Began in Italy
Spread north through Europe
Arrived late in England
Renaissance = “rebirth” of classical Greek
and Roman culture and
learning
The Renaissance World
Small cities and villages
Class status and rank important
Insecurity – plague, fire, disease
In Italian city-states, power given to kings/princes
RENAISSANCE HUMANISM
•Italian city-states become prosperous trade
centers
•Wealthy merchants and princes become patrons
of the arts
•Artists try to compete with great art of classical
past
•Increased trade demands more educated
citizenry
•Scholar Francesco Petrarch proposes studia
humanitas (liberal arts) modeled after Roman
philosopher Cicero
Francesco
Petrarch
1304-1374
The Increase In Power
of Kings
Lorenzo de’
Medici
1449-92
called The Magnificent
 Italian banker and
statesman
leading patron of arts
family ruled Florence for 3
centuries
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry VIII and
his second wife Anne Boleyn, ruled
England from 1558 to 1603 during what
is known as the Elizabethan Age.
Elizabeth's reign was a time of great
prosperity and achievement, and her
court was a center for poets, writers,
musicians, and scholars.
Focus on grammar, rhetoric, poetry,
history, and moral philosophy
Return to classical values would
create a NEW GOLDEN AGE of
culture in city-states
Latin language essential to new
educational model
Recover lost art, wisdom, and
culture of the ancient world and build
new culture in imitation
Optimism about human potential
RENAISSANCE MEN
--men who are highly accomplished in a variety of endeavors
--men with driven, passionate, and compulsive personalities
Leonardo da Vinci
Michaelangelo
--engineering, painting,
sculpting, writing,
designing, inventing
--architect, engineer,
painter, sculptor, poet
Da Vinci’s
masterpiece
•Mona Lisa was da Vinci’s
favorite painting
•He actually took it everywhere
he went
Mona Lisa
1503-1506
Da Vinci
The Last
Supper
1495-1497
MICHAELANGELO’S
DAVID
•1501-1504
•17ft tall
•Portrays David
waiting to attack
Goliath
(THE EXPURGATED VERSION)
Michaelangelo’s Pieta
1498-1500
Michaelangelo was 25
In St. Peter’s Basilica
The Virgin Mary Holding the Dead
Christ
Pieta means ‘pity’
"It would be impossible for any craftsman or sculptor
no matter how brilliant ever to surpass the grace or
design of this work, or try to cut and polish the marble
with the skill that Michelangelo displayed. For the
Pieta was a revelation of all the potentialities and force
of the art of sculpture. Among the many beautiful
features (including the inspired draperies) this is
notably demonstrated by the body of Christ itself. It
would be impossible to find a body showing greater
mastery of art and possessing more beautiful members,
or a nude with more detail in the muscles, veins, and
nerves stretched over their framework of bones, or a
more deathly corpse. The lovely expression of the head,
the harmony in the joints and attachments of the arms,
legs, and trunk, and the fine tracery of the veins are all
so wonderful that it is hard to believe that the hand of
an artist could have executed this inspired and
admirable work so perfectly and in so short a time. It is
certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could
ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is
scarcely able to create in the flesh."
Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, first published
1550, 2nd edition 1558.
Detail of the Pieta—
The face of Mary, full of
resignation rather than sadness
Just days after it was placed in Saint Peter's, Michelangelo overheard a
pilgrim remark that the work was done by Christoforo Solari, a compatriot
from Lombard. That night in a fit of rage, Michelangelo took hammer and
chisel and placed the following inscription on the sash running across
Mary's breast in lapidary letters: MICHEL ANGELUS BONAROTUS
FLORENT FACIBAT (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this).
This is the only work that Michelangelo ever signed. Michelangelo later
regretted his passionate outburst of pride and determined to never again
sign a work of his hands.
MICHAELANGELO’S
THE LAST JUDGEMENT
1483-1520
``While we may term other works paintings, those of Raphael are living
things; the flesh palpitates, the breath comes and goes, every organ lives,
life pulsates everywhere.''
-- Vasari, Lives of the Artists
Raphael’s Christ on the Cross
Raphael painted a series of
Madonnas including…
by
Raphael
Raphael’s
THE SCHOOL OF ATHENS
Plato painted to
look like da
Vinci
Aristotletrue
renaissance
man
dabbled in
all fields
Epicurusdisbelieved in
the afterlife,
gods do not
interfere with
men
Pythagoras-created famous
math thereom
Diogenes-the cynical philosopher,
searched for honest men with
lantern in daylight
Red Chalk Drawings
were very popular during the
Renaissance
By Raphael
Psyche Offering Venus the Water of Styx
Untitled—detail of woman’s
face
Brueghel – Peasant Wedding
Flemish Northern Renaissance painter
1525-1569
Known as Pieter the Elder
Father of Jan Brueghel and Pieter the Younger
Brueghel’s
Tower of Babel
Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus
Sandro Boticelli c. 1445 - 1510
VENUS AND MARS
Madonna of the Magnificat
Also by Boticelli
Saint Augustine in his Study
Donatello
(1386?-1466), Italian
Renaissance sculptor, who
is generally considered one
of the greatest sculptors of
all time and the founder of
modern sculpture.
