Fifteenth Century Europe in a Cultural Context
From a cultural viewpoint C15th Europe would appear to be split on
a North/South divide, a situation that may have been developing for
a longer period than a single century and which well may relate to
the slow emergence of nationalism, accompanied by the incidence
of regional languages, which might tend to be, in the south,
deriving from Latin, while Germanic antecedents informed the
north. There were not only linguistic differences but climatic
variations making for differing attitudes to life, and historical factors
such as the growth of the European life adjusted over a long period
to that barbarian eruption dislodging the staid Roman world – a
Classical/Romantic dichotomy.
Such a general assessment has to be moderated for individual
countries at specific times and under particular circumstances –
countries long involved in civil disputes or long external distractions
with belligerent neighbours, the existence of art forms depicting the
horrors of war,the creation of a new economy following plague, and
the demands of society, and, in particular, of patrons or sponsors
were all elements contributing to the myriad facets that influenced
the intellectual climate of the individual state.
Analysis by country and/or by specific cultural enterprise is a
valuable approach. If the war-torn atmosphere of C15th England is
considered, the period at first looks very bleak, made worse by
subsequent disrupting events. There was, for instance, such
damage done by iconoclasts in a later century that hardly any
painting and little decorative sculpture survived – the most
imposing artefact that has come down to us is the Wilton Triptych,
produced in the late 1390s and typical of its genre, wherein Richard
II is presented by three saints (John the Baptist,Edward the
Confessor and Edmund the Martyr) to the Virgin and Child. Nothing
else of real merit remained to be passed down, but such as there
was, was influenced by the Flemish School.
In the C15th Flanders was the cultural centre of Burgundy, where,
especially, Philip the Good acted as patron of the arts, although
affluent merchants could afford to sponsor craftsmen of their
choice. Flemish Primitives (Late Gothic, Ars Nova, or Early
Netherlandish masters were all name tags)were to produce
astounding works in this period and beyond into the C16th, such
extension being, more or less, a continuum, with spice added by
later painters like Hieronymous Bosch, famous for a fantastic
imagery which acted as a veneer covering his religious concerns, an
increasing factor that would disrupt in time. The immediate
contributions of this northern group were the extensive preference
for oil over tempera, the use of glaze, and the technique of having
the model sit three-quarters face , greatly enhancing portraiture.
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The triptych, with donor ornament, seems to have been originally
an import from Italy, but these Netherlanders would produce a new
dimension, as, indeed, they developed the diptych, this latter linked
to a growing private devotional philosophy. The paintings essentially
illustrated religious topics in the Medieval tradition, as in the
impressive early work of Robert Campin(1375-1444) and Jan van
Eyck(1370-1443) whose Ghent altarpiece (a joint enterprise with
his brother Hubert(1366-1426) remains a work of wonder. His
versatility is witnessed in the Arnolfini portrait (1434); a contrast
can be seen in a 1435 Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der
Weyden(1400-1464). A catalogue of these Flemish Primitives would
include: Dieric Bouts(1415-1475),Hans Memling1430-1494),Hugo
van der Goes(1440-1482) and extend into the C16th with Gerard
David(1460-1523) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder(1525-1569). The
most applauded works of this school include : Gerard David-Virgin
and Child with Four Angels and the triptych of the Sedano family;
Robert Campin-Adoration of the Shepherds; Hugo van der GoesPortinari Altarpiece; Rogier van der Weyden-Portrait of Philip the
Good and a polytych with the Nativity; and Hans Memling-Virgin
and Child with Donor.
A less bulky art form also flourished at this time in Flanders, which
influenced the genre throughout Europe and that was the
Illuminated Manuscript, production of which expanded as the
scribes tended to leave the monastery to vie in the commercial
world of the Medieval nouveau riche. The manuscripts had originally
a religious purpose, taking the form of Books of Hours,
commissioned by nobility, but romances, histories and poetry were
all to be enhanced by the colour and pattern that distinguished
these artefacts.
The illuminated manuscript seems to have been the prerogative of
Flemish and French miniature painters, notably the Limbourg
Brothers(1385-1416) whose Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry is
seen as the supreme example of its kind, their uncle Jean Malouel,
the court painter to Philip the Good, having first introduced the
brothers to the International Gothic style. An artist who painted on
panels and penned manuscripts and, possibly, was the inventor of
the portrait picture was Jean Fouquet(1420-1481), who flourished
under Charles VII and Louis XI - his work varied from the Hours of
Etienne Chevalier (French treasurer) through the Grandes
Chroniques de France to illustrating a translation of the Works of
Josephus.
The artists of Flanders have been described as the progenitors of
the Northern Renaissance, but Late or International Gothic persisted
until the arrival of the Baroque, although influences from the south
infiltrated the production of the Low Countries and, indeed,
Germany, where the manufacture of illustrative wood blocks
resulted in marvels like the Nuremburg Chronicle, to which
contributed Albrecht Durer(1471-1528), who was to visit Italy and
incorporate southern motifs into his convincing northern style. A
Lutheran art, which allowed imagery among its reforming doctrine,
supported Lucas Cranach the Elder(1472-1553) but the most
important product of the German Renaissance was to be the
Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald(1470-1528) executed in
1515,but then along came Calvinism and Iconoclastism.
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France was different as it had its own North/South divide and
Occitan influences, reaching into Italy, although waning, persisted
in their contribution, while that glorious Burgundian “experiment”
pervaded the north It was in the wake of the French invasion and
interference in Italy that brought in return Italian inspiration which
helped France to conceive its renaissance, a blend, initially, of
Italian and Northern elements, that would bear fruition in the
following century.
