Renaissance Introduction – Assignment #2
How was the Renaissance an “Intellectual Revolution?”
The word Renaissance means "rebirth." Historically, it refers to a time in Western
Why did the Renaissance
civilization (1350–1550) that was characterized by the revival of three things:
originate in Italy?
commerce, interest in the Classical world, and belief in the potential of human
achievement. For reasons that are both geographical and social, the Renaissance
began in Italy where renewed trade with the East flowed into Europe via the
Mediterranean Sea and, therefore, through the Italian peninsula. The Italian
Renaissance flowered for approximately a century until, as a result of invasions
from France and Great Britain, it flowed north into the rest of Western Europe.
The society of the Italian peninsula between about 1350 and 1550 was unique in
Western civilization. The most outstanding characteristic of Italian society was the
degree to which it was urban. By 1500, seven of the ten largest cities in Europe were
in Italy. Whereas most of Western Europe was characterized by large kingdoms
with powerful monarchs and increasingly centralized bureaucracies, the Italian
peninsula was made up of numerous independently governed city-states, such as
Milan, Florence, Padua, and Genoa. These city-states were, by virtue of their
location, flourishing centers of commerce in control of reviving networks of trade
with Eastern empires.
Because the city-states of Italy developed as commercial centers, wealth was not
based on the control of land as it was in the rest of Europe during this period.
Instead, wealth was in the form of capital, and power was the ability to lend it.
Accordingly, the traditional landed aristocracy of the Italian peninsula was not as
politically powerful as their other European counterparts. Rather, powerful
merchant families dominated socially and politically. Their status as the holders of
capital also made the commercial elites of Italy powerful throughout Europe as the
monarchs of the more traditional kingdoms had to come to them when seeking
loans to finance their wars of territorial expansion.
Prior to the Renaissance, the values of European civilization were based on the
codes of honor and chivalry that reflected the social relations of the traditional
feudal hierarchy. During the Renaissance, these traditional values were transformed
to reflect both the ambition and the pride of the commercial class that dominated
Renaissance Italian society. In contrast to traditional European noblemen, who
competed for prestige on the battlefield or in jousting and fencing tournaments,
successful Renaissance men competed with displays of civic duty that included
patronage (financial support) of philosophy and arts.
At the center of the Renaissance system of values was humanism. Renaissance
humanism combined an admiration for Classical Greek and Roman literature with a
new-found confidence in what modern men could achieve. Accordingly, Renaissance
humanism was characterized by an educational program founded on knowledge of
the Classical Latin and Greek languages. Once these languages had been mastered,
the Renaissance humanist could read deeply in the Classical works of the ancient
Greek and Roman authors, absorbing what the philosophers of the last great
Western civilization had to teach them about how to succeed in life and how to live
a good life.
To the Renaissance humanist, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were
guides whose achievements could be equaled and eventually improved upon. The
ultimate goal of the Renaissance humanist philosophy was the truly well-rounded
citizen, one who excelled in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, politics, and moral
philosophy. These scholarly achievements were valued in their own right, as a
testament to the dignity and ability of man, but also for the way in which they
contributed to the glory of the city-state.
A prime example of early Renaissance humanist was Petrarch, who celebrated the
glory of ancient Rome in his Letters to the Ancient Dead. Another articulation of the
belief in the dignity and potential of man that characterized Renaissance humanism
What were some of the main
beliefs of the Renaissance?
was Pico's Oration on the Dignity of Man. In the Oration, Pico argued that God
endowed man with the ability to shape his own being, and that man has the
obligation to become all that he can be.
By the later Renaissance, humanism lost some of its ideal character, where scholarly
achievements were valued for their own sake, and took on a more cynical quality
that promoted only individual success. This shift is sometimes characterized as a
shift from a "civic ideal" to a "princely ideal," as texts like Castiglione's The Book of
the Courtier and Machiavelli's The Prince focused on the qualities and strategies
necessary for attaining and holding social and political power inste4ad of improving
society as a whole.
What were some major artistic
developments that reflected
the beliefs of the Renaissance?
The unique structure of Renaissance society and the corresponding system of
Renaissance values combined to give birth to one of the most amazing bursts of
artistic creativity in the history of Western civilization. The wealthy and powerful
elites of Renaissance society patronized the arts for the fame and prestige that it
brought them. The competitive spirit of the competing elites both within and among
the Italian city-states meant that artists and craftsmen were in almost constant
demand.
For example, Lorenzo de Medici, who led the ruling family of Florence from 1469
until his death in 1492, commissioned work by almost all of the great Renaissance
artists. As an art patron, he was rivaled by Pope Julius II, whose patronage of the
arts during his papacy including the construction of St Peter's Basilica, transformed
Rome into one of Europe's most beautiful cities.
Whereas medieval art had been characterized by religious subject matter, the
Renaissance style took the human being and the human form as its subject. The
transition can be seen in the series of frescos painted by Giotto in the fourteenth
century. Although he still focused on religious subject matter (i.e., the life of St
Francis), Giotto depicted the human characters in realistic detail and with a concern
for their psychological reaction to the events of St Francis's life. The Renaissance
artist's concern for the human form in all its complexity is illustrated by two great
sculptures, each nominally depicting the biblical character of David.
One is Donatello's version (completed in 1432), the first life-size, free-standing nude
sculpture since antiquity, which depicts David in a completely naturalistic way and
casts him as a young Florentine gentleman.
The second version was sculpted by Michelangelo (completed in 1504) and is
characteristic of the last and most heroic phase of Renaissance art. Sculpted from a
single piece of marble, Michelangelo's David is larger than life and offers a vision of
the human body and spirit that is more dramatic than real life, an effect that
Michelangelo produced by making the head and hands deliberately too large for the
torso. Upon its completion, the rulers of Florence originally placed David at the
entrance to the city hall as a symbol of Florentine strength.
In the late-fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Renaissance spread to France,
Germany, England, and Spain. The major cause of the spread of Renaissance ideals
and values was the printing press. Invented by Johann Gutenberg in the German city
of Mainz in response to demand for books from an increasingly literate public, the
moveable type printing press allowed for faster, cheaper mass-produced books to
be created and distributed throughout Europe. By 1500, between 15 and 20 million
books were in circulation. Among the ideas that spread with the books were the
thoughts and philosophies of the Renaissance humanists, which were both adopted
and transformed in northern Europe.
What enabled the ideas of the
Renaissance to spread?