Transcript A New Spirit in the West The Renaissance, ca. 1300-1640 A New Spirit in the West The Big Picture Italian Renaissance Angevin Dynasty Capetian Dynasty Sforza Dynasty Aragon Dynasty Renaissance.

A New Spirit in
the West
The Renaissance,
ca. 1300-1640
A New Spirit in the West
The Big Picture
Italian Renaissance
Angevin Dynasty
Capetian Dynasty
1300
Sforza Dynasty
Aragon Dynasty
Renaissance in England
Northern Renaissance
Tudor Dynasty
1500
1600
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
– Renaissance: What does the word mean?
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
– Renaissance: What does the word mean?
– “Rebirth”
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
– Renaissance: What does the word mean?
– “Rebirth”
– What did contemporaries think was being reborn?
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
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Renaissance: What does the word mean?
“Rebirth”
What did contemporaries think was being reborn?
Classical sources of knowledge and standards of beauty,
from the what they considered the “classical period”
(roughly 800 B.C.E. to 400 C.E.).
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
– Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374): This Italian
writer was an early advocate of Renaissance ideals,
seeing in ancient Greece and Rome models for a
new world. Petrarch even wrote letters to classical
authors, lamenting the lack of contemporaries who
shared his ideas and feelings.
– Medieval Antecedents: Medieval scholars never
lost touch with ancient Latin texts nor lost a sense
of beauty inherited from the ancients. Most aspects of what we
call the Renaissance existed during the medieval period in some
form or other.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Renaissance: A Controversial Idea
– A Time of Rapid Change: Yet the Renaissance was a period of rapid
change, particularly in Italy. News spread more rapidly than ever before,
and a new sense of individualism and realism emerged, leading to a new
era of ambition.
– Relationship to Classical Texts: Classical texts were no longer used to
support the status quo, but to question and transform it.
– Why Italy? Renaissance ideas were born out of fourteenth-century Italy,
and then spread northward. But why did they emerge in Italy in the first
place? Pressures on the Byzantines forced them to flee to Italy, especially
after the collapse of the empire in 1453, thus reintroducing much Greek
scholarship. Another argument says that the intense competition between
Italian city-states favored the growth of new ideas. Another arguments puts
forth that the Black Death reorganized the old political and economic order,
making some families very rich and able to become patrons of the arts.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
A Multifaceted Movement
– Individualism: The Renaissance at its core was a celebration of
humans and their achievement, renewing a sense of
individualism the West had not seen since the ancients. Faith in
individual human potential was a new and exciting idea.
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling painting of man touching
God shows man as reflecting the Creator, not as inferior.
– Realism: Renaissance artists and thinkers prided themselves on
holding an accurate idea of the world. This belief carried over
into art, literature, and politics.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
A Multifaceted Movement
– Activism: Renaissance thinkers believed that it was not enough
just to know the truth, but that it was necessary to act upon it.
The author, artist, and architect Leon Batista Alberti (1404-1472)
reflected this attitude: “Men can do all things if they will.”
– A Secular Spirit: Renaissance thought was secular—not that it
was anti-religious, because it was not—in that it mostly did not
stay within the walls of the universities, monasteries, and
churches that dominated medieval intellectual life. This spirit
sought to apply new ideas to the real world, reflecting a faith in
humans’ capacity to perfect themselves.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
Humanism: The Path to Self-Improvement
– Education Valued: Those who lived in Italian city-states saw
education as a key to success. In Florence around 1300, 10,000
youths our of a population of 100,000 attended private schools.
– Humanist Curriculum: This curriculum emphasized the
“humanities”—grammar (mostly Latin and Greek), poetry,
literature, history, and ethics. Students learning this curriculum
sought to understand human actions through studying classical
literature, and their teachers believed that such study would
prepare students for any possible career.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
Humanism: The Path to Self-Improvement
– Educational Theory: Authors such as Baldassare Castiglione (14781529), who wrote The Book of the Courtier, offered advice on how to
improve oneself. His book gave advice on the behavior that was expected
of men at the court of a prince. He advocated for a well-rounded, activist
individual as the courtly ideal.
– Women Humanists: Much of humanist education focused on rhetoric,
which was to be used for public speaking, which was seen as
inappropriate for women. But several humanists thought it was good for
women to be educated, as long as they did not use their knowledge in a
public way. Yet rulers such as Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603) and
Isabella of Castile (r. 1474-1504) nonetheless used their educations in this
manner.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
Humanism: The Path to Self-Improvement
– Civic Humanists: These humanists applied their training to politics,
treating public life as their artistic canvas.
