Italy Births the Renaissance
 The
European explosion in arts and learning between 1300
and 1600 began in Northern Italy and spread north due to 3
factors:
 Urban
Centers: large city states sprung up in Northern Italy
due to the presence of sizable towns and overseas trade.
New ideas flourished in these urban centers, but the bubonic
plague ravaged the population and reduced opportunities for
business growth. Many wealth merchants began to pursue
other interests, such as the arts.
 Merchants
and the Medici: Merchants were the wealthiest,
most dominant social class and they controlled political life.
Their belief in individual merit became a dominant theme of
the Renaissance Era. Cosimo de’ Medici controlled
Florence’s govt. and after his death his grandson Lorenzo
controlled the govt. and contributed to the arts.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Classical and Worldly Values

Classical Heritage: Italian artists and scholars were
inspired by the ruins of Rome that surrounded them. In the
1300s, scholars studied ancient Latin manuscripts. Then in
the 1450s Byzantine scholars fled to Rome with ancient
Greek manuscripts which Italians thought had been lost.

As scholars studied the Greek and Latin works, they were
increasingly influenced by classical ideas which they used
to develop new outlooks on life:

Humanism: focused on human potential and achievements
and popularized the study of history, literature, and
philosophy (the Humanities).

Secularism: the belief that one could enjoy life without
offending God led to material luxuries, fine music, and a
focus on the here and now. (Mansions, expensive clothes).
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Patrons of the Arts

Renaissance popes beautified Rome by expending
large sums for fine art and supporting artists.

Wealthy merchants and wealthy families (like the
Medicis) also patronized the arts via self portraits and
by donating art to the city.

Renaissance Man: a man who excelled in several fields;
he could dance, sing, play music, and write poetry in
addition to being a skilled rider, wrestler, and
swordsman.

Renaissance Woman: expected to inspire art rather
than create it. Isabella d’Este exercised rare power,
maintained a famed art collection, and was skilled in
politics.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Renaissance Revolutionizes Art
Rather
than using religious subjects to convey
spiritual ideals, Renaissance artists emphasized
individuals and painted prominent citizens.
Michelangelo
glorified the human body via his
sculpture of David, the posture of whose image is
graceful and displays strength and power.
Donatello
carved natural postures and expressions
to reveal personality through art.
Masaccio
rediscovered the technique of
perspective, which indicates three dimensions.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Renaissance Revolutionizes Art
Leonardo
da Vinci (painter, sculptor, inventor,
scientist) incorporated his fascination with how
things worked into his art.
Da’Vinci’s
Mona Lisa seems so real that many have
attempted to explain the thoughts behind her smile;
his Last Supper used facial expressions to depict the
personalities of Jesus’ disciples.
Raphael
often portrayed the Virgin Mary and Jesus
Christ. He also painted School of Athens, which
depicted he and Michelangelo, among others,
listening to classical Greek philosophers.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Renaissance Writers Change Literature

Sofinisba Anguissola created portraits of King Phillip II of
Spain.

Artemesia Gentileschi painted pictures of strong, heroic
women.

Renaissance writers used the common vernacular and wrote
for self-expression or to portray their subjects.

Francisco Petrarch, an influential humanist and poet, wrote
sonnets in Italian and personal letters to his friends in Latin.

Boccaccio wrote Decameron, a series of off-color stories told
from the perspective of worldly youth waiting out the black
plague in a Florentine villa.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Machiavelli Advises Rulers

Niccolo Machiavelli penned a political guidebook, The
Prince (1513), in which he examined how rulers gain and
maintain power in spite of his enemies.

More concerned with what was politically effective rather than
what was morally right, Machiavelli advised rulers to trick his
enemies as well as his own people, for the good of the state.

