RENAISSANCE
1300s - 1500
“rebirth”

Begins in Italy  spreads north to Europe
Why Italy?
 New interest in Rome and its “remainders”
 Cities survive the Middle Ages
• North  Florence, Milan, Venice, and Genoa (trade & manufacturing
• Central  Rome; South  Naples   cultural center
 Wealthy and Powerful merchant class
• stress education and achievement
• spend lots of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

• Center of Renaissance
• Medici Family – richest merchant and banking family
• gain full control government
• patron – financial supporter of the arts

 Plague ends  want order  look back to
Greece and Rome
HUMANISM – focus on worldly subjects not religious; focus on intellect and education; use ancient ideas in their world
• Individualism; Talents; adventure; curiosity
• Human experience in the here and now
PETRARCH – early Humanist  collects Greek and Roman manuscripts; write sonnets (love poems) about a woman

• Religious figures portrayed in Greek and
Roman style
• Everyday individuals
• Columns, arches, domes
• Shading and shadows
• Live models – more accurate human portrayal
• Perspective – distant objects are smaller to make a 3-D, realistic painting

Perspective
Vanishing point

Leonardo
The Totally Masterful New Talents
TMNT
Raphael
Michelangelo
Donatello

DAVID
• very Early
Renaissance
•Life - size
• Realistic

• Born in 1452
• “Renaissance Man”
• Painting; Art; Anatomy; Botany;
Optics; Architecture; Music;
Engineering

The Last Supper

Mona Lisa
The Annunciation

Scientific and
Anatomical Study

INVENTOR:
Machine gun
Armored tank
Cluster bombs
Submarine
Calculator
Car
Use of solarpower

• Born in 1475
• Sculptor, engineer, painter, architect and poet
• Fresco – applying paint to fresh plaster usually on a wall

David Pieta

The Sistine Chapel
Garden of Eden
The Creation

Sistine Chapel: The Last
Judgement

• Studied the works of Michelangelo and
Raphael
• Portrays tender Jesus and Madonna

School of Athens

Italian Writers
Catiglione – The Book of the Courtier
Machiavelli – The Prince
describes how to act as a member of the royal court; describes ideal man and woman
- guide for rulers on how to gain and maintain power
- looks at real rulers
- the ends justifies the means; do not have to keep promises

Section 2: The Renaissance
Moves North
• Begins in Flanders (near North
France)
• Spain, France, Germany, and England begin Renaissance in 1500s

• “ German Leonardo”
• Traveled to Italy to learn about art and techniques(1494)
• Engravings – etch design into metal plate with acid and makes prints.
• Portrays religious upheaval.

Flemish Painters
Jan & Hubert van Eyck
- portray townspeople and realistic images
Develop oil paint

Pietr Bruegel
- Bright colors in portrayal of peasant life

Peter Paul Rubens
- Blends ideas of Bruegel and
Italian Renaissance

• ERASMUS (Dutch)
- produces New Testament in Greek
- wants translation of Bible into vernacular – everyday language of ordinary people
- chief duty =be open minded and of good will toward others
The Praise of Folly – uses humor to show the ignorant and immoral behavior of his day

Thomas More
Wants social reform
Utopia – describes ideal society where men and women live in peace and harmony; everyone is educated;
Utopian – describes an ideal society

1590-1613
37 plays
Comedies (A Midsummer
Night’s Dream)
History (Richard III)
Tragedies (Romeo and
Juliet; Othello; Macbeth)
1,700 new words: bedroom, lonely, generous, gloomy, heartsick

• Spain – early 1600s
• Don Quixote – mocks chivalry
• Knight who pretends to be on an adventure
– Fights a windmill

Printing revolution
• Chinese make books first
• By 1300 – papermaking in
Europe
• By 1400s –
Germans invent movable type
• 1456 – Johann
Gutenberg prints first Bible using movable type

Literacy Revolution
• More books = cheaper books = more people read and write!!!!!
• Ideas spread! (ppl. are exposed to new things for the first time)