– Christian Humanists: Others used their
analytical skills honed on classical texts on the
Bible and other sacred texts to transform the study
of Christianity. The most famous of these was the
Dutchman, Desiderius Erasmus (ca. 1466-1536),
who famously made fun of human foibles in his
essay, In Praise of Folly:
“If a man have a crooked, ill-favored wife, who yet in his
eye may stand in competition with Venus, is it not the same as
if she were truly beautiful?”
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Generosity of Patrons: Supporting New Ideas
– Patronage: The many talented writers and artists of the Renaissance relied on
wealthy and powerful patrons for financial support. In the early Renaissance,
cities themselves awarded prizes to talented citizens for sculpture or building
designs. In times of warfare or strife, private patrons filled this role, such as
Isabella d’ Este (1474-1539), who was married to the Duke of Mantua. The
Medici family in Florence and the Sforza family in Milan also prominently
played this role.
– Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464): This wealthy aristocrat’s fascination with
Plato led him to found the Platonic Academy in Florence, doing a tremendous
amount to revive interest in that philosopher. Scholars at the academy
demonstrated close affinities between Christianity and Platonic thought.
– Religious Patronage: The church also supported the arts, with popes backing
artists. Churches recognized the religious purpose of much Renaissance art,
encouraging the belief that many pieces of art held miraculous powers.
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A New Spirit Emerges: Individualism,
Realism and Activism
The Invention of the Printing Press: Spreading New Idea
Before the 1400s, books were produced through the
laborious process of hand-copying. In China and Korea,
inventors had developed a means to reproduce text and
pictures more quickly through wood-block printing. This
technique had spread to the West by the late 1300s. Also
by that time, Asians had replaced wooden type with bronze
type, which also came westward. In the 1440s, movable
type was brought together with an oil press to print pages
more rapidly. Paper-making technology also dramatically
improved, replacing older parchment. Printing presses
spread quickly throughout Europe, with about 1,000
existing by 1500. This ability to disseminate knowledge
more rapidly than ever before helped to spread Renaissance ideas.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Italian City-States
– Power Vacuum: The struggle between popes and emperors
created a power vacuum in northern Italy that allowed citystates to flourish. At the beginning of the 1300s, most were
free communes with republican forms of governments, but
this was about to change.
– Unstable Times: The city-states were fighting over border
conflicts and commercial interests almost constantly, while
classes and political factions fought for control over the
city government. In this environment, dictators tended to
seize control of republican governments.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Italian City-States
– Condottieri: Mercenary military captains called condottieri
were hired to fight wars, and often ravaged the countryside
and ultimately destabilized governments. In this chaos,
strong-willed men often rose to power without
constitutional or hereditary legitimacy. The condottieri
themselves often rose to power, such as the Duke of Urbino
– Republics and Principalities: Most Italian city-states fell
into either of these two categories. Venice and Florence
were mostly republican, while Milan and Naples were the
foremost principalities.
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Italy in 1454
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The Politics of Individual Effort
Florence: Birthplace of the Renaissance
– A Tense Republic: Florence prided itself on its republican form of
government, but it always seemed on the brink of erupting into
violence. Only guild members could participate in government, and an
oligarchy of leading families were often able to control it. Yet the
plague had hit Florence hard, and so had warfare with Milan in the
early 1400s. In this time of instability, the city turned to the wealthiest
banking family in Europe: the Medici.
– The Medici: Cosimo Medici took control of the city in 1434,
maintaining a façade of republican government. Under Medici control,
the arts in Florence flourished. Cosimo himself funded public
sculptures by Donatello, founded the Platonic Academy, and gave
funds to help Brunelleschi complete dome of Florence Cathedral.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
Florence: Birthplace of the Renaissance
Lorenzo the Magnificent (r. 1469-1492)
Lorenzo di Medici, grandson of Cosimo, was
a versatile statesman, patron of the arts, poet,
and athlete. Yet it took all of his skill to
preserve Florentine independence from
foreign domination, avoid intrigues and
Assassination attempts, and political
dissension. Late in life, many Florentines
began to question and challenge the
Renaissance ideals that Lorenzo promoted.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
Florence: Birthplace of the Renaissance
Savonarola (1452-1498)
In 1494, French armies invaded the Italian
countryside, and the Florentine republic was faced
with financial and political troubles. The French
found an ally in the city in the form of a fiery
Preacher, a Dominican monk, who despised Medici
rule and the Renaissance values and the avid
accumulation of money that that family stood for.
