Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
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.