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The Renaissance
Chapter 22b
Recovery in Western Europe: State
Building
• Political Consolidation and Centralization
• Europe develops new taxes
– Italian states: bonds
– France: salt tax, sales tax
– England: hearth tax, head tax, plow tax
France
• Louis XI (1461-83)
– “The Spider” – preferred to trap enemies in
diplomatic webs rather than fight them
– Standing Army (about 15,000 men)
– Duke of Burgundy
• Charles VIII (1483-98)
– War to reclaim Italy
– Spain also claims Italy
Spain
• Fernando of Aragon marries Isabel of
Castile, 1469
– Heir to be called King of “Spain”
• Major political and economic alliance
• reconquista, the Spanish Inquisition
• Funded Columbus’ quest for China
Spanish Inquisition
• Reconquista – 11 year “Crusade” (148192)
– Jews expelled 1492
– Moors of Granada expelled 1502
England
• War of the Roses (1454-85)
– House of Lancaster vs. House of Tudor
• Henry VII (1485-1509)
– No foreign wars
– Encourages trade
– Restores sources of royal revenue
– Eliminates all pretenders to the thrown
• Henry VII (1509-47)
The Humanists
• Humanities: literature, history, moral philosophy
• Renaissance humanists deeply devoted to
Christianity
– Francesco Petrarca or Petrarch (1304-74)
– Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) publishes critical
Greek-Latin edition of New Testament
• Also devoted to rediscovering classical Latin
texts, often ignored in monastic libraries
Humanist Moral Thought
• Rejection of monastic lifestyle in favor of
morally virtuous life while engaged in the
world
– Marriage, business
• Reconciliation of Christianity with rapidly
changing European society and economy
The Renaissance, 14th-16th
centuries
• “rebirth” of classical culture
• Architecture: domed cathedrals
– Imitation of Roman domes
Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 – 1446)
Cupola, Santa Maria del Fiore
Renaissance Art
• Italian artists use perspective
Sistine Chapel ceiling – hand of God and Adam
Sculpture
• Donatello (1368-1466)
– David
Painting
• Masaccio (1401-28?)
– Founder of
renaissance painting
Michelangelo
(1475-1564)
• David
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
• Work with real human
anatomy and
musculature
• Study of proportions
Skull 1489
Last Supper
Renaissance Europe and the
Larger World
• Artists express interest in Byzantine, Asian
worlds
• Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)
tries to reconcile Plato, Aristotle, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, Zoroastrianism
– Illustrative failure
– Gave voice to desire to understand the world
Pico della Mirandola
Oration
• Thou, constrained by no limits, in
accordance with thine own free will, in
whose hands We have place thee, shalt
ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature…
We have made thee neither of heaven nor
of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so
that with freedom of choice and with
honor, as though the maker and molder of
thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in
whatever shape thou shalt prefer.