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Renaissance

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General history

   "The School of Athens" by Raphael
   Renaissance
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   The Renaissance (French for 'rebirth', or Rinascimento in Italian), was
   a cultural movement in Italy (and in Europe in general) that began in
   the late Middle Ages, and spanned roughly the 14th through the 17th
   century. It encompassed the revival of learning based on classical
   sources, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of
   perspective in painting, and advancements in science.

   There has always been debate among historians as to the validity of the
   Renaissance as a term and as a historical age. Some have called into
   question whether the Renaissance really was a cultural "advance" from
   the Middle Ages, instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and
   nostalgia for the classical age. Indeed, it is now usually considered
   wrong to classify any historical period as "better" or "worse", leading
   some to call for an end to the use of the term, which they see as a
   product of presentism. The word Renaissance has also been used to
   describe other historical and cultural movements, such as the
   Carolingian Renaissance and the Byzantine Renaissance.

Overview

   Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man shows clearly the effect writers of
   antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in
   Vitruvius's De architectura, da Vinci tried to draw the perfectly
   proportioned man.
   Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man shows clearly the effect writers of
   antiquity had on Renaissance thinkers. Based on the specifications in
   Vitruvius's De architectura, da Vinci tried to draw the perfectly
   proportioned man.

   The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected
   European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in
   Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its
   influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, politics, science,
   religion, and other aspects of intellectual enquiry. Renaissance
   scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for
   realism and human emotion in art.

   Renaissance thinkers sought out learning from ancient texts, typically
   written in Latin or ancient Greek. Scholars scoured Europe's monastic
   libraries, searching for works of antiquity which had fallen into
   obscurity. In such texts they found a desire to improve and perfect
   their worldly knowledge; an entirely different sentiment to the
   transcendental spirituality stressed by medieval Christianity. They did
   not reject Christianity; quite the contrary, many of the Renaissance's
   greatest works were devoted to it, and the Church patronized many works
   of Renaissance art. However, a subtle shift took place in the way that
   intellectuals approached religion that was reflected in many other
   areas of cultural life.

   Artists such as Albrecht Dürer strove to portray the human form
   realistically, developing techniques to render perspective and light
   more naturally. Political philosophers, most famously Niccolò
   Machiavelli, sought to describe political life as it really was, and to
   improve government on the basis of reason. In addition to studying
   classical Latin and Greek, authors also began increasingly to use
   vernacular languages; combined with the invention of printing, this
   would allow many more people access to books, especially the Bible.

   In all, the Renaissance could be viewed as an attempt by intellectuals
   to study and improve the secular and worldly, both through the revival
   of ideas from antiquity, and through novel approaches to thought.

Origins of the Renaissance

   Most historians agree that the ideas that characterized the Renaissance
   had their origin in late 13th century Florence, in particular with the
   writings of Dante Alighieri ( 1265– 1321) and Francesco Petrarch (
   1304– 1374), as well as the painting of Giotto di Bondone ( 1267-
   1337). Yet it remains unclear why the Renaissance began in Italy, and
   why it began when it did. Accordingly, several theories have been put
   forward to explain its origins.

Assimilation of Greek and Arabic knowledge

   Cicero
   Cicero

   The Renaissance was so called because it was a "rebirth" of certain
   classical ideas that had long been lost to Europe. It has been argued
   that the fuel for this rebirth was the rediscovery of ancient texts
   that had been forgotten by Western civilization, but were preserved in
   some monastic libraries, as well as the Islamic world. Renaissance
   scholars such as Niccolò de' Niccoli and Poggio Bracciolini scoured the
   libraries of Europe in search of works by such classical authors as
   Plato, Cicero and Vitruvius. Additionally, as the reconquest of the
   Iberian peninsula from Islamic Moors progressed, numerous ancient Greek
   works were captured from educational institutions such as the library
   at Córdoba, which claimed to have 400,000 books. Along with these, the
   works of Arabic scholars (e.g. Averroes), were imported into the
   Christian world, providing new intellectual material for European
   scholars.