He believed that humanism polluted everything
from art to religion by putting humans rather than
God at the center of the universe.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
Florence: Birthplace of the Renaissance
– Savonarola Takes Over: Helped by disruptions caused by the French,
he arranged to have the Medici expelled in 1494, and he emerged as the
leader of a new “Christian and religious republic.” He attacked nude
statues and paintings, and in 1497, presided over a “Bonfire of the
Vanities” in the center of Florence, in which “frivolous” items like
mirrors, make-up, ornaments, and non-religious pictures were burned.
Savonarola also attacked the excesses of the pope, who finally
excommunicated him in forbade him to preach.
– Savonarola Overthrown: The Florentine people got tired of the
monk’s overzealousness and kicked him out of power. He was charged
with heresy, sedition, uttering prophecies, and other crimes, and
sentenced to death. After he was hanged, his body was burned on the
same site as his “Bonfire of the Vanities.”
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The Politics of Individual Effort
Venice: The Serene Republic?
– The Venetian Republic: Venice had a much more stable republic than
Florence. About 2,000 of the great merchant families served on the
Great Council, and this council elected an older man—usually in his
70s—to serve as its leader. This individual was called the doge, and he
served for life. Venice called itself the “La Serenissima,” meaning “the
most serene.”
– Overseas Trade: A source of Venetian stability was its tremendous
wealth, produced by its domination of overseas trade, due in part to its
strategically advantageous location on the Adriatic Sea. It had enjoyed
a privileged position with trade in relation to the Byzantines, and had
also cultivated relationships with Muslim rulers. It built a large empire
of coastal cities and islands, as the next map indicates. Later, Venetian
commercial power would be challenged by the rise of the Ottomans.
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The Venetian Empire in the Fifteenth Century
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The Politics of Individual Effort
• Milan and Naples: Two Principalities
– Milan: A republic in the middle ages, Milan became a hereditary
principality in the Renaissance era. During a period of turmoil in the
1200s, a soldier from a family named Visconti took over control. His
family dynasty controlled Milan from 1278 to 1447. In 1450, another
dynasty took charge, the Sforza, who had a long tradition of serving the
city’s military.
– Naples: The Kingdom of Naples was the only region of Italy to hold on to
a medieval form of hereditary monarchy. In the early 1300s, it was ruled by
the Angevin kings, who were related to the king of France. Yet these kings
came to accept Renaissance ideals and were genrous patrons of the arts. Yet
in 1435, the Spanish king of Aragon, Alfonso the Magnanimous, united
the thrones of Sicily and Naples. He was not able to subdue the nobility
there, and Naples remained feudal in political structure.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Papal States
– Pope Martin V: When the Great Schism ended in 1417, the new
pope found the Papal states under control of neighboring states
and the old city in a sad state of disrepair. Martin decided to
regain control of the Papal States and refurbish the city of Rome
to its former state of magnificence. The culmination of this effort
was the construction of the new St. Peter’s church in the late
1400s. Money flowed from Europe to fund the new projects, and
this angered many Christians.
– Papal Patronage: With this money, the popes transformed
Rome and the headquarters of the church into a lavish
environment that surpassed that of many kings of Europe. They
funded works by great artists and architects to beautify the city. 26
The Politics of Individual Effort
The Papal States
– The Borgia Family: During this period, the wealthy Borgia
family rose to prominence. A Borgia pope, Alexander VI (r.
1492-1503), came to represent the power, greed, and ambition of
the time. He was elected through bribery, used his influence to
place his illegitimate children and family members into powerful
positions, and had his enemies poisoned (he had several children
by a mistress; as a Catholic priest he could obviously not marry).
His soldier son, Cesare, carried out a military campaign to try to
unify Italy under Alexander’s rule that ultimately failed.
