Renaissance and Reform

The Renaissance

Renaissance-rebirth Turning point between medieval and modern times Between 1300-1600 Revival of Greco-Roman civilization spread from Italy

to all parts of Western Europe Vigorous spirit of inquiry Greater accuracy in geography Invention of new technologies

Travel Record-keeping

The Reformation

Marked by movements for moral and religious change

Engaged humanist critics of the Roman Catholic Church

Engaged the lives of individual middle class Christians Observation of the human being: not as a hero but as

a creature whose humanity is debased by folly and burdened by moral conflict Christian piety Anti-clericalism

Democratic Impulses in England

Magna Carta 1215 Forbade the king to levy taxes against the nobility

without approval from his royal council (of nobles) Trial by jury: asserted primacy of law over the

monarchGreat Council 1265

Imprisoned Henry III until he agreed to share power with nobility Middle class representatives invited to participate in the

Great Council (Parliament) Laid foundation for Constitutional Monarchy

The Black Plague in Europe“Ring around the Rosy”

Timeline

China: Hubei Province 1334Constantinople: 1347Genoa, Italy 1348Europe: 1348-1351England: 1348-50

Advancement of Black Plague

Trade Routes

Transmission of Yersinia Pestis

Rat fleas

Transmission of Yersinia Pestis

Symptoms

Fever between 101-105 °F, headaches, aching joints, nausea and

vomiting, and a general feeling of malaise.Frist symptoms included swollen lymph

glands in the neck, armpits and groin. The glands fill with puss until they turn black and cause the skin to rot.

Symptoms

Symptoms

Progression

Medieval Doctor’s Protective Gear

Long robe to protect skin.Gloves or a stick to poke the patient to determine

where it hurt.Hat to protect head.Cone filled with medicinal (& strong smelling)

herbs.Glass to cover the eyes.

This picture is often a depiction of “death”

Biological Warfare: Medieval Style

Traditional tale: Tartars vs. GenoveseTartars dying of plague and losing the

battle, strap dead plague victims to catapults and fling them over the city walls to the Genovese.

Genovese contract the plague and begin dying themselves.

Genovese escape by means of ships to ports around the Mediterranean carrying the plague with them.

Biological Warfare: Medieval Style

Wrapping the clothing of a plague victim in pretty paper and sending it to one’s enemy.

Of course, the sender usually died as well.

Drawing of Jews Poisoning Wells from 1349

Religion vs. Science

The Roman Catholic Church taught that sickness was brought on by sin.

Relics, holy water, prayer and penance were considered to be means to cure illness.

The Roman Catholic Church often forbade scientific research as witchcraft.

Use of Cadavers was prohibited and punishable by death.

Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death, c. 1562

They died by the hundreds, both day and night, and all were thrown in ... ditches and covered with earth. And as soon as those ditches were filled, more were dug. And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands ... And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.—The Plague in Siena: An Italian Chronicle

Effect on Europe’s Population

The low estimate is that the Plague killed 1/3 of Europe’s population. The high estimate is that it killed 2/3 of Europe’s population.

Some countries/city states kept better records. England’s population dropped from 7 million to 2 million

people. The population of Florence, Italy (birthplace of the

Renaissance) dropped from 120,000 to 50,00 between 1348 and 1350.

There were 60% fewer “fiscal hearths” from which to collect taxes in Normandy, Burgundy & Provence (France).

Effect on the Roman Catholic Church

A shortage of clergy.The new clergy demanded more money for

their parishes.The new clergy were either not as well

trained or not as devoted to Church doctrine.

England’s clergy were some of the leading figures of pre-reformation disputes in the Church: John Wycliffe is a leading example of this.

Labor Shortages

In England more than 40% of the peasant population died

There were not enough peasants to farm the land.

Peasants were able to command higher wages and to move from manor to manor.

Rise of the Yeoman farmer a small farmer who owned up to 100 acres of land sold rather than gave his produce to the Lord and

to other buyers.

General Effects of the Plague

Cardinal Gasquet, an English Benedictine Monk, noted that the plague furthered the rise of the Middle class who “chatter and challenge authority”.

Shattered the tri-partate structure of medieval society: those who fought, those who prayed and those who worked.

Set the stage for revolutionary changes in western society: Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution.