Poland was to become something of a staging camp, taking on
board western developments and passing on to Russia the fruits of
that contact – a Cyrillic press was to emerge in Krakow in 1491.
Krakow was to be influenced by Italy, Gdansk, Germany and the
Netherlands, but throughout the north the C15th stood on the cusp
of a new learning That new learning, gleaned from Italy, first
reached Hungary during the reign of Matthias Corvinus who
encouraged humanists to his court, so that his library, the
Bibliotheca Corviniana, became Europe’s largest collection outside
the Vatican. A printing press was set up in 1472 and the imposing
Gothic edifices of Buda were to be matched by Renaissance
architectural spectacle.
The source of these innovations were the city states of Italy, most
of which contributed to the artistic enhancements of an age when
the C15th (the Quattrocento) was central, but affected by
developments in the C14th(the Trecento), and which may be seen
to climax in the C16th(the Cinquecento).To understand fully the
progress of European culture, it is necessary to view this wider time
scale. Most “Renaissance” studies concentrate upon the city of
Florence, which was pre-eminent in the movement.
Some scholars argue that a late C13th literary and, indeed,
intellectual revolution presaged the events of the future, while
others might argue that this development acquired a universality
that set it aside as a specific phenomenon, which reached its
apogee in the north in the C14th and coloured the early part of the
C15th. Its principal contribution was the final acceptance of the
value of appreciating the native tongue, the vernacular, of the
society. A date of 1282 established in Florence an Arti Minori, with a
governing Priori delle Arti, controlled by the guilds and dedicated,
inter alia, to the glorification of the Tuscan tongue, and the
emergence of the Dolce Stil Novo school of poetry, centred upon a
Neo-Platonic background to lyric poetry, espoused by : Guido
Cavalcanti (c1250-1300) – chief work was Donna Me Prega (a
woman asks me) ;Cino de Pistoia(1270-1336) – a legal expert who
wrote 200 or more popular poems of his time; Lapo Gianni,who
retained an affinity with an older Sicilian school one of whose
members, Giacomo da Lentini, was credited with the invention of
the sonnet ; above all, Dante Alighieri(1265-1321), father of the
Italian language, who put the seal upon the acceptance of the
vernacular. His Divine Comedy, guided by Virgil, and inspired by his
ideal unattainable Beatrice Portinari , his Vita Nuova (The New Life)
– Tuscan love poems, and his collection of longer poems, the
Convivo (the Banquet) assured his works immortality.
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The first humanist, called by some Father of the Renaissance, and
of modern lyric poetry, acknowledged as the most important writer
of the period, was Francesco Petrach(1304-1374), who famously
perfected the sonnet, written again in Italian – the Canzoniere
(Songbook) and the Trionfi, (Triumphs), an unobtainable Laura in
the background, were favourite compositions, but he chose to write
in Latin when he announced his humanist philosophy in Secretum
Meum (My Secret),emphasizing his study of human thought.
The third fountain of excellence in this era was Giovanni Boccaccio(
1313-1375) ,who shared a love of the Classical with Petrach and
also championed the new Italian literature. His De Genealogia
Deorum was a compendium of mythology in his native tongue.
Boccaccio wrote several romances, including the Teseide(the story
of Palemone and Arcite – to be retold in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale and
in Two Noble Kinsman),the Filostrato(the story of Troilo and
Criseida) and the Filocolo(based upon the story of Florio and
Biancifiore - Floris and Blanchefleur) an earlier French romance,
which glorified Fiammetta, his desideratum. The C13th produced
collections of tales, an early contribution being the Cento Novelle
Antiche, and this genre found its master in Boccaccio, whose most
famous work was the Decameron, a collection of 100 novels related
to a group seeking mutual shelter and support during the plague of
1348 which ravaged Italy. This set a model for the future, drawing
as it did on timeless stories pulled into a unity in the native
language, inspiring the Canterbury Tales and the Heptameron.
Boccaccio spent some time(1361-1375) composing the first history
of women, the De Mulieribus Claris, containing the lives of 106
famous women, a serious composition rather than the comparative
treatment given to that area by others, classical or
contemporary,(Compare Ovid’s Heroides and Chaucer’s Legend of
Good Women).His Life of Dante and associations with Petrach
identify this outstanding group.
Whether or not this was the seedtime of the Renaissance, this
movement towards working in the vernacular spread, or may have
developed from an embryonic status elsewhere. In France, Honore
Bonet(1340-1410) was writing his Arbre des Batailles,a treatise
onwar, and Guillaume de Machaut(1300-1377) was a poet and
composer, whose extensive works were admired by many other
poets, including Chaucer, who has been named the Father of
English Literature, substantiating the vernacular Middle English.
There had been ballads and romances composed earlier in English
and drama was to develope from the mystery or miracle and
morality plays, which would be produced in cycles in York, Chester
and Wakefield, popular with Wycliffe and his Lollard followers, and
reaching their greatest height in Everyman in the C15th.This might
rather se seen tobe the seedtime of the Reformation, andcerainly
the alliterative Piers Plowman of William Langland(1332-1386) could
be seen in those terms.The moral John Gower(1330-1408) was
praised alongside Chaucer, his Confessio Amantis being a collection
of tales, largely didactic.
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Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) was a prolific writer.He could
translate material as variant as part of The Romance of the Rose(his
Romaunt of the Rose) to the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
(his Boece),who powerfully influenced him. Much more flowed from
his own pen : The Book of the Duchess or the Death of Blanche- an
elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, presented as a dream vision ;The
House of Fame – another dream vision, strongly influenced by
Italian literature ;The Parlement of Fowles, yet another dream
vision ; Troilus and Criseyde, a courtly romance drawing on the
Filostrato of Boccaccio and ultimately from Benoit de Sainte-Maure.
