Running head: THE EARLY RENAISSANCE
The Early Renaissance
Courtney Hedtke
Humanities
Minnesota School of Business
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Abstract
The Early Renaissance began in 1400 and was the idea of rebirth of the new world. Thought and
philosophy in this time period was important because the theories and ideas reflected some of the
artist’s artwork. Plotinus defined the theories as Neoplatonic ideas and Marcilio Ficino taught
these theories in the Platonic Academy in Florence, Italy. Alessandro Botticelli became known
as the artist who portrayed Neo-Platonism and Platonic love into his artwork. The Birth of Venus
and Primavera are Botticelli’s two most famous paintings. Sandro Botticelli’s paintings showed
a new meaning of what love and beauty meant for him.
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The Early Renaissance
When one thinks about the Renaissance, they might think about guys dressed up in
shining armor and carrying swords or think about what they see at the Renaissance Festival here
in Minnesota. That has nothing to do with what the real Early Renaissance times were like.
Starting in 1400, the Renaissance times meant a time for rebirth of ideas and understanding of
cultural values of the new world. During these times, neoplatonic ideas came into place, famous
painters used those ideas in their paintings, and the meanings behind the paintings were
interesting and beautiful. The Early Renaissance was interesting, the paintings in this time were
amazing, and philosophy had a huge impact on Sandro Botticelli's paintings.
The most interesting information about the chapter was the thought and philosophy. At
first it was hard to understand what was going on with the philosophy, but after doing much
research it finally started to all come together and make sense. In the Early Renaissance time
period, a lot of the thought and philosophy dealt with love, spirituality, and beauty. Love,
spirituality, and beauty are some things that I love learning about because it is interesting to see
how other cultures and time periods perceive those things. Neo-Platonism came into effect and
was the term used for a school of religious and mystical philosophy. Platonic love was another
theory that went hand in hand with Neo-Platonism and both were founded by a few philosophers,
but the original father has been said to have been Plotinus.
Plotinus was born in 205 and died in 270 at the age of 66. He was born in Egypt in the
town of Lycopolis (Plotinus, 1998, ¶ 2). At the age of 28 he started studying philosophy and
continued to study it for 11 years with another philosopher, Ammonius Saccas. When he was 50
years old, he finally started writing and published books about his philosophical theories. His
theories broke up into three parts and consisted of the perfect One. The One was also known as
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God and meant perfect unity, infinite, and unknowable (Plotinus,1998,¶ 12). The first theory was
that The One is the World-Mind and is aware of multiplicity but holds together in eternal
contemplation (Plotinus, 1998, ¶ 7). His theory was equivalent to Aristotle’s theory. The second
theory was World-Soul. World-Soul perceives things equally and was also the cause of time and
space, even though it was eternal (Plotinus, 1998, ¶8). The third theory consisted of Nature. The
Nature was the furthest from the One and least creative of the three theories. Nature meant that
the physical world was a projection of a dreamlike consciousness (Plotinus, 1998, ¶ 9).
Plotinus also believed that the human souls were broken up into a higher part that
understands the intelligent world and a lower part that only cares about the material body. If
someone was in the lower part, their soul would fall into degradation and would forget their true
identity. If someone was a part of the higher part, their soul would ascend to the union with the
One (Neoplatonism, n.d., ¶ 3). This part of his theory seems to relate to society today. Most
people are so obsessed with material things and changing themselves that they forget who they
truly are. Plotinus’ theory tied in with the Early Renaissance because in 1462 Cosimo de’ Medici
opened up a Platonic Academy in Florence, Italy. In this school, scholars and humanists
examined and discussed the writings of Plato and other Neo-Platonists. The director of the
academy was Marsilio Ficino.