Alexander died suddenly in 1503, probably victim of malaria,
which was common in Rome, although rumors of poisoning
circulated.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Papal States: The Borgias
Alexander VI
and his son,
Cesare Borgia
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Papal States
– Julius II (r. 1503-1513): This memorable
pope followed Alexander VI, and was
almost as ambitious, but without the stench
of scandal that stuck to his predecessor. He
made Rome a cultural center on par with
Florence, bringing Michelangelo to Rome
and commissioning him to paint the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel, and to help with the
design of St. Peter’s. Julius had fulfilled
Martin’s initial ambition: to make the pope a powerful earthly
ruler living in a magnificent city. Yet the earthly power of the
popes would eventually undermine their spiritual authority.
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The Politics of Individual Effort
The Art of Diplomacy
– Machiavelli: Renaissance Italy was a time and
place of great intrigue and shifting alliances among
the city-states. No writer captured the political skill
and diplomatic aplomb that Renaissance leaders
needed to cultivate more so than Niccolò
Machiavelli (1469-1527). Italian political thinker
authored The Prince, an influential book that
examines politics with a cold-blooded realism that
had not been seen before: he advised rulers to be ruthless, strong, and at
times, be willing to put aside traditional morality if they wanted to be
successful.
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Individualism as Self-Interest:
Life During the Renaissance
– Individualism: Individualistic and self-interested behavior that came to
dominate many Italian city-states did have some considerable
downsides. Political factionalism and class antagonisms (like that
between the “fat people” and “little people” in Florence) led to
sometimes brutal strife, and all of the cities experienced a rise in urban
crime.
– Growing Intolerance: Renaissance states also passed laws against
people they found threatening to order, from prostitutes to paupers.
– Persecution of Jews: Laws that restricted Jews’ movement through the
city and forcing them to wear clothing that identified them as Jews
became more common. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled
Spain’s Jews, leading many to flee to Muslim lands.
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Individualism as Self-Interest:
Life During the Renaissance
• Economic Boom Times
– Venice: Venice made its fortunes through importing, bringing in
tons of cotton, silk, and spices from the Far East and exporting
woolen cloth and silver coin to pay for the imports.
– Milan and Florence: These were artisan-manufacturing centers
that focused on wool cloth and silk production.
– Banking: This had become Europe’s most profitable business by
the Renaissance, as medieval prohibitions against charging
interest began to fall away. In the process, many Christian
families raked in massive amounts of money on state-guaranteed
bonds that promised a 15 percent return.
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Individualism as Self-Interest:
Life During the Renaissance
Slavery Revived
– Revival: Why was slavery being revived at a time when serfs
were being freed? Some historians suggest that labor shortages
after the Black Death led to the demand for a new labor source.
– Source of Slaves: Earlier in the Renaissance, slaves came from
the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim world. However, in the
late 1400s as the Portuguese began to explore the West African
coast, increasingly sub-Saharan African slaves became more
common in Europe. But slavery had pretty much disappeared in
Europe by the end of the Renaissance (but was only just
beginning in the New World).
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Individualism as Self-Interest:
Life During the Renaissance
• Children’s Lives
– Childhood Hardships: Child mortality in Renaissance Italy was
exceptionally high, in part due to harsh parenting techniques.
Children of wealthy families when first born were sent to the
countryside to be nursed by strangers as breastfeeding was seen
as dangerous to women’s health. When the children were
reclaimed around the age of two, they were literally “little
strangers” in the household. Experts said children should be
treated harshly to prepare them for the hardships of life. Some
were made to sleep on wooden planks without bedding.
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Artists and Artisans
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Architecture: Echoing the Human Form
– Human architecture
– Domes
– Town planning
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Sculpture Comes into Its Own
– Michelangelo’s David
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37
An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Painting from a New Perspective
– Linear perspective
– Raphael
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Celestial Music of Human Emotions
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Science or Pseudoscience?
– Astrology and alchemy
– Mathematics and anatomy
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An Age of Talent and Beauty:
Renaissance Culture and Science
• Leonardo da Vinci: The “Renaissance
Man”
– Painting
– Scientific notebooks
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Renaissance of the
“New Monarchies” of the North
• France: Under the Italian Influence
– Louis the Spider
– Italians in France
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France in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
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43
Renaissance of the
“New Monarchies” of the North
• English Humanism
– Thomas More
– Renaissance queens
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Renaissance of the
“New Monarchies” of the North
• Renaissance London: A Booming City
– The south bank
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Renaissance of the
“New Monarchies” of the North
• England’s Pride: William Shakespeare
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