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The Renaissance
Unit 1.1
The beginning of modern European
history: ca. 1300-1600
• First in Italy c. 1300-1527
• Spread to Northern Europe 1450
• England: 16th – early 17th century
(Shakespeare)
• Jacob Burckhardt: the concept of
the “Renaissance” as distinct
from the Middle Ages
• Applies almost exclusively to the
upper classes
Rise of the Italian City-States
Northern Italian cities
• Genoa, Milan, Venice
developed international
trade
• Rule of merchant
aristocracies by signori or
oligarchies
• Italy more urban than other
parts of Europe
Politics
• competition among city-states:
– Disunity
– Downfall by early 16th century
Rise of Italian City-States
Florence
• Center of Italian
Renaissance under
patronage of powerful
banking Medici Family
– Cosimo de’ Medici
– Lorenzo “the Magnificent”
(1449-1492)
Duchy of Milan
• Enemy of Florence & Venice
• Ruled by Sforza family after
1450
Venice
• Longest lasting independent
city-state
• Eur-Asian trade in spices
Naples & Sicily
• Only official “kingdom”
• Reunified 1435 by Alfonso
V, King of Aragon
Rome & the Papal States
• Papacy returned to Rome
1378
Peace of Lodi, 1454
• ended war between Milan,
Florence, and Venice
• French invaded 1494
marking start of foreign
invasions of Italian
peninsula
Peace of Lodi 1454
Italian City-States 1494
Florence
under Medici’s
Lorenzo the Magnificent
• Patron of the arts
• Not the ruler of Florence,
but powerful and
prominent
Savonarola
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Arrives in Florence 1481
Called for a return to simplicity or suffer
Forget about Greco-Roman classical
authors (burning in Hell)
Renounce pleasure, art, fashion, gambling,
festivals
Created virtual theocracy
“Blessed Bands” of children to root out
vice, inform on people, including family
Churches denuded and put in bonfire of
the vanities
Lost favor with new Borgia pope and
invading French
Oligarchs arrested him, tortured and
burned at stake in 1498
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)
The Prince (1513)
• Quintessential political
treatise of the 16th century
• Observed leadership of
Cesare Borgia
– “the ends justifies the means”
– Better to be feared than
loved”
– Rulers had to be practical and
cunning, aggressive and
ruthless
Humanism
Petrarch (1304-1374)
•
•
•
Considered 1st figure of Renaissance
Collected books from classical Greece &
Rome: ushering in era of imitation of
Golden Age & hallmark of Renaissance
Called humanists: people interested in
human subjects rather than in the
divine
–
–
–
•
Not anti-religious
“chief interest in the lives and fates of
humans, not in unknowable life of God, or
scholasticism
Appreciation of ancient Greek renewed
after Greek scholars fled Byzantine Empire
after 1453 and were welcomed in Italy
“new realism” emerging in wake of
Black Death
Civic Humanism: education prepares leaders who are active in
civic affairs
Leonardo Bruni (1370-1444)
Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457)
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
(1463-1494)
Baldassare Castiglione (14781529)
Italian Renaissance in
Quattrocento and Cinquecento
Italy
High Renaissance (1495-1520)
•
Italy 1400s: Florence was center of art
–
•
•
Patronage came from wealthy merchant-families
(Medici; Sforza) who commissioned works
Italy 1500s: Church (Rome) greatest
patron of arts after decline of Florence
Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503)
– Commissioned Sistine Chapel, School
of Athens, St. Peter’s Basilica, Pieta
• Pope Julius II (r. 1503-13)
• Pope Leo X (r. 1513-1521)
•
Characteristics:
– Interest in classical culture,
perspective, proportion, and anatomy
– Centered in Rome, Florence, and
Venice
Mantegna, Dead Christ, 1480
Masaccio, Expulsion
of Adam and Eve,
1425
New Techniques in Art
Painting
• Perspective
• Chiaroscuro
• Human emotion
• sfumato
Sculpture
• Free-standing
• contrapposto
• Idealized human form;
nudes
• Greco-Roman motifs
Architecture
• Greek temple architecture
• Simplicity, symmetry,
harmony, balance
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)
Vitruvian Man: icon of
Renaissance
– Showed how the ideal human
figure constructed from
proportional measurements
– Proportions could be
projected beyond to
architecture, painting, and
sculpture
– Da Vinci made Vitruvian
ideals accessible to artists
and architects of Renaissance
Vitruvian Man, 1485-90
Drawings of muscles:
shoulder, arm, neck and aortic
