Download World History

World History
The Renaissance and Exploration
(15:1)
Leonardo da Vinci
 The journals of Leonardo
 Obsessed with learning and new ideas
 Knew man was not restricted to the ground
 You can never bring back the past, you
can only channel it to make going
forward easier
The Renaissance
 The “rebirth”
 A time of creativity
 A new view of the
world
 On the cusp of
achieving great things
 Art and intellectualism
flourished
A long time ago, in a
galaxy far, far away…
 Where is the world coming from?
 What is still going on?





100 Years War
Just coming out of the Middle Ages
Black Death
Political Revolution
New Weaponry
Italy Offered New
Opportunities
 The Renaissance began in northern Italy
 Why?
New Opportunities
 Reason #1:
 Economically thriving urban centers
 Genoa, Venice, Florence
 Northern Italy was ahead of its time (urban)
New Opportunities
 Reason #2
 Northern Italy was dominated by merchants
and wealth
 The city-states ran their own affairs
 Merchants were the wealthiest and most
powerful people
 Merchants did not inherit their social rank
 Most importantly, their support for the arts
New Opportunities
 Merchants fought for sponsorships
 They wanted to sponsor the most skilled
artists, writers, etc.
 This enabled artists and intellectuals to
concentrate on their craft
3 of the early geniuses:
 Giotto – painted frescoes
 Painting on wet plaster
 Commissioned to paint
 Giotto began a revolution in art
 Had a grasp on emotion, not anatomy
 People interacted in his paintings
 Short and homely
Giotto
 “The Mourning of Christ”
 Best known for his works depicting Saint
Francis of Assissi
 Known for the marks of stigmata
Giotto:
 “I am he through whose merit the lost art
of painting was revived…but what need
is there for words? I am Giotto, and my
name alone tells more than a lengthy
ode.”
 Commonplace Renaissance imaging in the
celebration of the individual
Early Genius #2
 Dante Alighieri
 Met his muse at age 9 (Beatrice) – then
didn’t see her again for 10 years
 “From that time forward, love quite governed my
soul” Dante, speaking of his meeting with Beatrice
 She died at 24 – Dante’s infatuation
continued
The Divine Comedy
 Part 1 – Gets a tour of Hell from Virgil
 Dante’s Inferno
 Part 2 – Dante and Virgil visit purgatory
 What is purgatory?
 Part 3 – Guided through paradise by St.
Bernard, a medieval monk, and meets
Beatrice
 What happens to Virgil?
The Divine Comedy
 A running commentary on the events of
his friends and politics
 A philosophic bridge between Europe’s
past and its future
 Didn’t write in Latin
 Wrote it in vernacular
 The everyday language of ones homeland,
considered now to be the father of modern Italian
and greatly influenced others to write in vernacular
Early Genius #3
 Petrarch
 A great poet
 Had a muse named Laura
 Very mysterious lady who died of the plague
 Wrote many letters as well to influential
people, friends, and a combination of the
two
Petrarch
 Often imitated Cicero
(Ancient Roman
Senator) – a
personal literary hero
of Petrarch
 Crossed Dante’s
bridge of old to new
 Left the classical,
complex styling
 A contemporary of his
time
Petrarch
 Laura
 Married to another man
 Petrarch was denied each time he pursued
her
 Wrote prolifically about her, letters and poems
showing his intense feelings
 Slipped into a depression when she died
 Fathered the Renaissance
 Combined religion and humanism
New Values
 Celebration of the individual
 Artists and intellectuals were now noted, and
remembered for their works
 They used to do it solely to glorify God
 Fame became the final reward for superior
talent
 Still true today? Right or wrong?
New Values
 Two new art forms evolved
 Portrait paintings
 Wealthy patrons wanted to be remembered
 Autobiographies
 Written equivalents of self-portraits
 It seems the Renaissance, rightfully or
wrongfully, went hand in hand with the
development of the ego.
Classical Learning
 Scholars despised Renaissance works
 Petrarch coined the phrase “Dark Ages”
 Since the fall of Rome in 476 people had
been living in “Darkness”
 Scholars and many Renaissance figures
were humanists
 Studying what every human should know, Greek and
Roman writing
 The carrying on of tradition (evolution)
Worldly Pleasures
 Almost everyone enjoyed the “better
things” in life in Renaissance Italy
 Clothing became so decorative it was gaudy
 Perfumes
 No longer did devout people have to
dress the part
 It was okay to worship God, and have the better
things in life as well
Differing Ideals
 Striving to master every art
 “Universal men” / “Renaissance men”
 The Courtier – How to be successful
The Ideal Man
 The ideal man has a responsibility to be
many things according to Castiglione
 Strong, polite, witty, a good dancer, sing, etc.
 Many men during the Renaissance claimed to be
well skilled in all these things
 Alberti’s third person account
The Ideal Woman
 The same as the ideal men except:
 They were not supposed to seek fame or create
art, only inspire it.
 Although some made an attempt at greatness
 Isabella d’Este
 Caterina Sforza
 Very few achieved it
 Women were however far better educated than in
the Middle Ages