Best” Technological Advancements
Architecture
Navigation
Printing Press

7. “The Worst”
Constant Warfare
Forced Conversions
Public Executions
Bloody Religious Conflicts
Destruction of Civilizations
New Slave Trade

8. Why Italy? Geography Urbanization Social Structure Political Structure
Map 12.1: Renaissance Italy.
Italy in the late fourteenth century was a land of five major states and numerous independent city-states. Increased prosperity and a supportive intellectual climate helped create the atmosphere for the middle and upper classes to ‘‘rediscover’’ Greco-Roman culture. Modern diplomacy was also a product of Renaissance Italy.
Q Could the presence of several other powers within easy marching distance make it more likely that a ruler would recognize the importance of diplomacy?

9. The Balance of Power Among the Italian City-States
In the 15th century, five powers dominated the Italian peninsula: Florence, Milan, Papal States, Venice, Naples
City patriotism and competition for power among cities prevented political centralization on the Italian peninsula
Balance of power: Weaker states ally with other states. No single state dominates -- modern diplomacy

10. Republic of Florence: Birthplace of the Renaissance (Includes Republic of Genoa)
Dominated by the Medici family
Cosimo de’ Medici allied with other powerful families to become the unofficial ruler
Wealthy patron of humanism.
Helped found the Florentine Platonic Academy.
Many of the great names of the Renaissance made their name in Florence.
Cosimo de’ Medici
( )

11. Intellectual Change Humanism: The study of man and his potential
Secularism: Focus on the here and now, less on the afterworld. Writings emphasize desire for power, prestige, wealth, status. Rewards to be reaped here on earth.
The Classics: A revival of the works of Ancient Greece and Rome. Collectors scoured monasteries, ruins--anywhere--for evidence of the ancient times. This revival would be reflected in the art and architecture of the period.
Individualism: Focus on “man as man”--his ability to think, learn, and act. Virtu: Petrarch writes about love to his sweetheart Laura. Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier, is a “how-to” guide for the ideal Renaissance man.
Power: Machiavelli preached “power politics” but there were other tools that could be used to dominate everything from the globe (cartography), to sound (musical notation), to abstract space (3-D perspective in painting), to people (exploration and colonization).

12. Humanist Writers Petrarch (1304-1374): The “Father of Humanism”
Considered the first modern writer
Called the middle ages the “Dark Ages”
Influenced by works of Cicero
Wrote in the Italian vernacular
Works: Laura (Love Poems), Letters to the Ancient Dead (Letters to ancient Roman writers
Boccaccio ( ): The Decameron
His most famous work--consisted of 100 earthly tales on Italian life, some irreverent and lewd. Best surviving descriptions of the Black Death.

13. Humanist Writers Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444)
First to use the term “humanism”
A civic humanist--served as chancellor in Florence and wrote a history of Florence, History of the Florentine People, on which he labored for 30 years. Believed there were lessons to learn from history. Past events were the result of human, not divine, activity.

14. Humanist Writers
Lorenzo Valla: On the False Donation of Constantine (1440) questioned land the Church claimed was given to it by Emperor Constantine, and Elegances of the Latin Language (1444) became the standard textbook for writing throughout Europe.

15. Humanist Writers Marsilio Ficino (1433-99)
At the behest of Cosimo de’ Medici he founded the Platonic Academy (translating Plato’s works into Latin for the first time).
Pico della Mirandola ( )
His Oration on the Dignity of Man is perhaps the most famous Renaissance work on the nature of man and emphasizes man’s gift of “reason” which gives them the ability to “rise upward towards the angels.”
Baldassare Castiglione ( )
The Book of the Courtier (1528): The most important work on Renaissance education. Specified the qualities you need to be a true gentleman (including physical and intellectual abilities--musician, dancer, poet, warrior).
Rejected “crude” behaviors--spitting, eating without utensils, wiping one’s nose with one’s sleeve, etc.

16. Machiavelli and the New Statecraft
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527)
The Prince (1513)
The quintessential treatise of the 16th century on the acquisition, maintenance and expansion of political power. Considered the first modern work of political science
“The ends justify the means”
“Better to be feared than loved”
Rulers should behave like a “lion (aggressive and strong) and a fox (cunning and practical).”
What does it mean to behave Machiavellian?

17. Niccolò Machiavelli.
In The Prince, Machiavelli gave concrete expression to the Renaissance preoccupation with political power. This slender volume remains one of the most famous and most widely read Western treatises on politics. Machiavelli is seen here in a portrait by Santi di Tito.

18. Humanist Writers… Remember the Ladies
Laura Cereta ( )
Daughter of a nobleman and sent away at age 7 to be educated in a convent. At age 9 she returned home to care for her five younger siblings and study from her father who tutored her in math, Latin, and Greek.
Married at 15, her husband dies two years later from the plague.
Plunges into a life of learning and writing. Wrote an important defense of humanist study for women. She died unexpectedly at age 30. Considered a forerunner to the feminist movement of the Enlightenment.