David
A self-portrait in sculpture
Filippo
Brunelleschi
1377-1446
The cupola of The Florence Duomo dedicated to Santa Maria del Fiore
Niccolo machiavelli
Machiavelli, Niccol (1469-1527),
Italian historian, statesman, and
political philosopher, whose amoral,
but influential writings on statecraft
have turned his name into a synonym
for cunning and duplicity.
Throughout his career Machiavelli
sought to establish a state capable of
resisting foreign attack. His writings
are concerned with the principles on
which such a state is founded, and
with the means by which they can be
implemented and maintained.
Author of The Prince
Sir Walter Raleigh
William Shakespeare
Christopher Marlowe
Edmund Spenser
Born 1564, died 1623
Wrote 38 major plays
Performed in the GlobeTheater
THE GLOBE THEATER - LONDON
Marlowe's plays, such as The Tragical History of Dr.
Faustus (1588?) and The Jew of Malta (1589?), are
remarkable primarily for their daring depictions of worldshattering characters who strive to go beyond the
normal human limitations as the Christian medieval
ethos had conceived them. These works are written in a
poetic style worthy in many ways of comparison to
Shakespeare's.
Born in 1564, same year as Shakespeare
Dramatic competitor with Shakespeare
CHRISTIAN HUMANISTS
Focused on programs of practical reform in a wide range of areas,
including religion, education, and government
Northern Renaissance figures
Desiderious Erasmus 1466-1536
•Dutch scholar and reformer
•Interested in how to live a
pure Christian life
•Wrote In Praise of Folly
satirizing foolish behavior
Sir Thomas More 1478-1535
•English martyr for the
Catholic faith
•Wrote Utopia, a vision of a
perfect world
IMPORTANT NEW DISCOVERIES,
INNOVATIONS, & CHANGES
1492
Christopher Columbus discovers a new
world
The World was not what it was assumed
to be—anything seemed possible
The PROTESTANT REFORMATION
MARTIN LUTHER
1483-1546
•On Oct. 31, 1517, nailed 95 theses to the
door of Castle Church in Wittenberg,
Germany
•Upset over abuses of the Catholic church,
especially indulgences
JOHN CALVIN
1509-1564
•French Protestant reformer based in
Geneva, Switzerland
•Focus on predestination and the
mystery of God’s will
Movable
Type
Printing
Press
1
4
5
0
Johannes Guttenberg
Availability of Bibles and classic texts
fed both the reformation and humanism
Advanced educational opportunities
Made books cheaper and more widely
available
THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION
Copernicus
1473-1543
NEW COPERNICAN MODEL
OLD PTOLEMAIC MODEL
•SUN AT CENTER
•EARTH AND MAN AT CENTER
OF THE UNIVERSE
•EARTH REVOLVES AROUND
THE SUN
•HEAVENS FLAWED, NOT
PERFECT SPHERES
•HEAVENS REFLECT
PERFECTION OF CREATOR
The Plague spread by flea bites
carried on rats
Renaissance medicine was very
primitive—patients were often
bled with leeches, superstitious
methods of prevention
BOCCACCIO ON THE PLAGUE
It was not as it had been in the east, where nosebleeds had signaled that death was
inevitable. Here the sickness began in both men and women with swelling in the groin and
armpits. The lumps varied in size, some reaching the size of an ordinary apple and others
that of an egg, and the people commonly called them gavoccioli. Having begun in these two
parts of the body, the gavoccioli soon began to appear at random all over the body. After
this point the disease started to alter in nature, with black or livid spots appearing on the
arms, the thighs, everywhere. Sometimes they were large and well spaced, other times small
and numerous. These were a certain sign of impending death, but so was the swelling.
The most common form, called bubonic, is characterized by the formation of eggsized swellings at the site of an infected flea bite, usually located in the armpits, groin
or neck. Acute agonizing pain accompanies these growths. Next, hemorrhaging under
the skin occurs, causing purplish blotches that frequently encircle the waist. Victims
of bubonic plague die within four to six days of contraction.
A second form, pneumonic, occurs when the infection moves into the lungs, allowing
the bacteria to be transmitted easily from person to person. A cough, a sneeze or the
mere act of breathing sends death into the air. Symptoms include the vomiting of
blood.
In septicemia, the third type of plague, massive numbers of the bacilli enter the
bloodstream. A victim's body virtually explodes with the disease. A rash appears
within hours, and death occurs within a day, even before buboes have time to appear.
Whatever form a victim contracted, everything about the plague was disgusting, so
that the sick became objects of revulsion rather than of pity. All matter that exuded
from their bodies let off an unbearable stench; sweat, excrement, spittle, and breath
became so foul as to be overpowering; urine could be turbid, thick, black or red.
THE PLAGUE IN ART