Chaucer’s version was influenced by Boethius and was celebrated
for its development of its characters ;Anelida and Arcite - a lover’s
complaint based on the Teseida of Boccaccio and the Thebaid of
Statius;The Legend of Good Women, retelling the stories of 10 good
women- Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Ariadne,
Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra and in Chaucer’s Retraction
declared that he had wished to write of 25, including Esther,
Penelope, Marcia Catonis, Lavinia, Polyxena and Laodamia; and his
best known work, The Canterbury Tales.
Much of Chaucer’s work was left unfinished, notably the Squire’s
Tale, as Milton reminded his readers, but most of The Canterbury
Tales portrayed the England of the day, creating memorable
characterizations of pilgrims to the holy shrine of Becket. His works
were seen as models by others of his time, such as John
Lydgate(1370-1449) and Thomas Hoccleve (1368-1437) who were
to guide the closing elements of this literary explosion over into the
C15th in England, by which time the conversion to the vernacular
would be virtually complete.
Whether this literary revolution should be seen as a free standing
phenomenon or the opening of a new culture may be disputed, but
the emergence of a changing age is perhaps more clearly observed
in the humanist and artistic movements of the period. This
Renaissance, which was to establish the centrality of humanity,
began in the Italian states’ searching through the literature of
antiquity, gained impetus as Greek scholars migrated from a
Constantinople, threatened by Ottoman Turks, bringing with them
manuscripts hitherto unknown in the West, which extended
knowledge and encouraged its acquisition, often through
controversial dialogue. From the Medieval Trivia was to evolve a
Studia Humanitatis, emphasizing the Humanities of today :
grammar, rhetoric, history, moral philosophy and, perhaps above
all, poetry.A more complete picture might emerge if we include the
world of art.
Petrach was the first humanist, looking to ancient authors like Virgil
and Cicero to inspire him to imitate their work and attitude to
Humanity. Boccaccio took a similar approach and their views were
shared by Coluccio Salutati(1331-1406), Chancellor of Florence,who
amassed a considerable library, found some classical manuscripts,
including Cicero, brought Manuel Chrysoloras(1355-1406),translator
of Homer and Plato’s Republic into Latin, to Florence to teach Greek,
and encouraged his successors to read Plato and Aristotle in the
original tongue rather than through Latin or Latin through Arabic.
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This revival of the ancients was extended by travelling scholars and
their supporters in office, none more enthusiastic than Gian
Francesco Poggio Bracciolini(1380-1459), another Chancellor of
Florence, who recovered many Latin texts on his travels, including
Quintillian, and parts of Statius and Valerius Flaccus, remants from
Rome’s Silver Age. He also wrote a History of Florence and penned
moral essays, but his studies led him to a nasty literary
confrontation with Francesco Filelfo(1398-1481), who indulged in
translating , from Greek into Latin, parts of Aristotle, Plutarch and
Xenophon, and with Lorenzo Valla(1407-1457),celebrated for his
adaption of classical Latin and his discovery that the famous
Donation of Constantine was a forgery, incurring some hostility
from the Church.
Another Chancellor of Florence, Leonardo Bruni(1370-1444), a pupil
of Salutati, and a Republican to be at odds with the Medici family,
has been called the first modern historian – his History of the
Florentine People could stand beside his translations of Aristotle (
the Politics and the Ethics.)
The early humanist may be seen to be gathering the totality of old
Latin authors, but, over time, Greek sources were more urgently
sought. Giovanni Aurispa(1376-1459) brought back to Venice 238
manuscripts, among them Plato, Plotinus, Pindar, histories by Dio
Cassius, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Procopius, Xenophon, plays by
Sophocles and Aeschylus, the Iliad, Demosthenes and Apollonius
Rhodius (the Argonautica). Cardinal Basilios Bessarion(14031472),a Greek who defended Plato against Aristotelians and
collected 900 volumes, attended the Council of Florence (a failed
attempt to heal the East/West schism)as did Gemistos
Plethon(1355-1454),a great teacher who persuaded Cosimo de
Medici to found a Platonic Academy which would translate Plato and
several Neo-Platonists, and to indulge a hobby horse in the realm of
Esotericism.
The fall of Constantinople saw the migration to the West of Greek
scholars, such as John Argyropoulos(1415-1487) (who introduced
Aristotle to pupils like Poliziano, Reuchlin and Lorenzo de Medici)
and Constantine Lascaris(1434-1501),the author of fthe
Grammatica.
These revivalists were not only to refine the languages of Greece
and Rome, but to write so neatly that the penmanship of Poggio
developed into Roman type, while that of Niccolo de Niccoli(13641437)invented the cursive script, now known as Italic or
Cancelleresca, still in use today.
Generally these scholars all sought the same goal which was a
reconciliation of past and present, often seen as a conflict between
Aristotlelians,who upheld that, with the Trivium ,dialectic
(embracing proposition, dispute and proof) reigned supreme leading
to the Scholastic tradition in logic, and Platonists, who preferred
rhetoric or persuasion.