19. Humanist Writers…Remember the Ladies
Christine de Pizan ( )
Born in Venice, moved to France as a child.
First woman to write professionally and the first published feminist
She was well educated thanks to her progressive father (a physician and astrologer who served King Charles V of France)
By age 25 she was a widow with three children and decided to pursue a literary career.
She wrote the only contemporary tribute to Joan of Arc, viewing her as a hero and example of the triumph of good over evil.
Her most important work, The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) depicted a world where women hold all the jobs needed to run a city.

20. Christine de Pizan Lecturing a group of men

21. Education Education in the Renaissance
Liberal Studies: history, moral philosophy, eloquence (rhetoric), letters (grammar and logic), poetry, mathematics, astronomy and music
Education of Women: Still faced significant barriers despite some breakthroughs. Often viewed as objects of art or pawns in marriage alliances.
Aim of Education was to create a complete citizen
Francesco Guicciardini: Wrote a History of Florence and a History of Italy. In his Maxims and Reflections he instructs historians to “write so that someone born in a far distant age would have all those things as much before his eyes as did those who were then present. This is the aim of history.”

22. The Printing Press
The Impact of Printing: Invented by the Chinese but perfected by Gutenberg in the 1450s.
Johannes Gutenberg
Movable type (1445 – 1450)
Gutenberg’s Bible (1455 or 1456)
The Spread of Printing
No longer does the church or state hold a monopoly on education or intellectual life
Contributes to spread of Renaissance ideas and Protestant Reformation
Gutenberg-style printing press from Such presses could make 240 prints per hour.

23. To Be Continued…

24. Family and Marriage in Renaissance Italy
Arranged Marriages
Father-husband head of family
Wife managed household
Childbirth
Sexual Norms

25. Masaccio, Tribute Money.
With the frescoes of Masaccio, regarded by many as the first great works of Early Renaissance art, a new realistic style of painting was born. Tribute Money was one of a series of frescoes that Masaccio painted in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. In Tribute Money, Masaccio illustrated the biblical story of Jesus’s confrontation by a tax collector at the entrance to the town of Capernaum (seen at center). Jesus sent Peter to collect a coin from the mouth of a fish from Lake Galilee (seen at left); Peter then paid the tax collector (seen at right). In illustrating this story from the Bible, Masaccio used a rational system of perspective to create a realistic relationship between the figures and their background; the figures themselves are realistic. As one Renaissance observer said, ‘‘The works made before Masaccio’s day can be said to be painted, while his are living, real, and natural.’’
p. 359

26. Botticelli, Primavera.
This work reflects Botticelli’s strong interest in Classical antiquity. At the center of the painting is Venus, the goddess of love. At the right stands Flora, a Roman goddess of flowers and fertility, while the Three Graces dance playfully at the left. Cupid, the son of Venus, aims his arrow at the Three Graces. At the far left of the picture is Mercury, the messenger of the gods. Later in his life, Botticelli experienced a profound religious crisis, leading him to reject his earlier preoccupation with pagan gods and goddesses. He burned many of his early paintings and thereafter produced only religious works.
p. 359

27. Donatello, David.
Donatello’s David first stood in the courtyard of the Medici Palace. On its base was an inscription praising Florentine heroism and virtue, leading art historians to believe that the statue was meant to commemorate the victory of Florence over Milan in David’s pose and appearance are reminiscent of the nude statues of antiquity.
p. 360

28. Filippo Brunelleschi, Dome of the Duomo.
Brunelleschi was first commissioned to design the dome for the unfinished cathedral of Florence in 1417, but work did not begin until Although Brunelleschi would have preferred the Roman hemispheric dome, for practical reasons he was forced to elevate the center of the dome and then lessen the weight of the structure by building a thin double shell around a structure of twenty-four ribs. The most important ribs were placed on the outside of the dome (four of them are visible in this illustration).
p. 360

29. Brunelleschi, Interior of San Lorenzo.
Cosimo de’ Medici contributed massive amounts of money to the rebuilding of the Church of San Lorenzo. As seen in this view of the nave and choir of the church, Brunelleschi’s architectural designs were based on the basilica plan borrowed by early Christians from pagan Rome. San Lorenzo’s simplicity, evident in its rows of slender Corinthian columns, created a human-centered space.
p. 361

30. Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper.
Leonardo da Vinci was the impetus behind the High Renaissance concern for the idealization of nature, moving from a realistic portrayal of the human figure to an idealized form. Evident in Leonardo’s Last Supper is his effort to depict a person’s character and inner nature by the use of gesture and movement. Unfortunately, Leonardo used an experimental technique in this fresco, which soon led to its physical deterioration.
p. 361

