1. Florence: Cradle of the Renaissance

2. 29.2 The City of Florence
Florence Italy was the leading cultural city during the Renaissance.
It was home to many famous artists, thinkers, poets, and other notable people.
Its location made it a center for trade.
Hub for woolen-cloth trading in all of Europe.
By the 14th century, it to become Europe’s banking center

3. Florence grew wealthy as a center for the wool trade
and as a banking center

4. The Medici Family The Medici family dominated Florence.
Their wealth grew from banking.
Like other rich members in Florence, the Medicis became patrons to artists and thinkers.
They spent large sums on art
Financed the completion of the Duomo
Artists, poets, & philosophers gathered at their home.
Michelangelo once lived at the Medici household

5. The Medici family dominated Florence. They became patrons to many
Renaissance painters and thinkers.

6. Florence, a center of learning
Florentine works of art, innovations, & ideas, influenced others.
People learned from one another
They sometimes competed to produce even greater works.
Florentines were also influenced by ideas from other places.
Why did Florence attract so many visitors?
Trade/commerce
Study art with Florentine masters
Learn at the libraries and schools
Many brought new ideas
The visitors brought new ideas, goods, and technologies making the city a vibrant place.
Florentines were influenced by the freedom of ideas, the core of Humanism.

8. 29.3 Advances in Architecture and Engineering
Classical architecture influenced Renaissance builders.
Studied Greek & Roman ruins
Used rounded arches, straight columns, domed roofs.
Architects came up with new ideas
Wealthy families built private palazzi (palaces).
The palazzi had shops on the 1st floor and homes above. Many had courtyards for art.

10. Advances in Engineering
Humanists valued good citizenship & architects built public buildings.
Grand yet welcoming
Built roofed porches called loggia that joined buildings and creating outdoor plazas.
Advances in Engineering
The Duomo di Santa Maria del Fiore was the greatest engineering feats of the Renaissance.
Filippo Brunelleschi solved the problem of finishing the incomplete cathedral
Studied Roman designs
Learned the math needed to complete the dome
The dome has no internal support
8 large arches come together to make the dome
Invented hoists to lift building material & workers to the top

11. Ponte Vecchio and skyline
The Duomo. Florence’s Cathedral

12. 29.4 Advances in Painting

13. Patrons offered opportunities
Talented artists were able to make advances in style and technique
Painters were able to take a renewed interest in classical culture and spread of humanism

14. Palazzo Medici

15. What the painters wanted to express through art
Depict (show) real people posed in lifelike ways
Show feelings (emotion)
Realistic backgrounds
This style was very different from middle-aged art: flat and rigid (2 dimensional)

16. How were they able to depict this new style?
Discovery of perspective
Painters used perspective to show depth on a flat surface
The smaller a painted object, the further away it appeared
The larger an object, the closer it appeared
Lines come closer together as they receded into the distance
Shading could make figures three-dimensional (3-D)

17. The Last Supper by Da Vinci

18. shading

19. How did science and math contribute to advancement in painting?
Masaccio-used geometry to learn how to give proper spacing to seem more realistic
Leonardo da Vinci-studied anatomy to see how bodies moved in order to portray (show) them more vividly (realistic)
Invention of oil-based paints: a combination of powdered pigment with linseed oil. This allowed artists to paint over work in order to show texture and details

20. Geometry & Anatomy

21. 29.5 Advances in Sculpture

22. Sculptors Inspired by Roman statues
Began carving figures that looked real & showed emotion
Statues: freestanding and viewed in round
Medieval statues: relief statues (attached against a wall…) and subjects were clothed
Symbolized humanist ideals of independence (free) and individuality (unique)

23. Donatello: a Florentine
One of the first sculptors to show more life-like style
Statue of David
Shows story of David defeating Goliath
His work expressed his mood and personality

24. Michelangelo: painter, sculptor, poet & artist
Inspired by Donatello to create his own David
David stood 17 feet tall
David is ideal of male beauty; yet reflected humanist ideas
David’s expression shows concentration and tension of man entering battle
David installed in Piazza della Signoria
Michelangelo’s favorite art media was sculpting because he liked to bring his subject to life

25. Michelangelo’s David

26. 29.6 Advances in Literature

27. Time for change The topics changed The style of writing changed
The language changed

28. Out with the old, in with the new
Medieval times
Literature dealt with religious topic
Writers used formal impersonal style
Italian writers wrote in Latin
Result: works could only be read by highly educated people
Renaissance Times
Interested in individual experience to express feeling and thoughts about life
Wrote about secular (non-religious) topics
Writing in own dialect (not Latin)
Result: more people were able to read