Marsilio Ficino was born October 19, 1433 and died in October of 1499. During his
lifetime he was a priest, a doctor, and a musician. He is best known for being the translator of
Plato’s work into Latin and that is why he was the director of the academy. Marsilio was the
leading voice of the Florentine Neo-Platonism because he combined Platonic ideas with
Christian teachings. He agreed with Plato on the theory that the soul was immortal and the
enjoyment of God would happen in the afterlife when the soul went to the Divine realm
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(Matthews & Platt, 2008, ¶ 329). Marsilio also brought back Plato’s notion of free will stating
that humans can make themselves into anything that they wish. Although they shared that same
thought, Marsilio brought that theory a step further and believed that free will was the source of
human dignity because humans could choose to love God or not (Matthews & Platt,2 008, ¶
329). The most powerful impact that Marsilio had on the Early Renaissance was the teaching of
Plato’s love to the Neo-Platonism. He taught that love is a divine gift that binds humans together
and that love expresses itself through human experiences by the desire and appreciation of
beauty (Matthews & Platt, 2008, ¶ 329). This was different from Plato’s love because Plato’s
love is much like erotic love and is aroused by the sight of physical appearance. Platonic love
will not rest until it moves upward to the highest spiritual level, where it meets the Divine
(Matthews & Platt, 2008, ¶ 329). Marsilio’s teachings on love influenced many writers and
artists to add this theory of beauty and love into their art work, such as Sandro Botticelli.
Platonic love was interesting because it seems to be something so spiritual. I say spiritual
because the love will not rest until it reaches the highest spiritual level where it meets the Divine.
It seems to be something where once one's soul feels love it rises up to the highest level and
meets the Divine. It perceives itself as something so beautiful and exciting.
Sandro Botticelli’s real name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. He got the name
“Botticelli” from his eldest brother who went by the name of “Botticello.” Sandro was born in
1445 and died May 17, 1510 in Florence, Italy (Hartt & Wilkins, 2003). Sandro’s father, who
was a tanner, originally wanted him to be a goldsmith but Sandro had much more talent in art.
When Sandro’s father realized that, he placed Sandro under the influence of Fra Filippo Lippi,
one of the first masters in Florence (Alessandro Filipepi, n.d.) By the time Fra Filippo Lippi died,
Sandro, 22 years old, had gained the reputation of being the best painter in Florence.
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Sandro then started working under Lorenzo de Medici. Lorenzo loved Sandro’s work and
encouraged his friends to become some of Sandro’s wealthy patrons as well. Botticelli realized
he had more work than he could handle and started hiring other artists to help him keep up with
the work (Alessandro Filipepi, n.d.). His assistants would put the finishing touches on his
artwork and some even made copies of his art as well. Some of his assistants even took this a
step further and sold his artwork without Botticelli’s permission. Artists during this time looked
into the Greco traditions for inspiration for their art work. Greco was the term for “GreekRoman.” Artists such as Rafael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo studied science, nature and the
human body so that their artwork would appear as realistic as possible. Sandro, however, had his
own focus on the special kind of beauty seen through imagination, known as the beauty of
fantasy (Alessandro Filipepi, n.d.).
Sandro Botticelli became known for his mythological creatures and the gods from the
ancient Roman and Greek cultures. Sandro liked being very detailed with his artwork and
capturing the beauty of women. He loved the female body and all the curves that the woman
body has. I liked this about Sandro Botticelli because he didn’t see women as having to be really
skinny to be beautiful. I think we need more thought like this in today's society because woman
today think they need to be really skinny to be beautiful. But as Sandro has shown, curvier is
beautiful. His paintings The Birth of Venus and Primavera show his beauty of fantasy and also
Marsilio’s theories on Platonic love. Venus, known as the goddess of love and beauty, is featured
in these two paintings as the beautiful woman (Hartt & Wilkins, 2003).
I fell absolutely in love with Sandro’s most famous paintings, The Birth of Venus and
Primavera. What really caught my eye in his painting, The Birth of Venus, was how much detail
he seemed to have put in the painting. It was so colorful and detailed and made me want to learn
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more about it because it seemed to have some kind of meaning behind it. My interpretation of
this painting was that Venus was showing modesty and portraying a woman’s curvy body. Venus
looked so beautiful and woman like and I really liked that. According to the real interpretation, I
was pretty close at figuring out what the painting was really about.
