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The philosopher Marsillio Ficino smiled with pleasure as he watched the sun cast a golden glow over his
native city of Florence. To Ficino, this glow symbolized the revival of art and thought taking place in
Italy. Dipping his pen in ink, he began to write. “This century,” he wrote, “like a golden age has restored
to light the liberal arts, architecture, music.” What a glorious time to be alive, he thought.
As Ficino recognized a new age had dawned in Western Europe. Europeans called it the
Renaissance, meaning “rebirth”. It began in the 1300s and reached its peak around 1500.
Geography and History
The Islands of Venice
One of the world’s most
remarkable cities was born
after the fall of the western
Roman empire. As invaders
began conquering Italy,
refugees fled to the islands in
the Adriatic Sea. They drove
wooden plings into marshy
area to make a flat surface so
that they could build houses.
By Renaissance times,
Venetian sailors were bringing
back a wealth of trade goods
from East and West.
The Grand Canal, an Sshaped waterway, became the
main “street,” Venetian row
from island to island in flatbottomed boats called
gondolas. Over 150 canals and
400 bridges link the islands
into a single, unique city.
The Italian City-States
The Renaissance began in Italy, then spread north to the rest of Europe.
Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance for several reasons.
WHY ITALY? The Renaissance was marked by a new interest in the
culture of ancient Rome. Because Italy had been the center of the Roman
empire, it was a logical place for this reawakening to begin. Architectural
remains, statues, coins, and inscriptions – all were visible reminders of
Roman grandeur.
Italy differed from the rest of Europe in the ways. Its cities
survived the Middle Ages. In the north, city-states like Florence, Milan,
Venice, and Genoa grew into prosperous centers of trade and
manufacturing. Rome, in central Italy, and Naples, in the south, along with
a number of smaller city-states, also contributed to the Renaissance
cultural revival.
A wealthy and powerful merchant class in these city-states further
promoted the cultural rebirth. These merchants exerted both political and
economic leadership, and their attitudes and interests helped to shape the
Italian Renaissance. They stressed education and individual achievement.
They also spent lavishly to support the arts.
FLORENCE AND THE MEDICIS Florence, perhaps more than
any other city, came to symbolize the energy and brilliance of the
Italian Renaissance. Like the ancient city of Athens, it produced a
dazzling number of gifted poets, artists, architects, scholars, and
scientists in a short span of time.
In the 1400s, the Medici (MEH DEE CHEE) family of
Florence organized a successful banking business. Before long, the
family expanded into wool manufacturing, mining, and other
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ventures. The Medicis ranked among the richest merchants and
bankers in Europe. Money translated into cultural and political
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Renaissance Italy, 1505
power. Cosimo de’ Medici gained control of the Florentine
government in 1434, and the family continued as uncrowned
rulers of the city for many years.
Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, known as “the
Magnificent,” represented the Renaissance ideal. A clever
politician, he held Florence together in the late 1400s during
difficult times. He was also a generous patron, or financial
supporter, of the arts. Under Lorenzo, poets and philosophers
frequently visited the Medici palace. Artists learned their craft by
sketching ancient Roman statues displayed in the Medici gardens.
What Was the Renaissance
The Renaissance was a time of creativity and change in many
area – political, social, economic, and cultural. Perhaps most
important, however, were the changes that took place in the way people viewed themselves and their
world.
A NEW WORLDVIEW Spurred by a reawakened interest in the classical learning of Greece and
Rome, creative Renaissance minds set out to transform their own age. Their era, they felt, was a time of
rebirth after what they saw as the disorder and disunity of the medieval world.
In reality, Renaissance Europe did not break completely with its medieval past. After all, monks
and scholars of the Middle Ages had preserved much of the classical heritage. Latin had survived as the
language of the Church and of educated people. And the mathematics of Euclid, the astronomy of
Ptolemy, and the works of Aristotle were well known to late medieval scholars.
Yet the Renaissance did produce new attitudes towards culture and learning. Unlike medieval
scholars who were more likely to focus on life after death, Renaissance thinkers explored the richness and
variety of human experience in the here and now. At the same time, there was a new emphasis on
individual achievement. Indeed, the Renaissance ideal was the person with talent in many fields.
A SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE The Renaissance supported a spirit of adventure and a wide-ranging
curiosity that led people to explore new worlds. The Italian navigator Christopher Columbus, who sailed
to the Americas in 1492, represented that spirit. So did Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish scientist who
revolutionized the way people viewed the universe. Renaissance writers and artists, eager to experiment
with new forms, were also products of that adventurous spirit.
HUMANISM
At the heart of the Italian Renaissance was an intellectual movement known as
humanism. Based on the study of classical culture, humanism focused on worldly subjects rather than on
the religious issues that had occupied medieval thinkers. Most humanist scholars were pious Christians
who hoped to use the wisdom of the ancients to increase their understanding of their own times.
