Download The Renaissance

VOCABULARY FOR THIS WEEK:
SECULAR: Not subject to or bound by religious rule. Nonreligious.
VERNACULAR: The language or dialect or writing spoken by the
ordinary people in a particular country or region.
PATRON: A person who gives financial or other support to a
person, organization, cause, or activity.
SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT: the thought processes involved in the
wide field of scientific activity.
ARCHITECTURE: both the process and the product of planning,
designing, and constructing buildings and other physical structures.
The Beginning of the
Renaissance
Changes in Society
• 1300, Black Death, starvation,
warfare had overtaken Europe
• Catastrophic events, enormous
loss of life may have led to
changes of the 1300s
• Decrease in population led to:
– Increase in food production
– Decline in food prices
– More money to spend
– Specialization in products
The Rise of City-States
• a city that with its surrounding
territory forms an independent
nation.
• Italy divided into several large
city-states in north, various
kingdoms, Papal States south
• Catholic Church, nobles,
merchants, artisans dominated
society in city-states
• Many sought to display new
wealth with knowledge of arts
What was the Renaissance?
What was the Renaissance, and where did it begin?
•Italy
•Italian Cities
•Urban Societies
•Major Trading Centers
•Secular: Worldly rather than spiritual
•Moved away from life in the church
•Focuses more on material objects and enjoying life
Mediterranean Sea connects
Europe with Asia.
The Renaissance was a time of renewal
Renaissance French word for rebirth and
Europe was recovering from the Dark
ages and the plague.
People had lost their faith in the church
and began to put more focus on human
beings.
How did the Crusades contribute
to the Renaissance?
• Increased demand for Middle Eastern products
• Stimulated production of goods to trade in Middle Eastern markets
• Encouraged the use of credit and banking
• Church rule against usury and the banks’ practice of charging interest
helped to secularize northern Italy.
• Letters of credit served to expand the supply of money and expedite
trade.
• New accounting and bookkeeping practices (use of Arabic numerals) were
introduced.
Italy failed to become united during the Ages.
Many independent city-states emerged in
northern and central Italy that played an
important role in Italian politics and art.
Milan
One of the richest cities, it
controls trade through the Alps.
Major Italian Cities
Venice
Sitting on the Adriatic, it
attracts trade from all over
the world.
Florence
Controlled by the De Medici Family,
who became great patrons of the
arts.
Milan
Venice
Genoa
Florence
Political Ideas of the Renaissance
Niccolò Machiavelli
The Prince
Machiavelli believed:
“One can make this generalization about
men: they are ungrateful, fickle, liars,
and deceivers, they shun danger and are
greedy for profit”
Machiavelli observed city-state rulers of
his day and produced guidelines for the
acquisition and maintenance of power by
absolute rule.
He felt that a ruler should be willing to
do anything to maintain control without
worrying about conscience.
• Better for a ruler to be feared than to be loved
• Ruler should be quick and decisive in decision making
• Ruler keeps power by any means necessary
• The end justifies the means
• Be good when possible, and evil when necessary
The Renaissance produced new ideas that were reflected in
the arts, philosophy, and literature.
Patrons, wealthy from newly expanded trade, sponsored works
which glorified city-states in northern Italy. Education became
increasingly secular.
Medieval art and literature focused
on the Church and salvation
Renaissance art and literature
focused on individuals and worldly
matters, along with Christianity.
Renaissance Art
The arts a reflection of the new humanist spirit
Medieval artists—idealized and symbolic representations
Renaissance artists depicted what they observed in nature
Patrons of the Arts
• Medieval times, anonymous artists
who worked for church created art
• Renaissance artists worked for
whoever offered them highest price
• Buyers of art, patrons, might be
wealthy individuals, city
governments, or church
Competition Among Patrons
• Wealthy individuals competed,
displaying wealth, modernity
through purchase of artworks
• Florence, Lorenzo de Medici
supported most talented artists
• Milan, ruling Sforza family
benefactors of artists, others
Renaissance artists wanted to paint the natural world as realistically as
possible.
Renaissance Artists embraced some of the ideals of Greece and
Rome in their art
They wanted their subjects to be realistic and focused on
humanity and emotion
New Techniques also emerged
Frescos: Painting done on wet plaster became popular
because it gave depth to the paintings
Sculpture emphasized realism and the human form
Architecture reached new heights of design
Born in 1475 in a small town near Florence, is
considered to be one of the most inspired men
who ever lived
David
Michelangelo
created his
masterpiece
David in
1504.