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Humanism tended to veer towards an enhanced Neo-Platonic
attitude,where the Platonism introduced by Plethon, encouraged by
Bessarion, found its ablest tutor in Marsilio Ficino(1433-1499) under
the patronage of Cosimo de Medici(1389-1464).Ficino translated
Plato (and the Hermetic corpus) into Latin, and sought to meld this
Neoplatonism with Christianity, holding that the soul was the centre
of all things and developing a contemplation that led to the doctrine
of Platonic love. The idea of synthesis derived from Thomas
Aquinas(1225-1274) who had realised such an effect in his Summa
Theologica, setting a model moral guide.Nicholas of Cusanus(14011464) took a German Neoplatonic path when he advocated
mathematics as representing the divine ideas, leading in time to the
philosophies of Joahnnes Kepler(1571-1630) and later Galileo
Galilei(1564-1642).
A different path was trodden by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola(14631494) whose Oration on the Dignity of Man has been called the
Renaissance Manifesto, emphasizing man as central to the universe
and seeking to synthesize not only Neoplatonism and Aristotlelism,
Averroism, but also mysticism (incorporating Hebrew and Talmudic
sources, the Kabbalah and the Hermetic tradition) and Humanism.
He incurred the wrath of the Church but was sheltered by Lorenzo
de Medici(1449-1492) at whose court he met Angelo Amerogini
Poliziano(1454-1494), the tutor of Lorenzo’s son and a noted
classical student, one whose poetry encouraged Lorenzo himself.
The Medici family had governed Florence from the time of Cosimo
and were famous for their patronage of art and humanism. The
later years of Lorenzo’s rule were plagued by the emergence of the
religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola(1452-1498) who took
political power, marked by extremes of reform, responsible for the
Bonfire of the Vanities. His downfall saw the return of the Medicis.
The patronage of city state rulers encouraged the revival of learning
and was to instigate the greatest development of art recorded in
history. Families, states, and artists became intertwined as we think
of the Medici in Florence, the Gonzaga in Mantua, the Visconti in
Milan, the Sforza in Milan,the d’Este in Ferrara, the House of Aragon
in Naples, the Montefeltro and Sigismondo Malatesta in Rimini, the
Pope in Rome – and understand the situation.
Italian Renaissance Art allows of the earliest possible date for its
birth.
Benvenuto di Giuseppe, better known as Cimabue (1240-1302) was
the first artist to break away from the Byzantine style, introducing
more naturalism into his work, but he was to be overshadowed by
his pupil Giotto di Bondone(1266-1337),acknowledged almost
universally as the first great artist of th period, praised by Dante,
Boccaccio and the historian Villani. It seems he may have shared
the famous frescoes of Assisi with Cimabue, but the Arena chapel,
the design of the campanile of Florence Cathedral (Giotto’s Tower)
and the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua alone merit his fame.
About the same time, in Siena flourished Duccio di
Buoninsegna(1255-1319),who painted on wood in tempera using
Byzantine proportions of gold leaf, his refinements displayed in the
Rucellai Madonna(1285).He is seen as the founder of the Sienese
School which influenced the International Gothic style and which
was embellished by the offerings of Simone Martini(1280-1348), the
pupil of either Duccio or Giotto,and Ambroglio Lorenzetti(12901348) and Pietro Lorenzetti(1280-1348),bringing naturalism to
Siena. The Sienese School appear to be often drawn to the Maesta
or Maria Regina, a remnant from the Byzantine model they
replaced.
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Other schools of artists developed, as at Bologna, Ferrara and
Florence, which was to outshine the rest, although these craftsmen
did often move elsewhere at the request of a patron.
The quattrocento saw the emergence of what might be called the
first triumvirate of the renaissance :Tommaso di ser Giovanni di
Simone, thankfully known as Masaccio(1401-1428) who adopted a
naturalistic style, using perspective and the vanishing point, his
output including the Expulsion from Eden, the Tribute Money and
the Holy Trinity (in Santa Maria Novella);Filippo Brunelleschi(13771445), the architect who gave the world the Dome of Florence
Cathedral and designed the Basilica of SanLorenzo and that of
Santo Spirito; and Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi (Donatello 13781466), the supreme sculptor of his age, famed for his “erotic”
David, a Magdalen, St George and statues around the Campanile ,
and for his equestrian statue in Padua of the condottiere Erasmo da
Narni, known as the Gattamelata or Honey-cat.
A contemporary, Lorenzo Ghiberti(1378-1455) might well be called
“the fourth man”, who, in 1401 was judged to surpass Brunelleschi
and Donatello in a competition for the design of the gilded bronze
door to the Baptistry, destined to be called by Michelangelo “The
Gates of Paradise”. One of his pupils, Paolo Uccello(1397-1475)
achieved fame in his search for perspective, as the Battle of San
Romano and Saint George and the Dragon indicate. He executed a
fresco illustrating an equestrian statue of another condottiere, Sir
John Hawkwood. An artist who deserves credit for his fresco work
(with his brother Naado) and his sculpture was Andrea di Cione,
commonly known as Orcagna (died 1368),associated with that time
when the Black Death ravaged Europe, an event that inspired his
Last Judgment(in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella. He was
equally famous for his tabernacle in Or San Michele.