Humanists believed that education should stimulate the individual’s creative powers. They
returned to the humanities, the subjects taught in ancient Greek and Roman schools. The main areas of
study were grammar, rhetoric, poetry, and history, based on Greek and Roman texts. Humanity did not
accept the classical texts without question, however. Rather, they studied the ancient authorities in light of
their own experiences.
Francesco Petrarch (PEE TRAHRK), a Florentine who lived in the 1300s, was an early Renaissance
humanist. In Monestaries and churches, he found and assembled a library of Greek and Roman
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manuscripts. Through his efforts and those of others encouraged by his example, Western Europeans
again knew the works of Cicero, Homer, and Virgil. Petrarch also wrote literature of his own. His Sonnets
to Laura, love poems inspired by a woman he knew only from a distance, greatly influenced later writers.
A Golden Age in the Arts
The Renaissance attained its most glorious expression in its
paintings, sculpture, and architecture. Wealthy patrons played a
major role in this artistic flowering. Popes and princes supported the
work of hundreds of artists. Wealthy and powerful women such as
Isabella d’Este of Mantua were important patrons of the arts as well.
Perspective
HUMANIST CONCERNS
Renaissance art reflected humanist
concerns. Like artists of the Middle Ages, Renaissance artists
portrayed religious figures such as Jesus and Mary. However, they
often set these figures against Greek or Roman backgrounds.
Painters also produced portraits of well-known figures of the day,
reflecting the humanist interest in individual achievement.
Renaissance artists studied ancient Greek and Roman work
and revived many classical forms. The sculpture Donatello, for
example, created a life-size statue of a soldier on horseback. It was
the first such figure done since ancient times.
Renaissance artists used perspective
to create an illusion of depth. The
diagram above shows how this
painting by Antonello de Messina has
imaginary lines that recede from the
viewer toward a single vanishing
point.
NEW TECHNIQUES Roman art had been very realistic, and
Renaissance painters developed new techniques for representing
both humans and landscapes in a realistic way. Renaissance artists
learned the rules of perspective. By making distant objects smaller
than those close to the viewer, artists could paint scenes that
appeared three-dimensional.
Renaissance painters used shading to make objects look
round and real. Painters and sculptors also studied human anatomy and drew from live models. As a
result, they were able to portray the human body more accurately than medieval artists had done.
WOMEN ARTISTS
Some women overcame the limits on education and training to become
professional artists. Sometimes, these women kept their work secret, allowing their husbands to pass it off
as their own. Still, a few women artists gained acceptance. In the 1500s, Sofonisba Anguissola (SOH FOH
NIHZ BAH – AHN GWEE SOH LAH), an Italian noblewoman, became court painter to King Philip II of Spain.
ARCHITECTURE Renaissance architects rejected the Gothic style of the late Middle Ages as cluttered
and disorderly. Instead, they adopted the columns, arches, and domes that had been favored by the Greeks
and Romans. For the cathedral in Florence, Filippo Brunelleschi (BROO NEHL LEHS KEE) created a
majestic dome, which he modeled on the dome of the Pantheon in Rome.
Three Geniuses of Renaissance Art
Renaissance Florence was home to many outstanding painters and sculptors. The three most celebrated
Florentine masters were Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
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Primary Source
The Genius of Leonardo
Italian artist and architect
Giorgio Vasari is best known
for his engaging book of
biographies of Italian artists,
including Leonardo da Vinci.
“Leonardo practiced not one
art but all of those that are
dependent upon design, and
he had great talent for
geometry besides being very
musical, playing the lute
with great ability and being
excellent in the art of
improvisation…In
entertaining, Leonardo was
so pleasant that he won
everyone’s heart. Although
he may well be said to have
owned nothing and to have
worked little, he always kept
a servant as well as horses.”
- Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the
Most Eminent Italian
Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects
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LEONARDO Leonardo da Vinci (DAH VIHN CHEE) was born in 1452. His
exploring mind and endless curiosity fed a genius for invention. He made
sketches of nature and of models in his studio. He even dissected corpses to
learn how bones and muscles work. “Indicate which are the muscles and which
the tendons, which become prominent or retreat in the different movements of
each limb,” he wrote in his notebook.
Today, people admire Leonardo’s paintings for their freshness and
realism. Most popular is the Mona Lisa, a portrait of a woman whose
mysterious smile has baffled viewers for centuries. The Last Supper, showing
Christ and his apostles on the night before the crucifixion, is both a moving
religious painting and a masterpiece of perspective. Because Leonardo was
experimenting with a new type of paint, much of The Last Supper decayed over
the years, but it has recently been restored.
Leonardo thought of himself as an artist, but his talents accomplishments
ranged over many areas. His interests extended to botany, anatomy, optics,
music, architecture, and engineering. He made sketches for flying machines and
undersea boats centuries before the first airplane or submarine was actually built.