The roots of the Holocaust in Germany and Austria Nobility used Jews as scapegoats Nobility looted Jewish wealth or defaulted on debts to Jewish

bankers wholesale destruction of ghettos Expulsion of Jews from specific countries

Impact of Black Plague on Humanities

Hieronymous Bosch, Death and the Miser, 1490

New Realism in Literature

Giovanni Boccaccio Decameron Short stories Framework: the Plague

Realistic High spirited Prize cleverness, good humor, and sensory pleasures over

idealism and piety, chivalry and humility Christine de Pisan

First feminist writer Supported her children by writing Attacked the anti-female tradition of Aristotle and the Church

“Epistle to the God of Love”

Geoffrey Chaucer Wrote in the vernacular Canterbury Tales

The Hundred Years War

Fought between England and France 1337-1453 On French soil English claim to continental lands and the French throne

French outnumbered English by 3:1 English won most of the early battles

“Secret” weapons of the English Foot soldiers Longbows: more accurate and quick than the crossbow Gunpowder

Introduced to Europe by Muslims who acquired gunpowder from the Chinese

Fired by artillery

English Longbow over 6 feet long

English Defeat in the Hundred Years War

Joan of Arc 17 year old female peasant Wore men’s clothing Heard voices of Christian Saints Led French victory at Battle of Orleans Burned at the stake by English for heresy

Heresy was her support for coronation of a rival monarch Most of evidence surrounded why she wore men’s clothing “If I am not, may God put me there and if I am may God so keep

me.”

English could not support physical and financial burdens of maintaining army on French soil Withdrew in 1450

Herman Stilke, Joan of Arc’s Death at the Stake Statue of Joan of Arc

In Notre Dame Cathedral

Decline of the Church

The Black DeathAvignon Papacy (1309-1377)

Relocation of papacy from Rome to southern France pressured by French King Philip IV Simony (selling church lands and taxing the clergy) Indulgences (purchasing “leftover grace” from the lives of

Saints)

Great Schism (1378-1417) College of Cardinals conflict between French and Italian

interests Election of two popes

Avignon Rome

Illuminated Manuscripts

From Tres Riches Heures (Very Precious Hours) ca. 1413-1416

Giotto’s Arena Chapel, Padua Italy

Cappella Scrovegni Padua, Italy

Chapel commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni as penanceFor making his fortune by usury. Enrico’s father is Identified in Dante’s 7th circle of hell.

Giotto (1266-1337)

Natural lifelike style No longer flat images Weighty robust figures Chiaroscuro: modeling form through gradations of

light and shade Presenting emotion Figures neither so lifelike as to be portraits but not

idealized stereotypes

Giotto, Lamentation of Christ

Music: Arts Nova

Increased rhythmic complexityIsorhythm: close repetition of identical

rhythmic patterns in different portions of a composition

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) Messe de Notre Dame “One who does not compose according to feelings,

falsifies his work and his song.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnkYwe0D5hg&feat

ure=related

Italian Renaissance

Florence: most affluent of Rome’s city states Double entry bookkeeping Maintained contacts with Byzantine and Islamic Empires Home to Italy’s wealthiest families

Florentine gold florin

Pursuit of money and leisure by merchants and artisans

Renaissance Italy had more in common with Greece than Rome Condottieri: mercenary soldiers Popes had dual role:

temporal governors of Papal states Leader of the Roman Catholic Church

Government

Independent city-states in ItalyOligarchy of rich merchants—not aristocrats100 families dominated political lifeMedici family in Florence

Merchant princes Supported scholarship Patronized arts

Botticelli Michelangelo

Renaissance Humanism

Reflected new attitudes toward Greco-Roman antiquity Advocated uncensored study of manuscripts Classical texts as a basis for reappraisal of the role of the individual in

society Classics a guide not only for Christian wisdom but also as fulfillment of

the human potential Included more people: merchants, artisans and skilled workers not just

aristocrats Embraced studia humanitas

Grammar Rhetoric History Poetry Moral philosophy

Saw no conflict between embracing and furthering human potential and religious belief

Petrarch (1304-1374)

Petrarch “Father of humanism” Psychic struggle between love for learning from

antiquity and Christian piety Cicero and Augustine

Wrote love sonnets to a married Florentine woman Laura de Sade

Petrarch

Petrarch Sonnet No. 134 (translated by Anthony Mortimer)

I find no peace, yet I am not at warI fear and hope, I burn and freeze;I rise to heaven, and fall to earth’s floorGrasping at nothing, the world I seize

She imprisons me, who neither jails nor freesNor keeps me for herself, nor slips the noose;Love does not kill, nor set me free,Love takes my life, but will not set me loose.

I have not eyes, yet see, no tongue, yet scream;I long to perish, and seek release;I hate myself, and love another.

I feed on grief, and in my laughter week;Both death and life displease me;Lady, because of you, I suffer.

