The Fourteenth Century
Black Death
• Beginning in 1347, killed one-third to onehalf of European population within a
century
• Carried to Europe on flea-bearing rats on
commercial ships
Effects of Black Death: Psychological
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Religious atonement: flagellants
Self-indulgence
Religious doubt
Anxiety and self-consciousness
Wolgemut, Dance of Death, 1493
Effects of Black Death: Economic
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Labor shortage
Rise in peasants’ social and economic status
Migration to cities
Peasant revolts
Cimabue,
Madonna
Enthroned,
c.1280-90
Giotto,
Madonna
Enthroned,
c.1310
chiaroscuro
North Transept, Chartres
Giotto, Lamentation, 1305-06
Lorenzetti,
Madonna
del Latte,
c.1340
Cimabue,
Madonna
Enthroned,
c.1280-90
Limbourg Bros.,
February,
c.1413-16
th
14
c. Literature
Social Realism and Feminism
Boccaccio, Decameron, 1351
• 10 people outside Florence, hiding from
plague, tell stories
• Social realism: plague, gender relationships,
etc.
• “Tale of Filippa”
– Social criticism of legal system
Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, c.
1390
• Modeled on Decameron
• 29 pilgrims to shrine of St. Thomas a
Becket, Canterbury
Christine de Pisan,
Book of the City of Ladies, 1405
• Environment and social conventions explain
why women are less accomplished than
men
• History offers examples of accomplished
women
– Novella Andrea
Classical Humanism in the
Renaissance
Renaissance
• “rebirth” of classical learning
• Began in 14th century Italy, spread north n
15th and 16th centuries
Scholasticism vs. Renaissance
Humanism (1)
• Scholasticism: Classics used to explain
Christian dogma
• Renaissance humanism: Classics used as
“rational guide to the fulfillment of human
potential” (373); however, Renaissance
humanists were also devout Christians
Scholasticism vs. Renaissance
Humanism (2)
• Scholasticism: primarily the concern of
theologians
• Renaissance Humanism: involved many
members of society, from civic leaders to
artists to writers
Scholasticism vs. Renaissance
Humanism (3)
• Scholasticism: based primarily on Latin
writers and Latin translations of Aristotle;
Greek literary masterpieces and most of
Plato were unknown; few Medieval scholars
could read Greek
Scholasticism vs. Renaissance
Humanism (3)
• Renaissance humanism: balanced Greek
and Latin culture; Greek literature and Plato
rediscovered; many scholars study Greek
Scholasticism vs. Renaissance
Humanism (4)
• Scholasticism: grammar, logic, metaphysics,
theology
• Renaissance humanism: language, literature,
history, ethics, that is, what we call “the
humanities” today
Why Italy?
• Least feudalized and most urban part of
Europe
• Commercial prosperity
• Contact with the East
• Wealthy families in urban centers served as
patrons of arts and learning
– Civic spirit
Lorenzetti, Effects of Good
Government in the City, 1338-39
Effects of Bad Government in
the City
Medici family
• The leading family in Florence during the
Renaissance
• Originally a family of physicians, they
made money in banking
• Commissioned works by Botticelli,
Michelangelo, and others
Petrarch (1304-74)
• Scholar and poet, the “father of humanism”
• Collected and copied classical Latin
manuscripts
• Letter to Lapo da Castiglionchio:
– “For just in proportion as the writing is slower
than the reading does the passage make a deep
impression and cling to the mind”
– Cicero’s copying inspires Petrarch’s copying
Petrarch: Dual Identities
• Judeo-Christian identity vs. Classical
identity
– A big fan of both Cicero and Augustine
• Studied Latin manuscripts, but wrote love
poems in Italian: Petrarchan sonnets
Pico della Mirandola (1463-94)
• Humanist, poet, theologian; could read
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic
• Lived only 31 years
• Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486)
– Addressed to Catholic clergymen, an
introduction to his theological disputes with the
Church
Oration on the Dignity of Man
• Revises Genesis, says that God created man
in order to have someone to appreciate the
Creation (380)
• Man is a creature of “indeterminate image”
set “in the very center of the world” (381)
• Man has the free will to “trace for
yourself the lineaments of your own nature”
(381)
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1474)
• Mathematician, architect, engineer,
musician, playwright
• On the Family (1443):
– Man should work hard, scorn idleness
– God approves of people who are useful to
others
– Man “is born to be happy” (382)
Baldassare Castiglione (14781529)
• The Book of the Courtier (1518), a
Renaissance bestseller
• Marks shift from medieval to modern
values
• The courtier practices sprezzatura
• The purpose of the courtier is to influence
the ruler, strengthen the state
Raphael, Portrait of Baldassare
Castiglione, c.1515
Which is NOT a courtier quality?
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Able to use a variety of weapons
Knows how to wrestle
Tall in stature
Plays tennis
Able to swim
Able to throw stones
A good horseman
Which is NOT a courtier quality?
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Able to use a variety of weapons
Knows how to wrestle
Tall in stature
Plays tennis
Able to swim
Able to throw stones
A good horseman
Which is NOT a courtier quality?
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Speaks Latin, Greek, English
Possesses clear, sonorous voice
Writes well
Knows how to dance
Plays several musical instruments
Knows how to paint
Can tell a joke
Which is NOT a courtier quality?
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Speaks Latin, Greek, English
Possesses clear, sonorous voice
Writes well
Knows how to dance
Plays several musical instruments
Knows how to paint
Can tell a joke
Lucretia Marinella (1571-1653)
• The Nobility and Excellence of Women and
the Defects of Men (1600)
– Studies the psychology of misogyny
– Misogyny caused by men’s anger, envy, selflove, insufficient intelligence
Machievelli, The Prince (1513)
• Realist analysis of what keeps a leader in
power
• The Prince must learn how not to be good,
because human nature is not perfectly good
• Virtue is a nice idea, but the main job of the
prince is to stay in power; virtue makes
no sense of the prince loses his authority
Machievelli, The Prince (1513)
• Better for prince to be feared than loved
• The prince must be able to simulate and
dissemble
• The evils of a prince will be excused by the
people if the prince maintains his authority