valve (1510-11)
Madonna of the Rocks, 1483
Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510)
Primavera, 1482
• Venus is central figure,
symbolizing Humanitas:
embodiment of the ideal
• Ideal of nature: springtime
• Hung in Medici house
Savonarola changed Botticelli’s
work to reflect piety over
sensuality
Botticelli
Birth of Venus, 1485-87
Venus and Mars, 1483
Raphael (1483-1520)
Pope Julius II commissioned
School of Athens
Four branches of human
knowledge:
Theology
Law (Justice)
Poetry
Philosophy (School of
Athens)
Plato & Aristotle central figures
Aristotle: concerned with nature
and human affairs
Plato: ancient philosophers,
mysteries that transcend this
world
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
David, 1504
• Primarily a sculptor:
believed every block of
marble contained perfect
form within it
• Platonist
• Sought the ideal
• Loyal Christian
• Use of contrapposto
Pieta, 1498-99
St. Peter’s Basilica, 1546
The Last Judgement, 153441
Sistine Chapel, 1508-12
Moses (for tomb Julius II),
1513-15
Venetian School: Titian (14851576)
The Ascension, 1516-18
Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520-23
Mannerism
Characteristics:
• Reaction against
Renaissance ideals of
balance, symmetry,
simplicity, and realistic use
of color
– Rebellion against “perfection”
of High Renaissance
• Used unnatural color,
shapes irregular
• Bridge between High
Renaissance & Baroque
El Greco (1541-1614)
Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586-88
Tintoretto
Arcimboldo
Last Supper, 1594
"Vertemnus” ca 1590
The Northern Renaissance,
late 15th-early 16th C.
Christian Humanism
• Emphasized early Church
•
writings that provided
•
answers on how to improve
society & reform Church •
Thomas More
(1478-1536)
English humanist
Lord Chancellor to
King Henry VIII
Executed due to opposition to Anglican
– Less emphasis on classical
Church
works
Utopia (1516)
– However, used works to
– Civic humanism with religious ideals to
describe perfect society on imaginary
analyze Bible to explain Jesus,
island
apostles, and as guide for
– Accumulation of property as root cause
piety and morality
of society’s ills (wealth gap)
– Writings led to criticism of
– Sacrifice individual for common good
Church and a cause of
– War, poverty, religious intolerance would
Reformation
not exist
Christian Humanists
Erasmus (1466-1536)
• Most famous and celebrated of
northern humanists (Dutch)
• Translated New Testament into
Greek & Latin to make “purer”
editions
In Praise of Folly (1509)
• Best seller, though written in
Latin
• Devout Catholic hoping to reform,
not destroy Church
• Satire: criticized immorality &
hypocrisy of Churchmen and
social classes
• Inspired Martin Luther
Hans Holbein, Erasmus in 1523
Northern Renaissance Art
• Early 16th Century realignment of geopolitical landscape of Europe:
France and HRE expanded territory and power
• Monarchs used art and architecture to glorify their reigns and
promote sense of cultural and political unity among subjects
• Merchant class commissioning and collecting art, showing status
(art not just for aristocracy)
• Happening along with religious crises: Reformation and CounterReformation
– Split W. Europe in two and led to 100 years of war between Protestants and
Catholics
• Humanism spread from Italy to northern Europe
Flemish style
• Low Countries produced important artists
• Characteristics:
– Influenced by Italian Renaissance, but more
emotional, more preoccupied with death, and
more background detail. Use of oil over tempera
paints.
Holy Roman Empire
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)
• First artist beyond Italy to
gain international
recognition
• Master of the woodcut and
engraving
• Traveled to Italy, studied,
mastered proportion,
perspective and modeling
• Self-portraits
Self Portrait at 28 (1500)
Adam and Eve, 1507
Knight, Death, and the Devil 1513
Hans Holbein the Younger (14971543)
The Ambassadors, 1533
• Premier portrait artist
• Erasmus, More, King Henry
VIII
The Low Countries
Hieronymus Bosch (14501516)
• Master of symbolism and
fantasy
• Surrealistic
• Focus on death and Hell
• Very devout
Peter Brueghel the Elder
(1520-1569)
• Focus on lives of ordinary
people
Netherlandish Proverb, 1559 (Brueghel)
Garden of Earthly Delights, 150510 (Bosch)
Wealthy Women in the late Middle
Ages - Renaissance
“The Problem of Women”
• Christine de Pisan (13641439) started debate over
the proper role of women in
society 14th C.