Ficino (1433-1499)

Financed by his patron Cosimo de MediciTranslated all of Plato’s writings from Greek

to LatinLaunched a reappraisal of Plato

Plato’s Symposium Love exalted as divine force “Platonic love” attracted the soul to God Spiritual love inspired by physical beauty

Ficino

Bust of Marisilio FicinoBy Andrra FerrucciIn Florence Cathdral

Pico della Mirandola: The Dignity of Man(1463-1494)

Sought to recover entire history of human thought Translated Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Greek Prove all intellectual expression shared same divine

purpose & design: Unity of all truthAt 24, challenged the Church to debate 900

propositions Forced to flee Italy on charge of heresyOration on the Dignity of Man (1486)

Humanist Manifesto

Pico della Mirandola

Castiglione (1478-1529)

The well-rounded man presented in The Book of the Courtier Master all skills of medieval warrior Physical proficiency of a champion athlete Possess the refinements of a humanistic education

Latin and Greek, vernacular Familiar with the classics Speak and write well Compose verse Draw Play musical instrument Sprezzatura – air of nonchalance

Castiglione

Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, by Raphael

Movable Type Printing Press

1450 Johann Gutenberg Mainz, Germany Perfected movable type printing press

Major vehicle for spreading humanist writings Facilitated rise of popular education Enabled readers to form their own opinions

Woodcut from 1568

Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

The Prince Political treatise Outlines strategies by which a rule might gain and

maintain political power Medici family Machiavelli hoped for a unified Italy Supported a strong ruler as necessary for a strong state

Argued that to preserve the state a leader must be ruthless

Argued that ruler must be prepared to sacrifice moral virtue

The end (a strong state) justifies the means (whatever is necessary to preserve the state

Renaissance Architecture

The DomeBrunelleschiAlberti

Defend classical principles of symmetry but use them in new ways

No longer directing gaze upward, fixes view on earth

Florence Cathedral

Pazzi Chapel

Rucellai Palace, Florence

Early Renaissance Painting

Inspired by antiquity and perception of human eyeLinear or one point perspective

How to translate a three dimensional space onto a two dimensional surface Brunelleschi

All parallel lines in a given visual field appear to converge at a single vanishing point on the horizon• Provided a sense of an accurate depiction of the physical world• Imposed a fixed relationship in time and space

Between the image and the eye of the viewerMade the viewer the exclusive point of reference in the spatial

fieldMetaphorically places viewer at the center of the composition

Tommaso Guidi aka Masaccio (Slovenly Tom) The Tribute Money (ca. 1425)

Employs both linear and aerial perspective

Sandro Boticelli (1445-1510), Birth of Venus

Employs undulating lines to indicate motion

Donatello (1386-1466), David

First freestanding , life-sized Nude since antiquity

David

Gentle contrapositioned standIdealizedSensuous composition of a Biblical figureCelebrates beauty of the physical world while

paying homage to the spiritual world Rejects view of the body as the source of sin Adopts modern Western celebration of the body as a

source of pleasure

David and Doryphorous

Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) “Gates of Paradise” Florence Baptistry of San Giovanni

Applied laws of linear perspectives to humanized narratives

Ten Old Testament scenes from the Creation to the Reign of Solomon

East doorway Michelangelo called these doors worthy of

being the “Gates of Paradise”

High Renaissance (1490-1520)

Center shifted from Florence to RomePapal undertaking to restore the ancient city

Use of indulgences to do so sparked the Protestant Reformation

Pope Julius II commissioned Donato Bramante to rebuild Saint Peter’s Cathedral

Harmonious design Tempietto San Pietro Andrea Palladio Villa Rontunda

Tempietto San Pietro

Villa Rotunda

Leonardo Da Vinci, Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper

Renaissance Man

Da Vinci: human eye was most dependable for obtaining true knowledge of nature

Examined anatomical structures of plants, animals and humans

Examined properties of wind and airDrew designs for an armored tank, a flying

machine and a diving bell

Raphael (1483-1520)

Commissioned by Pope Julius II to execute a series of frescoes for the Pope’s personal library

Represent 4 domains of human learning Theology Philosophy Law Arts

School of Athens (1509-1511)

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Considered himself a sculptorSistine Chapel Ceiling

Took four years Worked from scaffolds 70 feet above the floor 5760 square feet

Creation and fall of humankind 9 principal scenes Minimized setting and symbols to maximize figures

Creation: God and Adam are equal in size and muscular grace

confront each other like equals Adam’s facial expression is only thing that shows God is

superior

Michelangelo, Jacopino del Conte

David

Marble, 13’ 5”Note head and hands areOut of proportion to the trunk

Michelangelo, Pieta

Venetian High Renaissance

Venice: Jewel of Adriatic Governed by merchant aristocracy Tapestries, jewels, spices from Middle East and Asia

Art of Venetian High Renaissance emphasized color and light

Oil on canvas rather than frescoes

Tiziano Vecelli aka Titian (1488-1576)

Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople in 1453

1529 Frances I of France negotiated “Unholy Alliance” to keep Turks out of Vienna

Suleiman (1494-1566) created an empire that lasted until WWI in the 20th century

Selimiye Mosque (1568-1574) Edime, Turkey