Renaissance Art blossomed in the C15th,a catalogue of the
magnificent artists would include :Fra Filippo Lippi(14061469),supported by Cosimo de Medici, his frescoes in the Cathedral
of Prato, which included Salome dancing, were his most important
work, encouraging his pupil Botticelli; Fra Angelico((1395-1455)
spanned the movement of International Gothic to Renaissance art,
excelling in both, known in his lifetime as the Blessed Angelic One
and canonized in 1952 by Pope John Paul II;Piero della
Francesca(1415-1492)whose most famous painting was The Legend
of the Cross, he worked in both Urbino for the Montefeltro family
and in Rimini for Sigismondo Malatesta; Andrea Mantegna(1432-
1506) worked in Padua and Mantua, famously producing in tempera
the Triumphs of Caesar,resplendent with classical images; Luca
Signorelli(1445-1523) famous for his use of foreshortening,he
produced frescoes in Orvieto of the Last Judgment; Pietro Vannucci
Perugino(1446-1523), named after his association with Perugia,
painted in both tempera and oil and influenced the young Raphael;
Alessandro di Marieno di Vanni Filipepi, known as Botticelli(14451510)well known for his Birth of Venus and Primavera, seen to
perfect humanism, but in later life fell under the influence of
Savonarola, which may be indicated in his Mystical Nativity.
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The 1490s ushered in what became High Renaissance, which
climaxed in the early C16th.Among the forerunners were; Filippino
Lippi(1459-1504), a pupil and companion of Botticelli who
developed a style showing reality as a nightmare; Domenico
Ghirlandrio(1449-1494) , a tutor to Michelangelo, who promoted
perspective and chiaroscuro; Andrea del Verrocchio(1435-1488),a
tutor of Leonardo da Vinci, noted as much for his sculpture, a
bronze David and for his designing the equestrian statue of yet
another condottiere, Bartolomeo Colloni, cast by Alessandro
Leopardi and to be seen in Venice.
Three artistic giants were to dominate the High Renaissance :
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci(1452-1519OS), a universal genius
whose Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, the Virgin among the Rocks
merely head a vast catalogue of achievements, commencing in the
C15th;Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarrioti Simoni(1475-1564),
courted by princes and popes, may be said to have created
Renaissance Man in his statues of David and Adam and the rise and
fall of man in his painting of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and earned
eternal fame by his design of Saint Peter’s basilica; Raffaello Sanzio
da Urbino( Rahael 1483-1520), the supreme artist of his day,
famous for his School of Athens, Parnassus and Disputa,
commissioned by Pope Julius II, and for the Raphael cartoons,
designed for the Sistine Chapel tapestries, now in the V & A.
Coming up in the rear of these masters was Andrea del Sarto(14861530), whose most famous work was the elegant Madonna of the
Harpies.
Colour was the foremost characteristic of the Venetian School of
painting which developed about this time and, in a sense, rounded
off the Renaissance.It was to include : Giovanni Bellini(1430-1516)
who painted in oils, influenced by the Sicilian Antonello da Messina,
who had studies extensively in Flanders – the Northern
Renaissance, revolutionizing the School of Venice; Giorgio Barbarelli
da Castelfranco (Giorgione 1477-1510), a pupil of Bellini, he began
to use sfumato, using shades of colour to gain proper perspective.
His most famous works included The Tempest and the Sleeping
Venus; Tiziano Vecelli (Titian 1488-1576), the sun amidst small
stars, pupil and surpasser of Bellini, he was a central figure in art,
prolific in all its manifestations, whose influence can be seen in
subsequent periods, as remote as Manet. He painted poesies for
Philip II based upon Ovid, which were reflected in many later
delicate offerings, yet his most famous work was his Assumption of
the Virgin. The Venetian School was to lead on to the works of
Tintoretto(1518-1594) and Veronese(1548-1588), maintaining that
love of colour.
The Parma School was championed by Antonio Allegri da
Correggio(1489-1534) who presaged the Baroque with his religious
pieces, but won a different fame as he painted a series based upon
Ovid’s Metamorphoses for Federico II Gonzaga of Mantua, who kept
a special room for such devotions.They were given by Gonzaga to
Charles V.
An earlier artist, whose fame was centred upon he discipline of
Architecture was Leon Battista Alberti(1404-1472), a universal man
who wrote treatises on painting and architecture, designed many
buildings, sought the ideal, and was a humanist. High Renaissance
architecture was the province of both Leonardo and Michelangelo,
but first Milan and then Rome would be enchanted by the new
classicism brought to them by Donato Bramante(14441514),exemplified by his Tempetto and the dome design for Saint
Peter’s Basilica. Classicism would be brought to perfection by
Andrea Palladio(1508-1540) whose books and style were to
influence the English Architectural Renaissance in the C17rh.
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In northern Europe in the C15th, Gothic Architecture reigned
supreme, with a Flamboyant France and a Perpendicular
achievement in England, displaying magnificent fan vaulting from
Sherborne to Peterborough and beyond, especially celebrated at
King’s College Cambridge, a university city generously endowed by
Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. Italian Renaissance literature may
be thought to have begun with Dante, Petrach and Boccaccio,
expanded with translations from the Greek, but it reached further
into the realities of the period with Niccolo Machiavelli(14691527)who introduced a new political emphasis in his Discources and
The Prince, hardly softened by his play Mandragora. Gentility and
manners were the domain of Baldassare Castiglione(1478-1529),a
courtier himself who defined his calling in Il Libro del Cortegiano
(The Book of the Courtier), a model for Europe.
A world of fantasy might be displayed in the greatest work of Luigi
Pulci(1440-1494) with his Orlando Innamorato (Orlando in Love)
which was to be completed by Ludovico Ariosto(1474-1533) in the
Orlando Furioso, where love, or rather rejection, had driven the
hero mad.The great Italian Romance cycle of the C16th embraced
Turquato Tasso(1544-1595) whose Jerusalem Delivered ( La
Gerusalemme Liberata) glamourized the story of the First Crusade.