MICHELANGELO Like Leonardo, Michelangelo was a many-sided geniussculptor, engineer, painter, architect, and poet. As a young man, he shaped
marble into masterpieces like the Pieta, which captures the sorrow of Mary as
she cradles the dead Christ on her knees. Michelangelo’s statue of David, the
biblical shepherd who killed the giant Goliath, recalls the harmony and grace of
ancient Greek tradition.
One of Michelangelo’s greatest projects was painting a huge mural to
decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It was an enormous task,
depicting the biblical history of the world, from the Creation to the Flood. For
four years, the artist lay on his back on a wooden platform suspended just a few
inches below the chapel ceiling. In a poem, Michelangelo later described his
ordeal:
“My stomach is thrust toward my chin
My beard curls up toward the sky
My head leans right over onto my back…
The brush endlessly dripping onto my face.”
- Michelangelo, Poems
Michelangelo was also a talented architect. His most famous design was for the dome of St. Peter’s
Cathedral in Rome. It served as a model for many later structures, including the United States Capitol
building in Washington D.C.
A Masterpiece by Michelangelo
Michelangelo spent four years
painting biblical scenes on the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. One
of the most dramatic images, the
Creation of Adam, shows God
bringing the first man to life with
a touch.
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RAPHAEL A few years younger than Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael studied the works of those
great masters. His paintings blend Christian and classical styles. He is probably best known for his tender
portrayals of the Madonna, the mother of Jesus.
In The School of Athens, Raphael pictures an imaginary gathering of great thinkers and scientists
such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the Arab philosopher Averroes. With typical Renaissance selfconfidence, Raphael included the faces of Michelangelo, Leonardo – and himself.
Italian Renaissance Writers
Poets, artists, and scholars mingled with politicians at the courts of Renaissance rulers. A literature of
“how-to” books sprang up to help ambitious men and women who wanted to rise in the Renaissance
world.
CASTIGLIONE’S IDEAL COURTIER The most widely read of these handbooks was The Book of
the Courtier. Its author, Baldassare Castiglione (BAHL DAHS SAHR RAY – KAHS STEEL YOHN AY), describes
the manners, skills, learning, and virtues that a member of the court should have. Castiglione’s ideal
courtier was a well-educated, well-mannered aristocrat who mastered many fields, from poetry to music
to sports.
Castiglione’s ideal differed for men and women. The ideal man, he wrote, is athletic but not
overactive. He is good at games, but not a gambler. He plays a musical instrument and knows literature
and history, but is not arrogant. The ideal woman offers a balance to men, She is graceful and kind, lively
but reserved. She is beautiful, “for outer beauty,” wrote Castiglione, “is the true sign of inner goodness.”
MACHIAVELLI’S SUCCESSFUL PRINCE Niccolo Machievelli (MAHK EE UH VEHL EE) wrote a
different kind of handbook. Machiavelli had served Florence as a diplomat and had observed kings and
princes in foreign courts. He also had studied ancient Roman history. In The Prince, published in 1513,
Machiavelli combined his personal experience of politics with his knowledge of the past to offer a guide
to rulers on how to gain and maintain power.
Unlike earlier political writers such as Plato, Machiavelli did not discuss leadership in terms of
high ideals. Instead, The Prince looked at real rulers, such as the Medicis, in an age of ruthless power
politics. Machiavelli stressed that the end justifies the means. He urged rulers to use whatever methods
were necessary to achieve their goals. On the issue of honesty in government, for example, he taught that
getting results was more important than keeping promises. He wrote:
“How praiseworthy it is for a prince to keep his word and live with
integrity rather than craftiness, everyone understands; yet… those
princes have accomplished most who paid little heed to keeping their
promises, but who knew how craftily to manipulate the minds of men.”
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Machievelli saw himself as an enemy of oppression and corruption. But critics attacked his
cynical advice. Some even claimed that he was inspired by the devil; in fact, the term “Machiavellian”
came to refer to the use of deceit in politics. Later students of government, however, argued that
Machiavelli provided a realistic look at politics. His work continues to spark debate because it raises
important ethical questions about the nature of government and the use of power.
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Questions
1. Identify
a. Lorenzo de’ Medici
b. Francesco Petrarch
c. Leonardo da Vinci
d. Michelangelo
e. Raphael
f. Baldassare Castiglione
g. Niccolo Machiavelli
2. Define
a. patron
b. humanism
c. humanities
d. perspective
3. What conditions in Italy contributed to the emergence of the Renaissance?
4. Identify the concerns and attitudes emphasized during the Renaissance?
5. How did Renaissance art reflect humanist concerns?
6. Why might powerful rulers and wealthy business people choose to become patrons of the arts
during the Renaissance?
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