-
people used politics & violence to gain more status/power
- clear social hierarchies
- Florentine:
- little people: merchants, artisans & workers (60%)
- slaves & servants even below little people
- fat people: well-to-do merchants and professionals (30%)
- wealthiest elites (bankers & merchants owning more than 1 quarter of
the city’s wealth) (1%)
- high crime rate
- people killed for simple money things
- people blamed wanderers for the issue
- increased regulation of social behavior
- ex England 1547: vagabonds branded & enslaved 2 years
- governments had harsh legislation on people they found threatening
- led to increasing intolerance of other religions & cultures (Jews)
- ex: laws against sexual relations between Christians & Jews
- segregation with living spaces and clothes
- Roman authorities burned 50 Jewish prostitutes to death
- Jews also restricted to certain parts of cities
- had been present during Middle Ages, but new general prejudice made
it worse
- Vienna expelled Jews in 1421
- other German cities followed
- Jews moved towards Poland & Russia
- center of Judaism shifted from West to East Europe
- Ferdinand & Isabella forced all Jews out in 1492 then Portugal did same
in 1497
- many fled to Muslim lands in North Africa
- Renaissance ideas developed behind 14th century, but flourished during 15th
- “individualism stimulated by economic potential”
- money brought into Italy through different industries
- allowed wealthy people to indulge
- Venice was greatest merchant city in world
- imported cotton, silk & spices every year
- exported wool cloth & silver coins to pay for imports
- also manufactured new products
- ex: forks & windowpane glass
- Milan & Florence craft-industrial cities
- Florence had wool cloth industries (270 workshops)
- silk industry
- 12th century smugglers of silkworms from China
- 13th century really took off because got Chinese silk loom
- powered by waterwheels
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-
-
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allowed them (specifically Florence) to get involved in large
trade network
banking
- Christian religion prohibited collecting interest
- avoided this by changing money and making profit from the
exchange rate
- many rich people kept improving their wealth
slavery reintroduced
- 14th century labor shortage from bubonic plague meant people needed
new help
- complicated methods
- people often considered slaves part of the household
- sometimes children born from slave & father of household grew up as
regular heirs
- portrait of Katharina by Albrecht Durer
- Venetians capitalized on this and started dealing slaves
- fall of Constantinople to Turks led to decline in slaves from the East
- looked for new sources of slaves
- Portuguese conquered Canary Islands and brought in many
African slaves
- brought about 140,000 Sub-Saharan African slaves into
Europe
- many questioned slavery
- church disapproved
- slaveowners considered it too expensive in the long run
- gradually disappeared in Europe by the end of Renaissance
constant family structure was important
- not just upper class
- Artisan workshops were family affairs
- sons carried on the business
- defined ethics in a world where morality was relative
- some people thought that whatever increased someone’s
power to help their family was good
- included riches (however gained)
- marriage alliances for improved standing
- plans began as early as a girl’s birth
- fathers would open public dowry fund account (up to
21% interest)
- some families couldn’t afford dowry for all daughters so
encouraged them to join convents
- because of medieval traditions of courtly love, women depicted
in art as idealized beings who inspired men
- Renaissance men idolized real women
children’s lives
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-
believed it unhealthy for women to breast-feed
- hired wet nurses
- some took really good care of infants, others barely at all
- many peasant nurses had bad nutrition
- wealthy parents reclaimed children when weaned (about 2)
- just had to fit in right back at a brand new household
- often formed attachment with one sibling or aunt or
uncle
- child-rearing experts warned against “pampering their offspring”
- urged to do absurdly strict things to raise their children
- boys & girls treated very differently
- middle class boys sent to school (7)
- fathers arranged marriages for daughters
- girls got married (17-20) to bridegrooms in their 30s with
already established careers
- many didn’t survive giving birth
- eventually, women outnumbered men
despite much corruption, Renaissance still produced many talented people
- artists & artisans
- upper-class boys generally discouraged from following visual arts careers
- peasant boys also had little chance because not enough connections to really
get out in the art worlds
- most artists came from artisan families
- as boys worked in workshops, masters recognized/supported talent
- women ordinarily excluded from this path
- still a number of renowned female artists during Renaissance
- typical story was girl trained in her father’s workshop
- artists gained new overall respect late in Renaissance
- architecture
- “most expensive investment a patron of the arts could make”
- artists designed churches and other buildings, improving their cities’ prestige
- no direct apprenticeship for architects because not considered separate craft
- meant old ideas weren’t rigorously enforced
- greatest architects all trained for other fields
- Renaissance support of ancient Greece & Rome had them looking back at and
studying old ruins
- built to glorify human form
- even built with proportions of humans
- “the different parts of a building derive from human members”
- supposedly people who had not mastered anatomy and
painting human form could not understand architecture
- had domes
- Brunelleschi admired Pantheon dome in Rome
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-
-
-
wanted to make a huge dome spanning the base of the new
cathedral in Florence
- realized roman dome wasn’t good for large spaces so used
Gothic architectural rib technique
- inner and outer shell, both attached to eight ribs of octagonal
structure
- many thought it would fall but it still stands today
town planning
- dreamed of town layouts with simple logical grids
- grid patterns centered on the town square instead of town
square with random winding roads surrounding it
sculptures
- admired ancient Rome and began to commission life-size figures for the public
spaces of cities
- Michelangelo’s David
- (from David & Goliath)
- took 3 years to carve from a block of supposedly flawed marble
- has all characteristics of Renaissance sculpture
- huge, freestanding nude
- depicts classical idea of repose
- subject rests his weight on one leg (contra posto)
- confidence & glorification of human body
- praise of realism
- had to look at life carefully
- symbolized the public’s ousting of the goliath Medici
- art joined politics
painting
- Giotto revolutionized painting for Florence and the whole West
Names:
- Petrarch’s father
- Luca Landucci
- Albrecht Durer
- Leon Battista Alberti
- Isabella d’Este
- Dante Alighieri
- Giovanni Dominici
- Paola da Certaldo
- Filippo Brunelleschi
- Botticelli
- Michelangelo
- Sofonisba Anguissola
- Lavinia Fontana
- Medici
- Giotto di Bondone