Journal 2/12

 Consider why the Renaissance occurred and what forces
drove the new way of thinking in Italy, and eventually
the rest of Europe?
 Increased Trade with Asia and other regions
 Growth of large, wealthy city-states in Italy
 Renewed Interest in the classical learning of ancient Greece
and Rome
 Rise of rich and powerful merchants, who became patrons
of the arts
 Increased desire for scientific and technical knowledge
 Desire to beautify cities
Vocabulary Chapter 15 – The
Renaissance and Reformation

 Renaissance
 Humanists
 Perspective
 Johannes Gutenburg
 William Shakespeare
 Reformation
 Indulgences
 Martin Luther
 Sects
 Henry VIII
 John Calvin
 Theocracy
 Counter-Reformation
 Council of Trent
 Jesuits
 Broadsides
 Almanacs
 Standard of Living
Objectives

 The beginning of the Renaissance (changes in society
and the rise of city-states)
 Renaissance Ideas (Inspiration from the ancients,
humanism, secular writing, and science)
 Renaissance Art
Anticipation

 Write a diary entry for the time period (early 1300’s) by
answering the following prompt:
 Imagine that you live in Florence, Italy immediately following the
Black Death. You have survived, but many around you have not.
Describe your environment. How do you feel?
 Black death = bubonic plague, a disease that spread from
Asia along trade routes by way of fleas on rats that
occupied the ships. Around 25 million (1/3 of the
population died). People’s faith in God was shaken and the
church lost a lot of its power and importance. Relations
between upper and lower class changed. Workers in short
demand now wanted higher wages and staged uprisings.
Journal 2/20

 Compare these works of art. What do you notice?
Pietro Cavallini’s Birth of the
Virgin
Raphael’s School of Athens
An Era of Awakening

 In the early 1300’s a movement began in Italy that
began to altar how Europeans viewed themselves
and the world.
 The Renaissance (“rebirth”): both a philosophical
and artistic movement and the era when that
movement flourished.
 Marked by renewed interest in ancient Greek and
Roman literature and life.
 A new emphasis on the power of human reason
developed, and many advances were made in the
arts and sciences.
Causes of the Italian
Renaissance

 Natural for the Renaissance to begin in Italy
 Italian cities (Florence, Milan, Naples, Rome, and
Venice) had grown rich through trade and industry.
 Their citizens included educated, wealthy merchants
and bankers.
 Ruins of the Roman Empire, The Crusades, trade
with southwest Asia & Africa (learned of Arab and
African achievements in science and medicine) =
encouraged curiosity and the search for new
knowledge among some Italian thinkers.
The Humanities

 The study of classical Greek and Roman literature to
learn grammar, history, poetry, and rhetoric.
 People who specialize in these studies are humanists.
 Believed it was important to understand how things
work and it led them to emphasize education.
Francesco Petrarch

 One of the first humanists (1304-1374)
 Believed classical writers could best be imitated by
studying their writings
 Wrote sonnets to Laura, considered some of the
greatest love poems of all time.
Niccolo Machiavelli

 A Florentine writer, diplomat, and historian.
 Sought to describe government the way in which it actually worked.
(dog eat dog)
 Argued that a ruler should be concerned only with power and political
success.
 Today some people refer to ruthless behavior to get ahead as
“Machiavellian.”
 “A controversy has arisen about this: whether it is better to be loved than
feared, or vice versa. My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared;
but it is difficult to achieve both and if one of them has to be lacking, it is
much safer to be feared than loved…. Men are less hesitant about offending or
harming a ruler who makes himself less loved than one who inspires fear. For
love is sustained by a bond of gratitude, which because men are excessively
self-interested, is broken whenever they see a chance to benefit themselves. But
fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that is always effective.”
 Considered a humanist because he looked to ancient Romans as
models, but his lack of concern for conventional morality was
considerably different than other humanists of this time.
Italian Renaissance Art

 Start to see more realistic scenes and images that
depict lifelike human figures.
 Earlier artists often portrayed the Holy Land, while
Renaissance painters showed the rugged Italian
countryside they knew so well.
 Began to use a technique called perspective to make
their paintings more lifelike.
 Made distant objects smaller than those in the
foreground of the painting. Created the illusion of
depth on a flat canvas.
Giotto

 Used light and shadows to create a powerful sense of
depth in his paintings.
 Lamentation (The Morning of Christ)
Leonardo da Vinci

 The Last Supper
Michelangelo

 Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican

 http://www.history.com/topics/italian-renaissance
Journal 2/23

 Have you read or seen any of Shakespeare’s plays? If
so, which ones? Have you seen any movies that are
portrayals of his stories?
 Date/Copy/Answer
The Northern
Renaissance

