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The
Renaissance
History 103
Lisa M. Lane
Veronica Franco
courtesan extraordinarie, Venice
painting by Tintoretto
The invention of the Renaissance
In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness-that which was turned within as that which was turned
without-- lay dreaming or half awake beneath a common
veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish
prepossession, through which the world and history were
seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself
only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or
corporation--only through some general category. In Italy
this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and
consideration of the State and of all the things of this world
became possible.
-- Jacob Burckhardt, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy"
(1860)
The symbolic beginning: classicism
From To Cicero, by Petrarch
The shame of failing to
cultivate our own talents,
thereby depriving the future
of the fruits that they might
have yielded, is not enough
for us; we must waste and
spoil, through our cruel and
insufferable neglect, the fruits
of your labours too, and of
those of your fellows as well,
for the fate that I lament in
the case of your own books
has befallen the works of
many another illustrious man.
Humanism
definition
civic humanism
individualism
Renaissance culture
realpolitik: Machiavelli
If Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus had been
unarmed they could not have enforced their
constitutions for long--as happened in our time to Fra
Girolamo Savonarola, who was ruined with his new
order of things immediately the multitude believed in
him no longer, and he had no means of keeping
steadfast those who believed or of making the
unbelievers to believe. Therefore such as these have
great difficulties in consummating their enterprise, for
all their dangers are in the ascent, yet with ability
they will overcome them; but when these are
overcome, and those who envied them their success
are exterminated, they will begin to be respected,
and they will continue afterwards powerful, secure,
honoured, and happy.
Savonarola
Renaissance man
The courtier must be:
noble, skilled at war, a
good dancer, an
excellent
conversationalist,
moderate at all times,
graceful, elegant, good
with his hands, artistic
Philosophy
Pico della Mirandola
... the Great Artisan mandated
that...[a]ll All other things have a
limited and fixed nature prescribed and
bounded by Our laws. You, with no
limit or no bound, may choose for
yourself the limits and bounds of your
nature. We have placed you at the
world's center so that you may survey
everything else in the world. We have
made you neither of heavenly nor of
earthly stuff, neither mortal nor
immortal, so that with free choice and
dignity, you may fashion yourself into
whatever form you choose.
-- Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)
Architecture: Brunelleschi
Church of San Spirito
Duomo, Florence
Church of San Lorenzo
Optics and Art
The eye according to
Ibn al-Haitham
(Alhazen, c. 965–1038)
perspective and
vanishing points
Massaccio
The Trinity
(1427-28)
The David
Donatello
Michaelangelo
The Northern (Christian) Renaissance
And for popes, that supply the place of
Christ, if they should endeavor to imitate His
life, to wit His poverty, labor, doctrine, cross,
and contempt of life, or should they consider
what the name pope, that is father, or
holiness, imports, who would live more
disconsolate than themselves? or who would
purchase that chair with all his substance? or
defend it, so purchased, with swords, poisons,
and all force imaginable?
-- Erasmus, In Praise of Folly (1509)
Saint Thomas More
Utopia (1516)
Dürer’s Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (1498)
(conquest, war, famine, death)
Sources:
Petrarch image: https://language.uoregon.edu/petrarch/
Italy map: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/REN/RENITCIT.HTM
Da Vinci man: http://www.centreofcultures.org.uk/attitude.htm
Castiglione: http://www.abcgallery.com/R/raphael/raphael54.html
Church of San Spirito:
http://www.yesnet.yk.ca/schools/projects/renaissance/graphics/brunelleschione.j
pg
Brunelleschi: http://www.greatitalians.com/Images/Brunelleschi.jpg
Perspective:
http://www.webexhibits.org/sciartperspective/raphaelperspective1.html
Eye (Alhazen):
http://www.nature.com/eye/journal/v18/n11/fig_tab/6701578f4.html
Thomas More: http://www.thomasmore.org/qry/page.taf?id=53