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Renaissance
and
Reformation
The Renaissance
“Rebirth” of European society and its
classical Greco-Roman heritage
 Birthplace of the Renaissance is Italy and
its city-states

Why Italian city-states:

More affected by the plague

Prosperous, bustling commercial centers
(since the Middle Ages)

Greater prosperity = support for talented
artists + new outlook on the world :
human centered, individualistic, secular
Why Italian city-states: (cont)

Italy is more urban than the rest of
Europe

Italy located at the center of the old
Roman world

Republican government
Petrarch
1304-1374
 Peak of civilization =
first 2 centuries of
Roman Empire
 New age of
intellectual
achievement = rebirth
OR “renaissance”

The Renaissance worldview:
Individualism:

Renaissance men and women emphasized
and celebrated humans and their
achievements

Began to associate themselves to the
Greeks and Romans
Secularism:

Greater concern for aspects of the
material world of humans (and not the
“next” world, spiritual world)

Life is to be enjoyed (rather than as a
painful pilgrimage to the City of God!)
Humanism:
 New attitude towards knowledge + human
self

Optimistic view of humanity

Stressing self-improvement through
secular and classical education

Seeking to understand the causes of
human + natural actions
Pico della Mirandola,
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)

I once read that Abdala the Muslim, when asked what
was most worthy of awe and wonder in this theater of
the world, answered, "There is nothing to see more
wonderful than man!" (…) After thinking a long time, I
have figured out why man is the most fortunate of all
creatures and as a result worthy of the highest
admiration and earning his rank on the chain of being, a
rank to be envied not merely by the beasts but by the
stars themselves and by the spiritual natures beyond
and above this world. This miracle goes past faith and
wonder. And why not? It is for this reason that man is
rightfully named a magnificent miracle and a wondrous
creation.
All was perfected, all created things stood in
their proper place, the highest things in
the highest places, the midmost things in
the midmost places, and the lowest things
in the lowest places. But God the Father
would not fail, exhausted and defeated, in
this last creative act. God's wisdom would
not falter for lack of counsel in this need.
God's love would not permit that he
whose duty it was to praise God's creation
should be forced to condemn himself as a
creation of God.
Imagine! The great generosity of God! The happiness of
man! To man it is allowed to be whatever he chooses to
be! As soon as an animal is born, it brings out of its
mother's womb all that it will ever possess. Spiritual
beings from the beginning become what they are to be
for all eternity. Man, when he entered life, the Father
gave the seeds of every kind and every way of life
possible. Whatever seeds each man sows and cultivates
will grow and bear him their proper fruit. If these seeds
are vegetative, he will be like a plant. If these seeds are
sensitive, he will be like an animal. If these seeds are
intellectual, he will be an angel and the son of God. And
if, satisfied with no created thing, he removes himself to
the center of his own unity, his spiritual soul, united with
God, alone in the darkness of God, who is above all
things, he will surpass every created thing. Who could
not help but admire this great shape-shifter? In fact,
how could one admire anything else? (…). . .
Pope Innocent III, On the Misery of the Human Condition,
c. 1200

. . . man was formed of dust, slime, and ashes: what is
even more vile, of the filthiest seed. He was conceived
from the itch of the flesh, in the heat of passion and the
stench of lust, and worse yet, with the stain of sin. He
was born to toil, dread, and trouble; and more wretched
still, was born only to die. He commits depraved acts by
which he offends God, his neighbor, and himself;
shameful acts by which he defiles his name, his person,
and his conscience; and vain acts by which he ignores all
things important, useful, and necessary. He will become
fuel for those fires which are forever hot and burn
forever bright; food for the worm which forever nibbles
and digests; a mass of rottenness which will forever
stink and reek.
Renaissance Art

Renaissance saw
revolutions in many
intellectual pursuits but is
perhaps best known for its
artistic developments

Age of Leonardo da Vinci
and Michelangelo
Renaissance Art

Developments:
– Linear perspective
– Study of human
anatomy
– Study of light and
shadow
– New fresco techniques
Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel
Sistine Chapel - Michelangelo

Dom. Ghirlandaio, c.a 1480
The ideal Renaissance man according to Baldesar
Castiglione (1525)


Cultivation of military skills,
classical education, and
appreciation of arts (music,
painting, drawing)
i.e. Leonardo di da Vinci a
scientist, mathematician
engineer, inventor,
anatomist, painter, sculptor,
architect, botanist,
musician, and writer.

Renaissance optimism contrasted sharply
with the Christian, pessimistic conception
of humanity from the Middle Ages
The Renaissance outlook will spread to
other regions of Europe
The diffusion of the Renaissance outlook was helped by the
invention of the printing press
(Joannes Gutenberg, circa 1455)