29. The Divine Comedy Written by Dante Alighieri (Florentine Native)
Written in early 1300s
Used his native language
Long poem that took an imaginary journey to Christian afterlife.
In poem, Dante describes:
Inferno (hell): Roman poet Virgil shows Dante a place for tormented souls
Purgatory: Virgil also shows Dante a waiting place for heaven and hell; souls await entry into heaven
Paradise (heaven): beautiful woman, Beatrice, shows him

31. How can this literature piece be linked to humanist art?
Highlights strong emotion
Highlights the experiences of individuals
Filled with social commentary (people are talking-dialogue)
Real people

32. Who did Dante influence?
Influenced Petrarch and Boccaccio
They described people’s lives with new intensity and feeling
Used local dialect;
Remember Petrarch? Father of Humanism

33. 29.7 Advances in Science & Math
Humanists were not satisfied with just following Greek & Roman ideas about math & science
They questioned, made observations, and preformed experiments.
They used math and logic to analyze their ideas.

34. Leonardo Di Vinci One of the most creative thinkers.
He was an artist, scientist, and inventor
Study under Florentine masters. Lived and worked there.
He never accepted something true until he proved it himself
Wrote about geometry, engineering, sound, motion, & architecture.
Studied anatomy and described blood circulation and how the eye works.
Understood tides were effected by the Moon
1st to draw maps from a birds eye view (above the ground)

35. Andreas Vesalius
wrote a groundbreaking
book on anatomy
Michelangelo’s
Drawings of muscles

36. Andreas Vesalius’
sketch of internal
organs

37. The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli, 1550 Enea Vico (Italian, 1523–1567)

38. Sketches by Leonardo Da Vinci

39. Leonardo’s inventions
Designed bridges, weapons, machines, and even a diving suit!
Other Italian scientists and mathematicians
Girolamo Cardano: solved complex algebra problems, and pioneered work in probability (science of chance)
Galileo Galilei: experimented with gravity. Proved that all objects fall at the same rate.
He also built the 1st telescope that could look into space.
Discovered sunspots, & the moons of Jupiter

40. As the story goes, Galileo dropped two
objects with different weights and observed
that they fall at the same rate.
Galileo’s telescope

41. 29.8 Florentine Politics
Florence ruled by governing boards from the Palazzo Veccio
Boards were controlled by rich families
Powerful Medici family control Florence for 3 centuries

42. Medici Family They kept their power in many ways Built palaces
Kept a strong military
Involved in all aspects of city life
Supported artists, writers and musicians
They defeated enemies who threatened the family

43. Lorenzo the Magnificent
Lorenzo was one of the most powerful members of Medici Family
Leading patron of art & scholarship
Ruled Florence for more than 20 years from 1469 until his death in 1492
A revolution forces the Medicis into temporary exile
1512 the family regains power

44. Niccolo Machiavelli Florentine statesman Florentine historian
He observed how there were struggles for power
During the Medici exile he reorganized the city’s defenses
He was a diplomat and he observed other Italian rulers
He wrote a book about all of this called The Prince.

45. The Prince An account about how politics/government worked
Advised rulers to do what worked best not what was right or good
Rulers should lie if it helped them to rule
Believed rulers should be feared not loved
His book and beliefs contradict humanist ideals
In other ways his book shows the influence of humanism
It separated the ideas of government from religion (e.g. separation of church and state)

46. 29.9 Florentine Commerce & Trade
Florence was the center of wealth and trade
It was a cultural center
The economy of Florence was unusually flexible

47. $$Show me the Money$$ Flexible economy Money makers
Woolen-cloth making
People worked in many types of businesses
A cloth factory owner might also be a banker or realtor
A grain dealer might also be a lawyer
People often belonged to several guilds at once

48. Florence Banking Florence had a thriving banking industry
Shift to money economy
Over time Florence becomes banking hub
Medicis become one of Italy’s wealthiest families because of this
Started out as merchants and money lenders
Florence becomes richer than most of Europe’s largest kingdoms
Had 80 banks

49. Let’s go shopping! Florence Markets Mercato Veccio (old)
Everyday items
Vegetables, fruits, bread, fish, meat, medicine and shoes
Crowded, noisy and smelly
People from all over Europe came
Mercato Nuovo (new)
Built in mid 1500s
Center of cloth and banking
Food and weapons were banned
Wanted it to be clean and orderly
Largest financial market in Europe
Mercato Nuovo