In the same period, again that Renaissance continuation beyond the
C15th might include the racy Playwright Pietro Aretino(1492-1556)
to contrast with the history of Francesco Guiccardini(14831540).Interestingly Boiardo wrote a poem about Trionfi (Tarocchi)
cards,the playing of which accompanied the world of poetry and
many decks (famously the Visconti-Sforza tarrocchi) were produced,
the first apparently for the D’Este of Ferrara, patrons of the epic
authors. To complete the cycle, the C15th Francesco Cicco(Blind) da
Ferrara write the Mambriano, published 1509, which explored the
world of Charlemagne using the same characters as those of
Boiardo and Ariosto.The father of Torquato,Bernardo Tasso(14931569) had written an Amadigi, indicating Spanish/Italian literary
contact.
Literature in France in the C15th, as in England, harked back to
early writers, who had introduced the Romance of Chivalry and had
to await contact with Italy for greater change, but Spain made
contact with Italy earlier and, indeed, exported their Amadis and
the Celestina , yet it would seem almost a one way traffic until the
magic date of 1492 brought in the Renaissance and glory with a
Spanish Golden Age, which was enhanced by : Garcilaso de la
Vega(1501-1536) who learned his poetry from Petrach and Virgil;
Jorge de Montemayor(1520-1581) gave the world La Diana,a
pastoral novel; an anonymous El Lazarillodo Tormes introduced the
picaresque novel ;and extending into the C17th – Lope de
Vega(1561-1635) famous for La Arcadia ; Miguel de
Cervantes(1547-1616) author o Galatea and Don Quixote; Pedro
Calderon de la Barca(1600-1681), probably Spain’s greatest
playwright; and Tirso de Molina(1579-1648) noted for his dramatic
works. Religion loomed large over Spain was o darken some aspects
of Spanish literature – a Carmelite reformation was inspired by San
Juan de la Cruz(St John of the Cross1542-1591) and Santa Teresa
de Jesus(1515-1582) but 1481 had seen the introduction of the
Spanish Inquisition, which reinforced the Church’s antipathy to
change, especially to science, so that people like Copernicus(14731543) and Galileo Galilei(1564-1642)were wise to tread warily, as
the experience of Giordano Bruno(1548-1600), indulging in the
occult, would confirm.C15th science generally fell back upon
Aristotle and his interpreters.
12
1485 did see the publication of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte D’Arthur
(written 1470ish), prefaced by Caxton as Out of the French Book,
but a mass Arthurian legend gleaned from a variety of sources,
including English alliterative verse. His perspicacity in choosing
which versions to add to his meld constitutes his greatness as
conceivably the greatest English writer of the C15th.
An even more important work was the translation into the
vernacular was just around the corner, that of William Tyndale’s
(1494-1536) New Testament, to be followed by the Pentateuch,
translations that were virtually copied by Miles Coverdale and,
indeed, the King James’s Bible very closely followed Tyndale.
The gates of the English literary renaissance were opened by
Petrach whose sonnets appealed to a developing English taste,
which was either indigenous or styled to mirror early Renaissance
effects in the Romantic genre (Ariosto,Tasso)and the same is true of
the marvellous drama that evolved. (possibly Spanish influences or
parallels) : Spencer (1552-1599) Faerie Queene, Amoretti,- famous
for his stanza incorporating an Alexandrine and his own sonnet
rhyme.; Sydney(1554-1586) Astrophel and Stella, Defence of
Poesy, Arcadia; Drayton (1563-1631) Poly-Olbion, poems, plays;
Marlowe(1568-1593) Dr Faustus, Tamburlaine, Edward II, Jew of
Malta, poems and translations.; Shakespeare(1560-1616) wrote
plays, poems, sonnets, and a will ; a galaxy of Elizabethan and
Jacobean playwrights – the English Renaissance. Philosophy
reached a new register with Francis Bacon (1561-1626),father of
inductive reasoning and a prolific writer especially of essays.
Scotland’s culture was diverse; John Barbour(1320-c1530), the
Scottish Chaucer, penned the Scottish epic the Brus, celebrating
independence; James I(1394-1437), in captivity, wrote a vision
poem, The King’s Quair; Robert Henryson(fl1460-1500) is famous
for his Testament of Cresseid, long thought to be the “Fourth Book”
of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, which describes penitence. His
Robin and Makyne is a delight, his moral fables of Aesop have
echoes of Reynard the Fox; William Dunbar(b1459-c1530), poet to
James IV produced both religious and secular poems, the latter
incorporating courtly love, satire and allegory; Sir Richard
Holland(fl1450) produced the allegorical Buke of the Howlat (owl);
John Mair(1465-1550). The Latin historian and tutor of John Knox,
prompted Hector Boece, Principal of King’s College Aberdeen
(established under a papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI –
Borgia) to compose his Scotorum Historiae, a work which could
have earned him the title of the Scottish Geoffrey of Monmouth,
especially in his Arthurian passages; The reformation brought along
John Knox(1514-1572), the first Scot to write in English, famous for
his The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment
of Women (1558).Reading Regiment as rule yields a different
perspective on that title; a profound admirer of Chaucer was the
poet Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount(1490-1555);Gavin
Douglas(1474-1522),a Scottish bishop, continued the theme of
allegory in his Palice of Honour with courtly love still in vogue, but is
more celebrated for his Eneados, a translation of Virgil; somewhere
in the 1470s appeared Blind Harry’s poem The Actes and Deidis of
the Illustre and Vallyeant Campion Schir Williame Wallace(The
Wallace); Sir Gilbert Hay(1403-1456) applauded chivalry in his
Governance of Princes and reinforced his ideal in King Alexander the
Conquerer.
