Chapter 19 – The Renaissance and Reformation
Section Notes
Video
The Italian Renaissance
The Renaissance beyond Italy
The Reformation of Christianity
The Renaissance and the
Reformation
History Close-up
Maps
Major Trading Cities
Florence
Quick Facts
Results of the Council of Trent
Some Results of the Reformation
Chapter 19 Visual Summary
Images
The Genius of Leonardo
da Vinci
Martin Luther’s Message
The Italian Renaissance
The Big Idea
The growth of wealthy trading cities in Italy led to a rebirth
of the arts and learning called the Renaissance.
Main Ideas
• Increased trade with Asia brought wealth to Italian trade
cities, leading to the Renaissance.
• Italian writers and artists contributed great works during
the Renaissance.
Main Idea 1:
Increased trade with Asia brought wealth to
Italian trade cities, leading to the
Renaissance.
After the end of the Black Death, the economy of Europe
began to grow again. Goods became available, people
bought more, and trade increased.
Trade with Asia
• In the 1200s, the Mongols took over China. They made
roads safe again, including the Silk Road, a trade route
between Europe and China.
• Traders and travelers began to use the routes again. One
famous trader was Marco Polo, who traveled with his
family. Some of their journeys went over the Silk Road.
• When the Polos arrived in China, they met the Mongol
emperor Kublai Khan. The Polos spent 20 years in Asia.
• A writer helped Polo record his journey. Descriptions
about Asia made Europeans curious, and they desired
Asian goods.
The Trading Cities of Italy
• Four northern Italian cities became trading centers.
– Florence
– Genoa
– Milan
– Venice
• The cities of Milan and Florence were manufacturing
centers. Venice and Genoa were port cities on the
Mediterranean Sea, where the goods and services flowed.
• Milan produced weapons and silk. Florence was a center
for weaving wool into cloth.
Florence
• Florence stands out as an example of the great trade and wealth
coming into Italy.
• Wool trade initially created wealth, but banking increased that
wealth.
– Bankers kept money for merchants all over Europe and made money
by charging interest, a fee that lenders charge people who borrow
money from them.
• The Medici family were the greatest of the Florence bankers.
– Cosimo Medici wanted Florence to be the most beautiful city in the
world.
– He also valued education and built libraries and collected books.
• The love of art and education was a key feature of a time we call
the Renaissance, which means “rebirth.”
Main Idea 2:
Italian writers and artists contributed great
works during the Renaissance.
• During the Middle Ages, people were devoted to religious
study. By the 1300s, scholars began to study subjects such
as history, literature, public speaking, and art.
• These subjects were called the humanities, and they led to
the thinking and learning known as humanism.
– Humanism is a way of thinking and learning that stresses the
importance of human abilities and actions.
Rediscovering the Past
• The popularity of the humanities was due to a new
interest in ancient history.
• During the 1300s, when the Turks conquered much of the
Byzantine Empire, scholars fled to Europe and took great
works of literature with them.
• Many of the works were ancient classical writings, such as
works by Greek thinkers.
• Italian scholars wanted to revive subjects that the Greeks
and Romans had studied.
• Other sources of inspiration were Roman ruins and fine
classical statues.
Italian Writers: Dante and Machiavelli
• Dante Alighieri was a politician and poet. Dante
wrote in Italian, the common language of the
people.
– Before Dante, most medieval writers had written in
Latin.
• Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince. He was
also a politician, and his book told leaders how
to rule.
– Told politicians to focus on the “here and
now,” not on theories
Italian Art and Artists
• During the Renaissance, Italian artists created
some of the most beautiful paintings and
sculptures in the world.
• New techniques, like perspective, made their
work come alive.
– Perspective is a way of showing depth on a flat surface.
Great Artists
There were several great Italian Renaissance
artists, but two stand out.
– Michelangelo was one of the great Italian artists. He
was known as a master. He not only painted portraits
but also designed buildings, wrote poetry, and painted
murals on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the
Vatican.
– Leonardo da Vinci was the true genius of the
Renaissance. He was a great painter, sculptor,
architect, inventor, and engineer. He studied anatomy,
the structure of human bodies, to make his paintings
more real. His Mona Lisa portrait is one example.
The Renaissance beyond Italy
The Big Idea
The Renaissance spread far beyond Italy, and as it
spread, it changed.
Main Ideas
• During the Renaissance, advances in science
and education were made.
• New ideas from the Renaissance spread across
Europe through the development of paper,
printing, and new universities.
Main Idea 1:
During the Renaissance, advances in science
and education were made.
• Some Renaissance scientists thought mathematics could help
them understand the universe.
– They created many math symbols that we still use today.
• Engineers and architects used new math formulas to strengthen
buildings.
• Other scientists studied astronomy to learn more about the sun,
stars, and planets.
– They learned that the earth moves around the sun.
• Students began to study the humanities as well as religious
subjects.
Main Idea 2:
New ideas from the Renaissance spread
across Europe through the development of
paper, printing, and new universities.
• Johannes Gutenberg, a German man living in the mid-1400s,
developed a printing press with movable type. He printed the
Bible in 1456. More people learned to read as books became
more readily available.
• Students from around Europe traveled to Italy to study at the
universities.
• New universities began to open in France, Germany, and the
Netherlands.
• Women from noble families were often educated at home. They
then married nobles from around Europe and spread the
Renaissance ideas to their husbands’ lands.
The Northern Renaissance
• Northern scholars focused on the history of Christianity. The
resulting combination of humanist and religious ideas is called
Christian humanism.
• Northern scholars came to feel the church was corrupt and did
not follow the teachings of Jesus. They called for reform.
Art
• Northern artists painted in a more realistic style and painted
more daily-life subjects.
• Albrecht Dürer was an artist from Germany who was most
famous for his prints.