The Birth of Venus represents the Platonic idea of divine love and the goddess is known
as the modest Venus. Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, is portrayed as being born of sea
foam and is floating ashore on a scallop shell. She places her hands and hair to hide, or enhance,
her sexuality. Her highlighted hair is blown by the wind god, known as Zephyr, and he is holding
his love, the nymph Chloris. Venus arrives on shore, welcomed by a woman identified as one of
the Hours, who holds a garment with flowers on it. This painting was interpreted as the birth of
the idea of beauty (Stokstad, 2007, pages 651-652).This painting also corresponds with the
baptism of Jesus, because baptism is the symbol of rebirth and rebirth was what the Early
Renaissance was all about (Matthews & Platt,2008, page 344).
Sandro Botticelli’s other famous painting, Primavera, also caught my attention because it
seemed dark and not as colorful as The Birth of Venus. It also has so much going on in it and so
many characters representing different things. I also noticed at first that there were two different
Venus’ characters in the painting and wanted to know more about it. My interpretation of this
painting was that since both Venus’ seemed to be pregnant, this painting must be a symbol of
fertility and maybe marriage. The one Venus looks like she has a wedding dress on and that’s
why I thought that marriage must be a symbol of this painting. I noticed that Cupid was above
Venus, so I figured love was another symbol. I was also surprised on how close my
interpretation was on this painting to what it really means.
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Primavera collided Neoplatonic ideas with classical sources. This means that
philosophers seen Venus as having two different natures. The first nature was the earthly, human
love and the second nature was the universal, divine love. Philosophers argued that Venus was a
classical equivalent of the Virgin Mary (Stokstad, 2007, page 651).Botticelli painted Primavera
for the wedding of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici. The theme is fertility and marriage and
Venus is the model of the ideal woman. Venus is standing beside Flora, the Roman goddess of
flowers and fertility, and is standing by the Three Graces. Cupid, the symbol of romantic love, is
above Venus playfully aiming arrows at the Three Graces. Zephyr, the wind god, is also in this
painting trying to pursue the nymph, Chloris. Zephyr’s breath causes Chloris to sprout flowers
from her mouth. Mercury, the messenger god, is at the far left of the painting using his snakewrapped wand to stop gray clouds from going in Venus’ direction. Mercury is also the sign of
the month of May and he is looking outside the painting and onto summer. Venus, standing in a
grove of orange trees, is clothed in costume and wearing a marriage wreath on her head. She
represents the wedded love. Since she is standing in a grove of orange trees, she is symbolizing
human fertility (Stokstad, 2007, page 651).
Sandro Botticelli portrayed Neo-Platonic ideas and Platonic love the most in his
paintings. Seeing his paintings really showed me the image of Plotinus and Marsilio’s ideas of
Platonic love and Neoplatonic ideas. I have a wider perspective of love and beauty now through
the paintings and what I read about the philosophy and thought in the Early Renaissance time
period. Sandro’s paintings showed me the image of what love and beauty meant to him and
showed me what true beauty looks like through a painting. I also realized that every time period
seems to have their own philosophy and thought and sometimes those ideas were a symbol of
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paintings in those time periods. The Early Renaissance was interesting, the paintings in this time
were amazing, and philosophy had a huge impact on Sandro Botticelli's paintings.
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Reference Page
Alessandro Filipepi- Sandro Botticelli. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2010 from
http://www.michaelarnoldart.com/Sandro20%Botticelli%20-Alessandro%20Filipepi.htm
Hartt, F. and Wilkins, D.G. (2003). Alessandro Botticelli. History of Italian Renaissance Art, pp.
371-385. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Matthews, R and Platt, F (2008). The Western Humanities. (pp. 328-344). Boston, MA:
McGraw-Hill.
Neoplatonism-Plotinus (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2010 from
http://science.jrank.org/pages/10471/Neoplatonism-Plotinus.html
Plotinus. (1998). Encyclopedia of World Biography. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. Retrieved from
Biography Resource Center database.
Stokstad, M. (2007). Botticelli. In Art History, Volume 2. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Prentice Hall.