2 renaissance
TRANSCRIPT
Renaissance: Introduction
• Means “rebirth” in French
• Term first used by Giorgio Vasari to describe the renewal of classical Greek and Roman arts, movement toward perfection
• Biographer of the artists, and contemporary art historian
Cause of the Renaissance• Classical knowledge brought into Europe
via…(3 ways)
• Classics important because:
– Satisfy increasing need for practical knowledge
– Supported involvement in urban affairs
– Pre-Christian, so didn’t require all emphasis to be on afterlife
Spread of Islam
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The “Dignity of Man” and the Revival of Humanism
• Man is God’s most excellent creation
• Man is excellent because he alone can know God
• Man also has the ability to master his fate, and live happily in this world
The Humanities• Replaced Medieval Scholasticism
• Focused more on ethical and political philosophy
• Curriculum based on:
– Language: Latin and Greek
– Literature: poetry, the sonnet
– History: Theocentric vs. Anthrocentric
– Ethics: Civic Humanism (city-states)
City-States of Renaissance Italy
Why did the Renaissance Originate in Italy?
• Strongest urban development
• Very little distinction between landed aristocracy and wealthy merchants
• Commerce and trade created a greater demand for literacy
• Italy was littered with reminders of its classical past
• Wealthiest in Europe (trade and banking)
Patronage of the Arts
• Demonstrating civic pride
• Competition between wealthy families
• Types of works: building of palaces, chapels, decoration of churches…use of family coat of arms
Humanist Writers:
• Francis Petrach (1304-1374) – “Father of Italian Renaissance Humanism”
• Collected ancient Roman manuscripts
• Most known for his “Laura” love poems
• Development of vernacular language
Francis PetrarchWhat nymph of fountains, goddess
of the trees,loosed such fine, gold hair to the
wind?When did a heart so many virtues
seize,that, through their total, I my death
will find?He looks for divine beauty
uselesslywho never saw the eyes that she
reveals,how tenderly she lets them move
and see;nor can he know how love kills, or
how it heals,who does not hear how she sighs,
so sweetly -so sweet her speech, so sweet her
laughter’s peals.”
Humanist Writers:
• Pico della Mirandola – “Oration of Man”
• Man is the greatest creation of God’s because he can think
• Man is in a quest for perfection through seeking knowledge
• Beginning of empiricism and inductive reasoning
Pico della Mirandola
Leonardo da Vinci
• An example of empiricism
• “Renaissance man” – painting, architecture, sculpture, drawing, scientific observation and experimentation
• Notebooks
Duke Cosimo I de’Medici in Armor
Early 1540’s by Agnolo Bronzino
• The Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge) in Florence
The Procession of the Magiby Gozzoli ca. 1460
Lorenzo de’ Medici as one of the Magi
La PrimaveraSandro Botticelli 1477-8
Painted for the villa of Lorenzo de’ Medici at Castello, now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
Birth of VenusSandro Botticelli ca. 1485-6
Michelangelo’s Pieta’ 1498-9
Pieta’ detail of Mary’s Face
Michelangelo. David. Detail of Face. 1501-4
Michelangelo’s David.
Detail of the Hand.
Michelangelo Buonarotti; Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed between 1508 and 1512.
The Printing Press
• Johann Gutenberg, born 1398, a German metal-worker
• Added the innovation of movable-type – metal, interchangeable characters
• Replacing wood block type - expensive
• Borrowed from China?
• The Gutenberg Bibles, beginning 1455
• Legacy: will allow for future “turning points” including the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution
Niccolo Machiavelli published The Prince in 1513
• Dedicated to the Medici of Florence• Earliest supporter of Italian unification• Government possesses no supernatural
power• A ruler should never pander to public
opinion• A ruler should promote religion among his
subjects, but not possess Christian virtues himself
Christian Humanism
• Centered in Northern Europe
• Focused ancient texts of biblical teachings and those of early Church fathers
• Goal was to turn away from vanity and toward a purer form of Christianity
Desiderius ErasmusON MONKS:
“And next these come those that commonly call
themselves the religious and monks, most false in both
titles, when both a great part of them are farthest from
religion”ON THE POPE AND THE
CARDINALS“A most inhuman and
economical thing, and more to be execrated, that those great princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be reduced to a staff
and a wallet”