French c15th prose was the appreciation of an earlier Romantic
genre that underlay the concept of chivalry, Flanders and Burgundy
setting the model. Alain Chartier(1385-1430) earned renown with
La Belle Dame San Mercy and applause for the Quadrilogue Invecif
– a discussion between France and the three orders of society,
pleading unity. Philip the Good employed writers but mainly to copy
or translate.
11
For the C15th, virtually everything seemed just around the corner,
certainly for countries north of the Alps, apart from the flourishing
humanity of Flanders and the Netherlands. When the “Renaissance”
effects reached the north, national characteristics varied the
direction of its impact, as, indeed, did the more disturbing aspects
of the Reformation. In England, critics have posed the question if
the interval between Chaucer and the early C16th was a cultural
desert waste, or were there flowers beginning to germinate? Some
contemporaries of Chaucer and Gower were still flourishing,
accounting for the best individual productions. John Lydgate(13701449) enjoyed an autumn of fame with his Siege of Thebes(14201422), which might at first be seen to be part of the ubiquitous
“translated material” of the time, but its heroes have lost their
primitive ferocity, and gentleness is more widely attributed as
Tydeus becomes the real hero, or maybe this is simply perspicuity.
His Fall of Princes again may be seen to be at first a translation
through French of Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium, but
everything here is in the hands of Fortune, except matters that can
be seen to hark back to Boethius(fl525)for a formula to overcome
chance. Interestly, Lydgate includes in this work a minor Arthuriad,
with Mordred as just a treacherous kinsman, not an illegitimate son
and no adulterous wife for Arthur.
Another from the Chaucerian age was Thomas Hoccleve(13681426)famed for his Regement of Princes, written to advise Henry V
while he was still Prince Hal, and adapted from foreign models.
Hoccleve’s poems are now more closely examined and thought to
seriously illustrate the actuality of the age. Part of the scene was a
limited amount of patronage, noteably by Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester, who sent 280 manuscripts to Oxford where they might
be found in the Bodleian Library.
Duke Humphrey encouraged Lydgate and Capgrave, the latter one
of the writers of less fame who deserve a mention in a description
of C15th English Literature : John Capgrave(1393-1464), famous
for his Abbreviacion of Cronicles(based on material collated at St
Albans) and for a life of St Katherine; Osbern Bokenam(1393-1464)
who produced a Live of the Saints (thirteen ladies).He promoted the
growing cult of St Anne, mother of the Virgin; George Ashby(13901475), a poet who wrote A Complaint of a Prisoner in the
Fleet(1423)(possibly caught up in the Wars of the Roses), but he
had been a tutor to Prince Edward, son of Henry VI. He bowed to
the influence of Gower, Chaucer and Lydgate; John
Audelay(d.c1426) wrote devotional carols, noted for the use of
alliterative verse, and illustrating the centrality of the cult of
Mariology in his time; John Skelton(1460-1529), to become Poet
Laureate to Henry VIII, produced works that earned him criticism as
a “rude rayling rimer”, whose work could degenerate into doggerel.
His Boke of Phyllypsparowe roved through the Matter of Britain,
France and Rome.His Colin Cloute, through the voice of a
countryman railed against the clergy, especially Wolsey, as the
English Reformation was emerging from its embryo.
There had been much anonymous or commonly circulated material
that might possibly be seen as a seeding bed – ballads, fabliaux,
secular lyrics – The Assembly of Gods(hardly humanist), feminine
influences, and a revel of personifications of virtues and vices, but a
symbol of the age. Much the same can be said of The Dictes and
Sayings of the Philosophers, the epitome of wisdom literature,
understood to be derived from Medieval interpretation of Cato, but
mainly of Aristotlelian philosophy, through Averroes(1126-1198)
and Avicenna(980-1037),formulated into a Mokhtar El-Hikam, and
from there into Latin, then French, and finally into English in many
versions in the C15th,famously published by Caxton as a translation
of Anthony, Lord Rivers.
13
Philip had encouraged Jean Mielot(d1472) as secretary, again
producing translations or original works that were virtually
translations. Reflecting on the snows of yesterday(Mais ou sont les
neiges d’antan, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as But where
are the snows of yesteryear),was Francois Villon(1431-1463),
France’s first great poet, whose Grand Testament, Lais(legacy),
Ballade pour prier Nostre Dame, and L’epitaphe Villon survive, the
latter also known as the Ballade Des Pendus, possibly written in the
shadow of the scaffold, suggesting a fate that would be commuted
to exile. Quite different from Villon were the Grands Rhetoriqueurs,
who pointed the way to a new learning, recognizing poetry as a
form of rhetoric, and, indeed, have been compared in their
development to a parallel C15th polyphonic music from the Flemish
School. Jean Molinet(1435-1507) was represtentative.
France had to wait until mid C16th before home produced works
brought out the beauty of that language.The opening gambit may
have been James Peletier’s translations from the ancients (Homer
and Virgil, Horace and Petrach). The first poems of Joachim du
Bellay and Pierre de Ronsard appeared about the same time (1547)
and around these new poets gathered a group that came to be
known as La Pleiade, claiming that inspiration came from Petrach,
although Pindar had been observed.
Prose was dominated by Italian and Spanish Romances, translated
into French, but in the 1530s appeared as a rival Pantagruel and
Gargantua, introduced by Francois Rabelais(1494-1553), a master
of satire, at heart a humanist. The Decameron was to be
challenged, weakly, by the Heptameron of Marguerite of
Navarre(1559).As elsewhere theatre began to develope, but drama
tended to follow closely the chivalric and the pastoral romance. The
religious wars produced political, often satirical, minor works. The
most sensible man of the age locked himself away in his chateau
with 1500 books to write essays, Michel de Montaigne(1533-1592),
famous in his time and to be admired by Francis Bacon, Blaise
Pascal, William Hazlitt, even Nietzche.