Sistine Chapel
About a year after creating
David, Pope Julius II
summoned Michelangelo to
Rome to work on his most
famous project, the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel.
Creation of Eve
Separation of Light and Darkness
Creation of Adam
The Last Judgment
La Pieta 1499
Marble Sculpture
Moses
1452-1519
Painter, Sculptor,
Architect,
Engineer
Genius!
Mona Lisa
The Last Supper
Notebooks
Raphael
Painter
1483-1520
The School of Athens
Pythagoras
Plato and Aristotle
Socrates
Raphael (back)
Euclid
Zoroaster & Ptolemy
Jan Van Eyck
Portrait of
Giovanni Arnolfini
and his Wife
(1434)
Northern
Renaissance
Van Eyck
Portrait of
Giovanni
Arnolfini and
his Wife
(detail)
How did classical knowledge of the ancient Greeks
and Romans foster humanism in the Italian
Renaissance?
Humanism
• Celebrated the individual. Focus on Individual not
religious life.
• Stimulated the study of Greek and Roman literature and
culture
• Was supported by wealthy patrons
Humanism
Humanities
Roots
• Interest in ancient Greek, Roman
culture
• Roots traced to work of Dante;
work contained glimpses of what
would become focus on human
nature
• Characteristics of good education
• Scholastic education gave way to
classics: rhetoric, grammar,
poetry, history, Latin, Greek
• Subjects came to be known as
humanities, movement they
inspired known as humanism
• Humanists emphasized individual
accomplishment
• Historians believe Renaissance
began with two humanists who
lived after Dante—Giovanni
Boccaccio, Francesco Petrarch
• Both wrote literature in everyday
language not Latin
• Advances were made in
medicine, as well as astronomy
Petrarch
Sonnets, humanist
scholarship
Francesco Petrarch
1304-1374
Assembled Greek and
Roman writings.
Wrote
Sonnets to Laura,
love poems in the
Vernacular
Northern Renaissance
• Growing wealth in Northern Europe supported Renaissance ideas.
• Northern Renaissance thinkers merged humanist ideas with
Christianity.
• The movable type printing press and the production and sale of
books led to the spread of new ideas and education across Europe.
(Gutenberg’s Bible) helped spread new ideas.
Northern Renaissance writers
• Erasmus—The Praise of Folly (1511)
• Sir Thomas More—Utopia (1516)
Northern Renaissance artists portrayed religious and secular subjects.
Literature flourished during the Renaissance
This can be greatly attributed to Johannes
Gutenberg
In 1455 Gutenberg printed the first book produced
by using moveable type.
The Bible is the first book to be massed produced
A Book Revolution
Printing Press
• Mid-1400s, Johannes Gutenberg cast letters of alphabet on metal
plates, locked metal plates on wooden press; perfected movable type
printing
• Result, one of most dramatic upheavals world has ever known
Printed Word Available to More
• Before only way to reproduce writing was by hand; long, painstaking process
• With movable type, text quickly printed; producing books faster, cheaper
• Easier access to books prompted more people to learn to read
Italics
• Gutenberg’s first publication, 1,282-page Bible
• Printers soon appeared in other cities, made books quickly, inexpensively
• Explosion of printed material quickly spread Renaissance ideas
Shakespeare and His Characters
William Shakespeare
Spread Renaissance Ideas
• Many believe English
playwright William
Shakespeare greatest writer
• Use of language, choice of
themes made plays appealing
even to uneducated
• Plots not original, but
treatments of them masterful
• Plays helped spread ideas of
Renaissance to mass audience
• Drew inspiration from ancient,
contemporary literature
• Focused on lives of realistic
characters, unlike morality plays
• Knowledge of natural science,
humanist topics expressed in
plays
• By Shakespeare’s death, 1616,
London scene of thriving
theatre district
Erasmus
Dutch humanist
Desiderius Erasmus
Pushed for a Vernacular form of the
Bible
“I disagree very much with those who
are unwilling that Holy Scripture,
translated into the vernacular, be
read by the uneducated . . . As if the
strength of the Christian religion
consisted in the ignorance of it”
The Praise of Folly
Used humor to show the immoral and
ignorant behavior of people, including
the clergy. He felt people would be
open minded and be kind to others.
Sir Thomas More
English Humanist
Wrote: Utopia
A book about a perfect society
Believed men and women live in
harmony. No private property,
no one is lazy, all people are
educated and the justice system
is used to end crime instead of
executing criminals.