• The City of Ladies (1405);
The Book of Three Virtues
(14th C.)
– Chronicle of accomplishments
of great women in history
– “survival manual”
– First feminist
Christine de Pisan lecturing men
Isabella D’Este (1474-1539)
• “First Lady” of the
Renaissance
• Set example for women to
break away from traditional
ornamental role
• Ruled Mantua after
husband died
• Well educated, patron of
arts, founded a school for
women, wrote thousands of
letters detailing political and
court life
Portait by Titian
Peasant and Lower Class Women
•
Marriage:
– Nuclear family: financial burden to have large family
– Based on economic factors, not love
– Dowries important
– Larger role in N. Europe
– Average age: <20 (mid-late 20s for men)
• Rich married earlier than middle class, poor married early or not at all
• Age gap larger in Italy than N. Europe
– Increased infanticide and abandonment
• 2/3 abandoned were girls
• Low rate of illegitimate births
– Dramatic population growth until 1650
– Divorce limited in particular in Reformation countries
– Rape not considered a serious crime
– More prostitution than in Middle Ages
Did Women Have a Renaissance?
Historian Joan Kelly asks (1977)
• Assertion that noble and bourgeois women suffered a marked
decline in status during Italian Renaissance
• Men monopolized political and economic issues; women relegated
to private sector
• Double standard: women expected to be chaste until marriage
while men could be promiscuous
• Educated by male humanistic tutors or boarding schools
emphasizing patriarchy and misogyny
Late Middle Ages vs. Renaissance
Late Middle Ages
Renaissance
•
Religion dominates politics, Church above
state, dissenters dealt with harshly
•
•
Scholasticism: Thomas Aquinas
– Reconciles Christianity with Aristotelian
science
•
•
Ideal: man is well-versed in one subject:
getting to Heaven
Literature:
– Based on religion
– Written in Latin by hand
– Church greatest patron
– Little political criticism
•
•
•
State supreme to Church, new monarchs
assert power, rise of skepticism,
Renaissance popes corrupt
Humanism dominant
– Emphasis on secular concerns
resulting from rediscovery and study
of classical Greco-Roman culture
Ideal: Renaissance man should be wellrounded
Literature:
– Secularism; humanism
– In the vernacular
– Covered wide range topics
– Focus on individual
– Increased use of printing press, satire
Art
Late Middle Ages
Renaissance
Sculpture:
•
gothic, detailed
• In relief
Painting:
• Gothic
• Byzantine style, nearly totally
religious
• Lack of perspective, chiaroscuro, and
emotion
• Stylized faces
• Use of gold to show Heaven
• Church patronized
Architecture:
• Gothic
• Pointed arches, barrel vaults, spires,
flying buttresses - elaborate
Sculpture:
• Greco-Roman influence
• Free-standing
• Use of bronze
Painting:
• Secular themes
• Greco-Roman ideals
• Perspective
• Chiaroscuro
• Oil paints
• Bright colors
• Emotion
• Patrons: merchant princes and
Renaissance popes
Architecture:
• Rounded arches, symmetry, balance,
Greco-Roman columns, domes
Marriage and Family
Late Middle Ages
• No divorce
• Arranged marriages
• Prostitution in urban areas
• Relative sexual equality
• Chivalry: men to please
women
Renaissance
• Limited divorce available
• More prostitution
• Marriages more based on
romance
• Sexual double standard
• Increased infanticide
• Woman was to make herself
pleasing to man
Essay Topics:
1. Compare and contrast the Renaissance with the Later Middle
Ages.
2. To what extent is the Renaissance truly a departure from the
past?
3. To what extent did Renaissance humanism affect the view of
the individual?
4. Analyze the influence of humanism on Renaissance art.
Select at least three artists and analyze at least one work for
each artist.
5. Analyze the impact of patronage on Renaissance art.
6. To what extent were women impacted by the Renaissance?