“Rebirth” beginning in Italy
The origins of the Italian Renaissance—why Italy?
• Money:
• People engaged lucrative businesses such as trade or banking
• Trade never fully died in Italy, kept contacts with rest of world
• Trade maintained wealthy cities
• Italy was the most advanced urban society
• Education:
• In cities there were greater demands for education
• Best-educated upper class in Europe
• Inherited knowledge from Roman empire
• Public support for culture
• Patronage of the aristocracy
• Patronage of the papacy
• Renaissance classicism
• Renaissance scholars used classical texts in new ways
• An awareness of history
• Rediscovery of classical texts (ex. Virgil, Ovid, and Cicero)
• Forced scholars to learn Greek
• Recovery of classical Greece from Byzantium
• Renaissance humanism
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The study of Latin and Greek
Producing virtuous citizens and able public officials
A practical elitism, pursuit of personal excellence
Little concern for the education of women
Aided by Byzantine scholars who migrated to Italy
Italian scholars traveled to Constantinople looking for Greek texts
• The Italian Renaissance: literature and thought
• Francesco Petrarch (1304–1374), called the father of humanism
• Deeply committed Christian
• Taught abstract thought, not how to live virtuously
• The Christian writer must inspire people to do good
• Ethical wisdom
• Wrote vernacular sonnets
• Valued eloquent writing
• The Italian Renaissance: literature and thought
• Civic humanism
• Leonardo Bruni and Leon Battitsa Alberti
• Agreed with Petrarch on the need for eloquence and virtue
• Taught that man was equipped for action and usefulness to society and
family
• Refused to condemn material possessions
• Human progress equivalent to man’s mastery over nature
• Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)
• His works Reflected the instability of Renaissance Florence and Italy
• Civil war between city states, civil war between classes, rise of mercenary
forces
• Wrote: The Prince
• Machiavelli saw that only a ruthless prince could revitalize the spirit of
independence
• Dark vision of human nature
• “a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to do evil”
• “it is better to be feared than loved”
• "because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her, it is necessary to
beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the
adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore,
always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more
violent, and with more audacity (bold, daring) command her."
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)
• Painter, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, and
artist
• Patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent
• So many interests and abilities he had difficulty finishing projects
Vitruvian
Man
• Renaissance painting in Florence
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Painter, sculptor, architect, and poet
The centrality of the male figure—powerful and magnificent
The Sistine Chapel paintings (1508–1512)
Temperamental and brilliantly talented
Sculpture allowed the artist to imitate God in re-creating human forms
Subordinated naturalism to the force of imagination
Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam,
commissioned by Pope Julius II, 1508 -1511
Sistine Chapel
St. Peter’s Basilica
c. 1501
Michelangelo,
Moses c. 1545
• Trade led to great wealth among the noble and common alike
• Growth of wealthy lay people opened the door to nonreligious
themes and subjects
• People sought to glorify themselves and their families through
art
Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of Mary c. 1485-90
Correggio, Danae, c. 1531
Bronzino,
Allegory
with Venus
and Cupid,
1540s
• In northern Europe,
• Italian merchants were familiar figures at northern courts
• Great scholars and artists will travel at the invitation of kings to France,
England and Germany
• Students from all over Europe attended Italian universities
• Northern European intellectual life dominated by universities
• Paris, Oxford, Charles University (Prague)
• Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1469–1536)
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Made humanism an international movement
Devoured the classics and the teachings of the church fathers
Attended University of Paris
Made his living by teaching and writing
Traveled to England, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands
Very critical of Church dogma
Promoted the “philosophy of Christ”
• All society is corrupt, go back to the Gospels
• Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)
• Lord Chancellor of England (1529)
• Imprisoned for not taking an oath naming Henry VIII as head of the
Church of England (1534)
• Thrown into the Tower of London and executed
• Martyrdom
• Wrote: Utopia
• An Erasmian critique of contemporary society
• An indictment against unearned wealth, persecution, punishment, and
the slaughter of war
• Anti-elitist
• Proposed non-violence and tolerance
• No private property or war