31. Raphael, School of Athens.
Raphael arrived in Rome in 1508 and began to paint a series of frescoes commissioned by Pope Julius II for the papal apartments at the Vatican. In School of Athens, painted in 1510 or 1511, Raphael created an imaginary gathering of ancient philosophers. In the center stand Plato and Aristotle. At the left is Pythagoras, showing his system of proportions on a slate. At the right is Ptolemy, holding a celestial globe.
p. 362

32. Michelangelo, David.
This statue of David, cut from an 18-foot-high piece of marble, exalts the beauty of the human body and is a fitting symbol of the Italian Renaissance’s affirmation of human power. Completed in 1504, David was moved by Florentine authorities to a special location in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of the Florentine government.
p. 363

33. Bramante, Tempietto.
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain commissioned Donato Bramante to design a small building in Rome that would commemorate the place where Saint Peter purportedly was crucified. Completed in 1502, the temple reflected Bramante’s increasing understanding of ancient Roman remains.
p. 363

34. The Northern Artistic Renaissance
Jan van Eyck (c – 1441)
Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride
Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528)
Adoration of the Magi
Music in the Renaissance
Guillaume Dufay

35. Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride.
Northern painters took great care in depicting each object and became masters at rendering details. This emphasis on a realistic portrayal is clearly evident in this oil painting, supposedly a portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini, an Italian merchant who had settled in Bruges, and his wife, Giovanna Cenami.
p. 365

36. Dürer, Adoration of the Magi.
By the end of the fifteenth century, northern artists had begun to study in Italy and to adopt many of the techniques used by Italian painters. As is evident in this painting, which was the central panel for an altarpiece done for Frederick the Wise in 1504, Albrecht Dürer masterfully incorporated the laws of perspective and the ideals of proportion into his works. At the same time, he did not abandon the preoccupation with detail typical of northern artists. Dürer portrayed himself in the center as the wise man with long hair.
p. 366

37. The European State in the Renaissance
The Renaissance State in Western Europe
France
Louis XI the Spider King (1461 – 1483)
England
War of the Roses
Henry VII Tudor (1485 – 1509)
Spain
Unification of Castile and Aragón
Establishment of professional royal army
Religious uniformity
The Inquisition
Conquest of Granada
Expulsion of the Jews

38. Central, Eastern, and Ottoman Empires
Central Europe: The Holy Roman Empire
Habsburg Dynasty
Maximilian I (1493 – 1519)
The Struggle for Strong Monarchy in Eastern Europe
Poland
Hungary
Russia
The Ottoman Turks and the end of the Byzantine Empire
Seljuk Turks spread into Byzantine territory
Constantinople falls to the Turks (1453)

39. Map 12.2: Europe in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century.
By the second half of the fifteenth century, states in western Europe, particularly France, Spain, and England, had begun the process of modern state building. With varying success, they reined in the power of the church and nobles, increased the ability to levy taxes, and established effective government bureaucracies.
Q What aspects of Europe’s political boundaries help explain why France and the Holy Roman Empire were often at war with each other?
Map 12-2, p. 367

40. Map 12.3: The Iberian Peninsula.
The marriage of Isabella of Castile to Ferdinand of Aragon laid the foundation for the unification of Spain and its rise as a major European power. The two monarchs instituted military and bureaucratic reforms and forced Jews and Muslims to flee the country.
Q What aspects of Portugal’s geography help explain why it became a major seafaring nation, with little overland trade with Europe?
Map 12-3, p. 368

41. Chronology, p. 370

42. The Church in the Renaissance
The Problem of Heresy and Reform
John Hus (1374 – 1415)
Urged the elimination of worldliness and corruption of the clergy
Burned at the stake (1415)
Church Councils
The Papacy
The Renaissance Papacy
Julius II (1503 – 1513)
“Warrior Pope”
Nepotism
Patrons of Culture
Leo X (1513 – 1521)

43. Map 12.4: The Ottoman Empire and Southeastern Europe.
Long a buffer between Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East, the Byzantine Empire quickly waned in power and territory after Constantinople was sacked by crusaders in The Ottoman Turks slowly gained Byzantine territory and ended the thousand-year empire with the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
Q Why would the Byzantine Empire have found it difficult to make alliances by 1403?
Map 12-4, p. 371

44. A Renaissance Pope: Leo X.
The Renaissance popes allowed secular concerns to overshadow their spiritual duties. Shown here is the Medici pope Leo X. Raphael portrays the pope as a collector of books, looking up after examining an illuminated manuscript with a magnifying glass. At the left is the pope’s cousin Guilio, a cardinal. Standing behind the pope is Luigi de’ Rossi, another relative who had also been made a cardinal.
p. 372

45. Chronology, p. 373

46. Timeline, p. 374

47. Discussion Questions
What social changes did the Renaissance bring about?
How did Machiavelli deal with the issue of political power?
How did the printing press change European society?
What technical achievements did Renaissance artists make? Why were they significant?
What was the significance of The War of the Roses in England?
How did the popes handle the growing problems that were emerging in the Church in the Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Century?