– A print is a work of art reproduced from an original.
– Studied anatomy so he could paint people more realistically
Literature beyond Italy
• Writers in other countries besides Italy also included
Renaissance ideas in their work. They wrote in their own
languages.
• Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish writer who wrote
Don Quixote.
• William Shakespeare wrote plays and poetry and is
considered the greatest writer in the English language.
The Protestant Reformation
The Big Idea
Efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church led to changes
in society and the creation of new churches.
Main Ideas
• Reformers called for change in the Catholic Church, but
some broke away to form new churches.
• The Catholic Reformation was an attempt to reform the
church from within.
• The political impact of the Reformation included religious
wars and social change.
Main Idea 1:
Reformers called for change in the Catholic
Church, but some broke away to form new
churches.
• By the late Renaissance, people had begun to complain
about problems in the Catholic Church.
• They called on its leaders to end corruption and focus on
religion.
• Their calls led to a reform movement against the Roman
Catholic Church called the Reformation.
Unpopular Church Practices
• People felt that the clergy and the pope had
become too political.
• The way the church raised money was also
considered unfair. The sale of indulgences was
unpopular.
– An indulgence was a document given by the pope that
excused a person from penalties for sins he or she had
committed.
– The idea that the church was letting people buy their
way into heaven made Christians angry.
• These unpopular practices weakened the church,
and people began calling for reform.
Martin Luther
• Martin Luther nailed a list of complaints to the door of a
church in Wittenberg. This list was called the Ninety-five
Theses.
– The printing press allowed this list to be spread to
neighboring states.
• Luther thought that anyone could have a direct
relationship with God.
• He did not believe that priests had to speak to God for the
people.
• Beliefs should be based on the Bible, not interpreted by
priests or the pope.
• Luther translated the Bible into German so that Europeans
could read it for the first time.
Other Reformers
• William Tyndale believed everyone should be able to read and
interpret the Bible. He translated the Bible into English, and
the Catholic authorities had him executed.
• John Calvin believed that God knew who would be saved even
before they were born. This is called predestination. Nothing
that people did during their lives would change God’s plan, but
it was important to live a good life and obey God’s laws.
• Henry VIII wanted to leave his marriage. The pope refused
Henry’s request, so he left the Catholic Church and created his
own church.
– The Church of England, or Anglican Church, was much like the
Catholic Church, but it opened the door for other churches to
form.
Main Idea 2:
The Catholic Reformation was an attempt to
reform the church from within.
• Protestantism spread in the later 1500s and 1600s.
Catholic leaders responded to stop this spread.
• The effort to reform the Catholic Church from within is
called the Catholic Reformation, or Counter-Reformation.
The Growth of Roman Catholic Spain
• In 1492 the king and queen defeated the last Muslim
forces in Spain.
• Muslims and Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism.
• The Spanish Inquisition was organized to seek out and
punish Muslims and Jews who had converted but secretly
kept their old beliefs.
• The Catholic Church was ruthless in carrying out the
Inquisition and later sought out Protestants.
• The Catholics had very little opposition left in Spain.
New Religious Orders
• In some parts of Europe, Catholic leaders responded to
Protestant criticism by forming new religious orders, or
communities.
• The first new order in Spain was created by Ignatius of Loyola.
• The order was called the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.
• The Jesuits were a religious order created to serve the pope and
the church.
• Jesuits were trained to be as disciplined as soldiers in their
religious duties.
• By teaching people about Catholic ideas, Jesuits hoped to turn
people against Protestantism.
The Council of Trent
• Catholic leaders met together to discuss more ways to
reform the Catholic Church. This meeting was known as
the Council of Trent.
• The council restated the importance of the clergy in
interpreting the Bible.
• The council ordered the bishops to live in the areas where
their churches were located.
• The council officially rejected the ideas of the Protestant
leaders.
• The pope created religious courts to punish Protestants
found in Italy.
Catholic Missionaries
• Missionaries were people whose goal was to take
Catholic teachings around the world.
• Many of the new Catholic missionaries were
Jesuits. These priests went to Africa, Asia, and
America.
• One of the most important missionaries was a
Jesuit named Francis Xavier, who took
Catholicism to India and Japan.
• Missionaries baptized millions of people, and
through their work the effects of the Catholic
Reformation reached far beyond Europe.
Main Idea 3:
The political impact of the Reformation
included religious wars and social change.
• In Spain nearly everyone was still Catholic.
• In northern countries people were mostly
Protestant.
• The Holy Roman Empire was a patchwork of
different kingdoms, some Protestant and some
Catholic.
• These divisions led to political conflicts.
Religious Wars in France
• Protestants in France were called Huguenots.
• The Huguenots and the Catholics began a war when the
Catholic king banned all Protestant religions.
– Violence began in 1562 and did not end until 1598.
• Fighting was ended by the Edict of Nantes, which granted
religious freedom to the Protestants in France, except in
Paris and a few other cities.
Religious Wars in the Holy Roman Empire
• King of Bohemia forced everyone in the kingdom to
become Catholic.
• Protestants rose up in revolt in 1618.
• This led to the Thirty Years’ War.
• The war grew, and both sides called on other countries to
come to their aid.
• After 30 years of fighting, an agreement was reached—The
Treaty of Westphalia.
– It allowed rulers to decide whether their countries would
be Catholic or Protestant.
– The states of Germany became independent with no
single rule, independent of the Holy Roman Empire.
Social Changes
• Through the Protestant Church, people began to make
decisions about their churches. Now that they had that
power, they also wanted political power.
• Local towns began to govern themselves, and the national
government had to share power.
• The sharing of power between local governments and a
strong central government is called federalism.
• On an individual level, people began to think more for
themselves and to investigate on their own.