The Northern nations may be seen to come to a new learning later
than the South, but there was traffic or as brilliant, if very different,
regional advancement at this time. There have been suggestions
that, in art, it was the North that most influenced the South, with
the ultimate triumph of oil over tempera ; the Romantic
Perpendicular Gothic was the supreme achievement in the North,
but a more Classical style gained popularity in the South – over the
centuries a pendulum would always swing from the Romantic to the
Classical and back throughout the Humanities. It is not as easy to
classify music in these terms, as this discipline related to the Church
rather more than to the laiety. New variations emerged in the North
(Flanders) and disseminated throughout Europe.
Guillaume Dufay(1397-1474) achieved early success in Cambrai,
but afterwards moved to Italy where he was endorsed by the
Malatesta and the D’Este families, subsequently gravitating between
Cambrai and Savoy, composing both religious and secular music,
moving from the earlier isorhythm to a new vitality, the “drive to
the cadence”. Johannes Ockeghem(1425-1497)became the next
most famous Flemish composer, producing both masses and
chansons, seen as a link between Dufay and Josquin des Prez(14551521), the central figure of the Franco-Flemish school and the first
master of the High (or Middle) Renaissance style of polyphonic vocal
music, perfecting his output at Milan, Rome, Ferrara and back to
Flanders, master of all the current forms , from masses to
chansons, varying his technique to the occasion, not adverse in the
secular sphere to satire and highly ornamental virtuosity. A
prominent example of the North/South exchange was that of Adrian
Willaert(1490-1562), the Flemish founder of the Venetian School,
famous for his motets, but also a progenitor of the canzone and the
madrigal.
14
It is a wondrous thing that the fons and origo of the Burgundian
School was an Englishman, John Dunstaple(1390-1453), possibly in
the service of Bedford and, apparently, that of Duke Humphrey. He
especially contributed La Contenance Angloise (The English
Countenance). It is thought that the C15th English musical
production was prodigious, but sadly lost during the Reformation,
mainly at the Dissolution of the Monastries. It would be late in the
C16th before any form of serious music was regenerated, largely as
part of the fruition of the impetus given by the Flemish School.
Again a new universe of composers emerged : Orlande de
Lassus(1532-1594) was the epitome of the Franco-Flemish School,
reaching its mature polyphonic style, sadly in the religious sphere to
be varied by the Catholic Counter Reformation, in contrast with
secular music, an international presentation of madrigals, chanson
and lieder; Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina(1525-1594) gave Rome
this mature polyphony and the famous curve. Among the great
number of his compositions was the Pope Marcellus Mass, seen as a
plea for the recognition of changes over time by the Counter
Reformation; Ranking with Lassus and Palestrina as foremost in his
time was Thomas Luis de Victoria(1548-1611) who, having studied
in Rome, established his version of a new music in his native Spain;
Mention should also be made of Claudio Monteverdi(1567-1643),
master of madrigals, who took the Renaissance variations forward
into the Baroque
In England, music also began to gain a new life in mid C16th, the
roll of honour including : John Taverner(1490-1545) contributed
masses and motets; William Byrd(1540-1585) added English songs
to a religious repertoire; Thomas Tallis(1505-1585),worked with
Byrd; John Dowland(1563-1616) a lutist, whose songs were quite
melancholic; Thomas Campion(1567-1620) a lutist, producing songs
and masques; Orlando Gibbons(1583-1625), composer, virginalist
and organist, contributing as much to the late Renaissance period, if
with a more secular contribution. The most popular music among
the laiety was probably the madrigal, which emerged from a
prompting by Pietro Bembo(1470-1547), in his Prose della Vulgar
language, that Petrach’s model should be followed for poetry and
that of Boccaccio for prose. Bembo, interestly, studied in Ferrara,
where me met Ariosto, was accompanied with his poetry by the
lutist Isabella d’Este, and where, reputedly, he had an affair with
Lucrezia Borgia, at the time the wife of Alfonso d’Este. The madrigal
did not reach England until 1588, where its popularity lasted longer
than elsewhere in Europe. Due devotion was paid to Queen
Elizabeth – to Oriana rather than Gloriana.
This paper has examined the various disciplines of the Humanities
over the C15th, with a searching into origins in the C14th and
effects in the C16th. SO –was the C15th a desert or seedtime for
the Renaissance? It can more surely be seen as seedtime for the
Reformation, but, in both cases there were differences between
North and South that influenced perspectives and presages their
separate futures, such as the intervals of domestic and foreign strife
and their severity, the creation of national interest, and the C16th
expansion beyond Europe, which began with a thalassocracy of the
Iberian peninsula to be challenged by northern powers, England
and, every bit as much, by the Netherlands , or that part of which
had escaped the yoke of a Spain that, with family ties in Germany
and Austria, created a tension that evoked considerations of the
Balance of Power, not to be resolved until the Treaty of Westphalia.
15
With these developments national defence and trade loomed large
and underlined the emergence of more and more of those urban
centres without which the kaleidoscopic panorama that coloured this
enquiry would not have obtained. In the C15th, the verdict had to
be that culture was determined by both Burgundy and the Italian
cities, the North and South of Europe, while the less intellectually
energetic delighted in the reminiscence of the Medieval Romance
and the lure of the Chivalric Tradition, an enchantment from which
they were only to be released, oddly enough, by the Reformation.