Chapter 15 Section 2
The Spread of Ideas

 Geography:
 Ideas and messages were able to pass through
passageways of the Alps in Northern Italy.
 Danube, Rhine, and Rhone Rivers = easy routes for
ideas to spread.
 Printing Press:
 Johannes Gutenberg – printed copies of the Bible
 Books spread humanist ideas to a larger audience
Writers of the Northern
Renaissance

 The most influential
humanist of northern
Europe, Desiderius
Erasmus
 Interested in early
Christian period as well
as early Greek and
Roman culture
 Criticized lack of
spirituality in the Church

 Thomas More
 An English humanist
and friend of Erasmus
 Published Utopia –
criticized corrupt
government and wrote
about an ideal society
where all male citizens
were equal.

 Quote from Utopia
 “…wherever you are, you always have to work. There’s
never any excuse for idleness… Everyone has his eye on
you, so you’re practically forced to get on with your job, and
make some proper use of your spare time. Under such a
system, there’s bound to be plenty of everything, and, as
everything is divided equally among the entire population,
there obviously can’t be any poor people or beggars.”
 Became very popular and translated to many
European languages.

 William Shakespeare
 Built on the traditions established
by Christopher Marlowe & other
playwrights.
 Focusing on human, rather than
godly, actions.
 Transforms well-known stories
into dramatic masterpieces.
 Portrays personality and human
emotions.
 Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth
Artists of the Northern
Renaissance

 Built on the skill of the Italian painters and artists.
 Flemish school: painters from Flanders that
developed and perfected certain techniques of
painting in oil on canvas.

 Jan and Hubert van Eyck (The Flemish Brothers):
paid great attention to detail and used facial
expressions in their work.

 Pieter Brueghel the Elder painted in the mid 1500’s
 Loved to paint the countryside and peasants of his
native Flanders.
The Blind Leading the Blind

 Albrecht Durer, a
German artist, was
famous for his copper
engravings and
woodcuts.
 Saw the possibilities of
printed illustrations in
books.

 Hans Holbein the Younger
traveled through Europe
painting portraits of
famous people.
 Erasmus, Thomas More,
King Henry VIII
 Reflects the Renaissance
interest in the individual
Portrait of Henry VIII
Renaissance Report

 You and a partner will be writing a report on one Italian Renaissance writer and one
artist; along with one northern Renaissance writer and one artist.

(4 people total)
 Your report will need to include:


Their name
Background information


Their styles/developments





Origin, Date of Birth/Death, Education, Family, interesting facts, other Occupations,
etc…
Were they humanists?
What they are famous/remembered for
Any famous work
Pictures
Sources used
 Must use credible/reliable sources (2 for each report)


No wikipedia, .com, or infoplease
I will be checking your sources if I suspect plagiarism, so if I cannot find yours it will
not count!
 Due at the end of the next class period!!!!! (will have some time to finish up)


(February 25th)
No late work will be accepted
 Quiz Grade
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born April 23, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon, a local government district in
England. He attended school at King Edward IV Grammar School in his hometown where he learned
Latin and some Greek. He also studied the classics which later influenced his writing (humanist). At
the young age of 18, he married a girl named Anne Hathaway and they had three children. Two
daughters, Susanna and Judith. Judith had a twin brother that died at a very young age. He started out
at an apprenticeship to be an actor. He then developed into a playwright and actor. In 1594 he joined
the Lord Chamberlain’s company of actors and then in 1599 joined the Chamberlain’s Men where they
built and operated the Globe (one of the most famous theaters of its time).
Shakespeare is known for his great playwrights, but he looked to poetry for enduring fame. He wrote
many sonnets, including 154 in the Sonnets of Shakespeare, that almost all show the inevitable decay of
time and the immortalization of beauty and love. Within his poems and plays he invented thousands
of words that often combine Latin, French, and native roots. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, he is credited with such words as arch-villain, birthplace, bloodsucking, courtship,
dewdrop, downstairs, leapfrog, watchdog, and many more.
He wrote more than 30 plays that can be placed into four categories including histories, comedies,
tragedies, and romances. In his early playwright years they were mostly comedies or histories like the
Comedy of Errors and Henry VI. Then he turned to tragedies like Romeo and Juliet. Then in his late years
he turned to romance like A Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. Only 18 of his plays were published during
his lifetime.
It was sometime after 1612 that he decided to retire and return to his home in Stratford. He then died
on April 23, 1616.
Sources

 http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/williamshakespeare
 http://www.shakespeareinamericancommunities.or
g/education/life-william-shakespeare

William Shakespeare
A modern portrayal of Romeo and
Juliet