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Renaissance Humanism
Coming out of the
Middle Ages, in the
1500s the Great Chain
of Being began to crack
The internal stresses and
contradictions of the Chain were
being exposed by all sorts of new
developments that had the potential
to change how Europeans thought.
Slowly and subtly, Europeans were
coming to question the received
wisdom of the past and beginning to
move about physically, socially, and
politically, and even in terms of
religion. As a result, they would soon
become less superstitious and more
rational; less accepting of authority
and more questioning; less
concerned with the next life and
more concerned with this one. All
these habits of mind are
characteristic of modernity. It could
be argued that this tectonic shift in
thinking began the movement known
as Renaissance Humanism.
The Renaissance
The “Rebirth” of what exactly?
• Was an emphasis
on Classical
knowledge
• Began in Italy in
the 1300s
• Was mostly an
urban
phenomenon
Europe’s Classical heritage
• Islamic translations of
Greek and Roman
authors came into
Europe as a result of the
Crusades
• Before 1300s, interest in
Classical texts was for
simply learning better
Latin and Greek
• By 1300s, scholars see
Classical authors to help
them learn what it
means to be human
Why did the Renaissance begin in Italy?
• Geographically, it
was the perfect
entry point for
goods (including
books) from the East
• The emergence of
independent and
wealthy city-states
with good ports (e.g.
Venice)
• Because that wealth
was centered on
cities, the early
Renaissance was an
urban phenomenon
The Renaissance was also an intensely
human phenomenon
• It was a shift away
from the study of
abstract heavenly
concerns towards
the real, the human,
the concrete
• It also sees a shift
towards the
individual
Erasmus produced a new translation of the Greek New Testament. His
work reflects a change in attitude from regarding the Bible and other texts
received from the past as absolutely perfect to documents made by
humans, which were subject to human error.
Renaissance painting
Medieval example
Renaissance example
Michelangelo’s David
Michelangelo's David differs from
previous representations of the
subject in that the Biblical hero is not
depicted with the head of the slain
Goliath, as he is in Donatello's and
Verrocchio's statues. Most scholars
consider that the work depicts David
before his battle with Goliath. Instead
of appearing victorious over a foe
much larger than he, David's face looks
tense and ready for combat. The
tendons in his neck stand out tautly;
his abdominal muscles are tight; his
brow is furrowed; and his eyes seem to
focus intently on something in the
distance. Veins bulge out of his
lowered right hand, but his body is in a
relaxed contrapposto pose, and he
carries his sling casually thrown over
his left shoulder.
Giotto’s Lamentation of Christ (1305-1306)
Donatello’s David
Donatello's bronze statue of David
(circa 1440s) is famous as the first
unsupported standing work of bronze
cast during the Renaissance, and the
first freestanding nude male sculpture
made since antiquity. It depicts David
with an enigmatic smile, posed with
his foot on Goliath's severed head just
after defeating the giant. The youth is
completely naked, apart from a laureltopped hat and boots, bearing the
sword of Goliath. There are no
documents related to the commission
or production of the bronze David. The
earliest secure reference to the statue
occurred in 1469, when it was
described at the center of the
courtyard of the Medici Palace in
Florence.
Italian architects of the Renaissance
The courtyard of the Medici
palace, designed by Michelozzi
Brunelleschi’s dome for the
Duomo of Florence
In the 15th century, artists like Masaccio used
math to solve the problems of perspective
Ghiberti’s doors of the Baptistery of the
Duomo in Florence.
Two versions of the Annunciation
Fra Angelico
Fra Lippi
Leonardo Da Vinci studied human anatomy.
The Renaissance saw the beginnings of portraiture
Rafael’s portrait of Pope
Leo X (1518 – 1519)
Botticelli’s portrait of Guiliano
de Medici (1476)
Raphael’s School of Athens
Raphael's School of Athens is a masterpiece of Art. We do not know all details of the persons who are depicted, but it is believed that nearly all
Greek philosophers and ancient scientists can be found here. Unfortunately Raphael did not leave any personal notes on this work but some of
the persons can be identified. The work shows that Raphael was an educated person, had some knowledge of Greek philosophy and science.
We can consider “The School of Athens” as a “ visualization of knowledge”.
The Renaissance moved north by the 1500s
Albrecht Durer self-portrait (1500)
Hans Holbein self-portrait (1542)
Reuben’s
Prometheus Bound
(1611)
Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lesson (1632)
Brueghel's Peasant Wedding Feast
Renaissance Humanism
stressed the value of the
individual
By the way, there is one additional
human element going on here.
Another hallmark of the Renaissance is
that we know who these people are!
During the Middle Ages, artists and
architects did not claim or sign their
works. It was all done for the greater
glory of God. Now, artists claimed and
achieved far-ranging fame. This degree
of self-consciousness and selfpromotion would have been
unthinkable in the Middle Ages.
Literature of the Renaissance
• Dante’s Divine Comedy and
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
anticipates the Renaissance
• Petrarch, perhaps the founder of
Humanism, wrote about the glory of
the ancients
• Giovanni Boccaccio wrote The
Decameron
• Cervantes’ Don Quixote made fun of
medieval chivalry
• Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets are
deep with human emotion
• Montaigne wrote that Europeans
were no better than the native
peoples they sought to conquer
Like any good Humanist, Shakespeare knew his
Classical authors and many of his plays center
around issues of public morality that would have
been familiar to Thucydides or Seneca
In 1487 Pico Della Mirandolla wrote an anthem for the
Renaissance called Oration on the Dignity of Man
“….so that with free choice and
dignity, you may fashion
yourself into whatever form
you choose. To you is granted
the power of degrading
yourself into the lower forms
of life, the beasts, and to you
is granted the power,
contained in your intellect and
judgment, to be reborn into
the higher forms, the divine."
Portrait of Pico della Mirandola
Renaissance music
• Virtually no
Greco-Roman
influence on
church music
• Troubadours put
Renaissance
poetry (based on
human conflict
and emotion) to
music
Humanism emphasized education
Humanist scholars wanted:
• Less theology, less abstract logic,
and less rote memorization of
medieval and Biblical knowledge
• More open to new ideas,
learning by observation and
induction, and more questioning
• More emphasis on history,
poetry, and ethics, which is after
all the human application of
moral principles.
• The examination and criticism of
original texts.
• Rulers to receive a humanist
education
Balthazar Castiglione
• wrote The Courtier (1528)
• It explained how to rise
into the innermost
confidence of a great
ruler
• It advocated the
development of certain
skills in order to flatter
the ruler into listening to
good advice
Machiavelli
• Wrote The Prince, a
manual on how rulers
were to gain and
strengthen power
• Said moral considerations
were unnecessary for
rulers
• Because humans were
generally “deceptive and
eager for gain”, then
rulers must do whatever
it takes to maintain
power
Response to Machiavelli
• Erasmus and
Thomas Moore
wrote works that
reminded rulers of
their responsibilities
to their subjects and
the laws of God
Machiavelli’s bastards
Machiavelli influenced
how statecraft is
pursued. We see that
influence in the second
great development that
would attack the Great
Chain of Being and give
rise to the modern world:
the rise of nation-states
that are centrally
governed by ambitious,
powerful, charismatic,
and Machiavellian
Renaissance prince and
kings.