Victoria Colonna exchanged sonnets with Michelangelo
and helped Castiglione publish The Courtier.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
The Northern Renaissance Begins
 Merchants
who traveled to Italy were impressed by Italian
artists interest in classical culture, their curiosity about the
world, and their belief in human potential.
 By
the late 1400s, these merchants had spread Renaissance
ideals from Italy to the northern European nations of England,
France, Germany, and Flanders.
 Having
recovered from the bubonic plague and the Hundred
Years War, European monarchs began to sponsor the arts.
 Francis
I of France bought Renaissance paintings, invited
Leonardo da Vinci to retire in France, and hired Italian
architects to rebuild his castle at Fontainebleau.
 The
Northern Renaissance developed its own character as
Italian ideas mingled with northern traditions.;
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
The Northern Renaissance Begins

Clergy began to charge high fees to perform
services for the dying, and some deserted their
flock.

Humanists of the northern Renaissance were more
interested in religious themes than their Italian
counterparts.

Inspired by the Renaissance ideal of human dignity,
many of them developed plans for social reform
based on Christian values.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Artistic Ideas Spread
Forced
out of Southern Italy by war, many Italian artists
took their ideas north into Europe.
Albrecht
Durer, a German artist who had studied in Italy,
produced woodcuts and engravings of religious
subjects. One of his most famous, Adoration of the
Trinity, influenced other German artists such as Hans
Holbein.
Hans
Holbein specialized in paintings of almost
photographic detail. He enjoyed great success in
England, where he painted portraits of King Henry VIII
and other members of the royal family.
Jan
van Eyck using oil based paints to add realism by
creating a variety of subtle colors in clothing and jewels.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Realism in Art
Van
Eyck’s paintings displayed unusually realistic details
to reveal the personality of their subjects.
Pieter
Bruegel was also interested in realism and
captured common scenes such as weddings, dances,
harvests, and changing seasons.
Bruegel
produced paintings that communicated morality,
such as his paintings protesting Spanish rule over
Flanders.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Northern Writers Try to Reform Society
Northern
writers adopted the ideal of humanism, but with
a religious slant. Hence, they are called Christian
humanists.
Erasmus – best known Christian humanist
who received honors from princes, kings, and cardinals
for his writings, such as the Praise of Folly, which
ridiculed greedy merchants, heartsick lovers,
quarrelsome scholars, and pompous priests.
Desiderious
Erasmus
believed that rather than adhere to a legalistic
set of rules, all people should study the Bible in order to
improve society.
More – wrote Utopia, a book about an imaginary
land inhabited by peace loving people.
Thomas
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Northern Writers Try to Reform Society
In
More’s Utopia, there is no greed, corruption, war, or
crime because people were very generous and had little
use for money.
Erasmus – best known Christian humanist
who received honors from princes, kings, and cardinals
for his writings, such as the Praise of Folly, which
ridiculed greedy merchants, heartsick lovers,
quarrelsome scholars, and pompous priests.
Desiderious
Francois
Rabelais wrote his comic adventure Gargantua
and Pantagruel in common French.
Rabelais
believed that people were basically good and
should live by their instincts rather than religious rules.
He wrote secular humorous social commentary.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Northern Writers Try to Reform Society
William
Shakespeare, regarded by many as the greatest
playwright of all time, wrote plays in England that
revealed the souls of men and women through scenes of
dramatic conflict.
His
greatest works include the tragedies Macbeth, King
Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and the comedy A
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Shakespeare
admired the classics and drew on them for
inspiration.
Renaissance
in England is called the Elizabethan Age
due to Queen Elizabeth I’s patronage of artists and
writers, such as Edmund Spenser.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class
Printing Spreads Renaissance Ideas
Encouraged
by the slow process of the block
printing method, Johann Gutenberg, a German
craftsman, reinvented movable type in 1440.
Guttenberg then invented the printing press, which
he used to print a complete Guttenberg Bible, the
first full-sized book printed with movable type, in
about 1455.
The
printing press revolutionized learning in Europe
by producing large quantities of affordable books.
Printers
began to produce the Bible in people’s
common language, allowing even more people to
read it and call for religious reform.
Session 3 Notes :: Italian and Northern Renaissances :: Mr. Davis’ 20th Century Topics Class