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The Renaissance
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo was one the greatest artists of the Renaissance. He
was born near Florence. As a young boy he moved to the town
Vinci. He took his name from this town. When he was 14 he
went to the city of Florence as an apprentice artist and sculptor.
Then when he was older he went to Milan to design weapons.
He drew brilliant ideas like tanks, aeroplanes with flapping
wings, helicopters and even a submarine, but he was afraid that
other people would steal his ideas so he mirror wrote. Mirror
writing is writing from right to left not left to right.
Leonardo’s sketches and drawings show us that he had great
understanding of the human body. He loved to draw people’s
faces with lots of different expressions.
Two of his most famous paintings were the Mona Lisa and the
Last supper. The Mona Lisa is so famous because nobody
knows if the person in the picture is happy or sad. Most people
think that the person in the picture was a wealthy Merchant. The
Mona Lisa is now hung at the famous Louvre Museum in Paris.
The Last Supper is famous because there is so much tiny detail
on all the Apostles and they have so much expression on their
faces. This famous painting is now hung at
the Milan Museum of Art.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo’s full name was Michelangelo Buonarrotti. He
was born near Florence in 1475. One of the most famous
masterpieces he sculpted was the Pieta. This shows the dead
body of Jesus Christ held by his mother Mary. Michelangelo
was only 23 when he did that sculpture. He obviously had a
great knowledge of anatomy because the veins and muscles of
the dead Christ are clearly visible in the sculpture. As a result
the sculptor looks very lifelike. He also carved the famous statue
of David, the same character that Donatello sculptured. David
has said to have killed the giant Goliath with a sling. This statue
was carved out of a huge block of marble and now it stands 4 m
54 cm tall.
Michelangelo is best known for painting scenes of the old
testament on the ceiling of the of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Pope Julius the 2nd asked him to do this. He had to think hard
about taking the job because at the time he thought of himself a
sculptor. This took him 4 long years to finish it. He had to lie on
his back which gave him awful back pain. He always had to be
very close to his work all the time and that’s why it’s a miracle
and it’s a masterpiece. .
Nicholas Copernicus
Nicholas Copernicus was born on the 19th of February 1473 just
two years before the great Michelangelo Buonarrotti.
Copernicus was born in the city of Torun Poland. He studied
astronomy, law and mathematics in Krakow College, Italy.
Nicholas was born into a family that wanted to the best they
could in everything. His Father died when he was only 10 years
of age, so he was raised by his Uncle. His Uncle was the Bishop
of Warmia at the time. Copernicus did lots of administrative
duties for St. Frombork’s cathedral. He looked at the stars from
his house where he also helped perfect the telescope that Galileo
made a simpler version of a few years earlier. (read more about
Galileo on the next page). He worked on his theory that the
Earth and the other planets orbited the Sun, not the Sun and the
other planets orbited the Earth. After years of work he proved
everyone else wrong by proving that the Earth and the other
planets orbited the Sun. He was very hesitant to publish his
discovery because he thought he would be arrested for Heresy.
Galileo
Galileo was born on the 15th of February 1564. He was born in
Pisa Italy. Galileo was an Italian scientist whose work unlocked
many secrets in astronomy in the 17th century. Galileo
brilliantly created the first high-powered telescope, a horse
powered pump to raise water and he showed that that a 60 kg
person would fall at the same speed as a 90 kg person. He came
up with the ideas of Newton’s laws of motion. He confirmed the
Copernican theory of the solar system. While Galileo was giving
a lecture the police burst in and put him under arrest for heresy
and then in his next lecture he said “ as I was saying when I was
rudely interrupted “ and carried on with his lecture. He faced the
inquisition and was forced to renounce those beliefs publicly.
He faced the courts, proved his theory’s correct.
The Vatican officially recognized the validity of Galileo’s work
in 1993. Galileo was a professor of mathematics in the
University of Padua from 1592 till 1610.
The Medici’s
The affective Founder
The Medici’s were the bourgeois family in Italy during the
Renaissance. They ruled Florence and later Tuscany from 1430
to 1737. The affective founder of the Medici’s was Giovanni di
bicci de Medici (1360 – 1429). He was a merchant who became
very wealthy during the time of trade in Italy and he was the
ruler of Florence from 1421 to 1429.
Cosimo Medici
Cosimo was said to be the real effective founder after Giovanni
died. He became recalled into the city on popular demand. He
got banished in a political struggle with the Albizzi family.
Cosimo spent a considerable amount of money on charitable
acts, lived simply and cultivated literature and the arts. He was
the uncrowned king of Florence for the rest of his life.
Lorenzo the magnificent
Lorenzo was Piero’s son. Lorenzo had one brother, Giuliano. In
an attack Giuliano was killed and Lorenzo was injured. Lorenzo
increased the Medici’s power greatly. By becoming the rulers of
Tuscany. Under Lorenzo the ( Florence) surpassed the cultural
achievements of the earlier period. This was the high point of
Florentine Renaissance so obviously he was a great ruler.
Cosimo the 2nd
If the rulers since Lorenzo had been weak and ineffective this all
changed when Cosimo ascended the throne at the age of 18.
Cosimo was a descendent from not Cosimo the 1st but his
brother. He quickly consolidated his power, and under his rule
Tuscany became an absolutist nation. Although politically
ruthless, Cosimo was highly cultured and promoted letters and
arts as well as the Tuscan economy and Navy. He founded the
academia Della Crusca , a body charged with the promotion of
the Tuscan language (which has become the standard Italian
today).
Ferdinand the 2nd
During the outbreak of the Plague, in 1630 Ferdinand
distinguished himself but he was not a strong ruler and was
unable to protect Galileo from the inquisition in 1633. 1657 ,
together with his brother Leopold, Ferdinand created the
academy of experiment. He made a few more and they are: The
royal society of London, the Royal French academy of sciences
and The academia del cimento.
Johann Gutenberg
Johann Gutenberg was in 1400 in Mainz, Germany. Johann, like
a good cook can take something that has already been cooked
and make something delicious out of it. He made a small
machine that changed the world out of things that have already
been invented. Gutenberg invented a machine that allowed him
to take small blocks of letters in such a way that written material
could be printed and mass produced. Before the printing press
very few people outside the Clergy could read but with
inexpensive books literacy spread through Europe. Block
printing existed well before Gutenberg. The Chinese had been
carving wood blocks to print books as early as 868AD, but they
had one major drawback a new set of woodblocks had to be
made for each book!
Writing ink dates back from about 2500BC in Egypt and China.
They took the soot from fires and mixed it with sap. Later
civilisations used plant material for ink, particularly the dark
blue indigo plant. Gutenberg used an oil based printing ink that
would lat longer than other inks used in his time.
The Renaissance
Around about 1450 Scholars became more interested in the
world around them. Their works of art became more of life and
people. They eventually went to explore the mountains and
valleys for inspiration. The name, over time became the
Renaissance. The word Renaissance means rebirth or revival.
Historians believe that Renaissance was the start of modern
history.
The Renaissance began in Northern Italy and spread through
European. Italy became so wealthy during the Renaissance
because citys like Naples, Genoa and Venice became centres of
trade in Europe and the Middle East. Arab scholars preserved
writings of the ancient Greeks in their librarys.