• Identify major figures in Renaissance and Mannerism (Italy) humanities and their works. (CO1)

Renaissance and Mannerism in Italy

All non-cited images were gathered from the free domain and are not under any copyright law restrictions. All images gathered from wikipedia.org.

Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici, founder of the Medici bank.

The Early Renaissance, which occurred during the fifteenth century, was a time when old ideas were challenged and new ideas began to take hold. One reason for this upheaval was the spread of the bubonic plague, which undermined traditional belief systems and spawned widespread social unrest and turmoil.

The Medici family, led by Giovanni de’ Medici and his son Cosimo, along with Cosimo’s grandson, Lorenzo, made Florence the cultural center of Renaissance Europe through their financial support of the arts. The Medici’s were humanists, believing in the worth and dignity of the individual, and valuing the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, and especially the works of Plato.

Individual genius, which was viewed as the worldly manifestation of divine truth, was allowed to flourish during Renaissance Italy as never before in Western culture.

Sculptors such as Alberti and Donatello used linear perspective in organizing their compositions.

Individual Genius

Renaissance architects such as Brunelleschi and Alberti demonstrated a renewed interest in ancient Roman models, with their mathematically determined proportions and emphasis on orderliness, clarity, and logic of construction.

Individual Genius

Frank, K. View of the Duomo's Dome, Florence. 2008. JPEG.

Zacchi, Anna. Sant Andrea Straight. 2006. JPG.

Renaissance artists such as Masaccio and Piero emphasized the art of perspective, the principles of which had been little used since ancient Roman times.

Individual Genius

Music in the Renaissance The greatest influence on early

Renaissance music was Guillaume Dufay, who wrote many motets, compositions that set a sacred text to polyphonic choral music. One factor that led to the popularity of music during this period was the rise of music printing.

The most famous writer of this period was Petrarch. His sonnets introduced one of the predominant themes of the Renaissance lyric poetry: the expression of the speaker’s love for a woman, and the complexity of love.

Florence’s domination of Italian culture ended in 1494 when Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola took control of the city.

One famous artist of the High Renaissance was Leonardo da Vinci, painter of The Last Supper and Mona Lisa. He did not share the Florentine taste for classical humanist scholarship.

Leonardo da Vinci

Pope Nicholas V helped a reborn Rome replace Florence as the cultural center of the Renaissance, Raphael, considered the epitome of High Renaissance painters, became particularly famous for his paintings of the Madonna.

Although Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor, he was compelled by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Popes and Great Artists

The musical composer most closely identified with the High Renaissance is Josquin Des Pres, composer and director of the Sistine Choir.

Two famous writers of the period were Castiglione, who supported the tenets of Renaissance humanism, and Machiavelli, who challenged those tenets.

Music and Writing

Resources

Frank, K. View of the Duomo's Dome, Florence. 2008. JPEG.

Zacchi, Anna. Sant Andrea Straight. 2006. JPG.

All non-cited images were gathered from the free domain and are not under any copyright law restrictions. All images gathered from wikipedia.org.