   Greek and Arabic knowledge were not only assimilated from Spain, but
   also directly from the Middle East. The study of mathematics was
   flourishing in the Middle East, and mathematical knowledge was brought
   back by crusaders in the 13th century. The decline of the Byzantine
   Empire after 1204 - and its eventual fall in 1453 - led to an exodus of
   Greek scholars to the West. These scholars brought with them texts and
   knowledge of the classical Greek civilization which had been lost for
   centuries in the West.

Social and political structures in Italy

   A political map of the Italian Peninsula circa 1494.
   A political map of the Italian Peninsula circa 1494.

   The unique political structures of late Middle Ages Italy led some to
   theorize that its unusual social climate allowed the emergence of a
   rare cultural efflorescence. Italy did not exist as a political entity
   in the early modern period. Instead, it was divided into smaller city
   states and territories: the kingdom of Naples controlled the south, the
   Republic of Florence and the Papal states the centre, the Genoese and
   the Milanese the north and west, and the Venetians the east.
   Fifteenth-century Italy was one of the most urbanised areas in Europe.
   Many of its cities stood among the ruins of ancient Roman buildings; it
   seems likely that the classical nature of the Renaissance was linked to
   its origin in the Roman Empire's heartlands.

   Italy at this time was notable for its merchant Republics, including
   the Republic of Florence and the Republic of Venice. Although in
   practice these were oligarchical, and bore little resemblance to a
   modern democracy, the relative political freedom they afforded was
   conducive to academic and artistic advancement. Likewise, the position
   of Italian cities such as Venice as great trading centres made them
   intellectual crossroads. Merchants brought with them ideas from far
   corners of the globe, particularly the Levant. Venice was Europe's
   gateway to trade with the East, and a producer of fine glass, while
   Florence was a capital of silk and jewelry. The wealth such business
   brought to Italy meant that large public and private artistic projects
   could be commissioned and individuals had more leisure time for study.

The Black Death

   One theory is that the devastation caused by the Black Death in
   Florence (and elsewhere in Europe) resulted in a shift in the world
   view of people in 14th century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit
   by the plague, and it has been speculated that the familiarity with
   death that this brought thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth,
   rather than on spirituality and the afterlife. It has also been argued
   that the Black Death prompted a new wave of piety, manifested in the
   sponsorship of religious works of art. However, this does not fully
   explain why the Renaissance occurred specifically in Italy in the 14th
   century. The Black Death was a pandemic that affected all of Europe in
   the ways described, not only Italy. The Renaissance's emergence in
   Italy was most likely the result of the complex interaction of the
   above factors.

Cultural conditions in Florence

   Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts.
   Lorenzo de' Medici, ruler of Florence and patron of arts.

   It has long been a matter of debate why the Renaissance began in
   Florence, and not elsewhere in Italy. Scholars have noted several
   features unique to Florentine cultural life which may have precipitated
   such a cultural movement. Many have emphasised the role played by the
   Medici family in patronising and stimulating the arts. Lorenzo de'
   Medici devoted huge sums to commissioning works from Florence's leading
   artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and
   Michelangelo Buonarroti.

   The Renaissance was certainly already underway before Lorenzo came to
   power, however. Indeed, before the Medici family itself achieved
   hegemony in Florentine society. Some historians have postulated that
   Florence was the birthplace of the Renaissance as a result of luck,
   i.e. because " Great Men" were born there by chance. Da Vinci,
   Botticelli and Michelangelo were all born in Tuscany. Arguing that such
   chance seems improbable, other historians have contended that these
   "Great Men" were only able to rise to prominence because of the
   prevailing cultural conditions at the time.

Characteristics of the Renaissance

Humanism

   Humanism was not a philosophy per se, but rather a method of learning.
   In contrast to the medieval scholastic mode, which focused on resolving
   contradictions between authors, humanists would study ancient texts in
   the original, and appraise them through a combination of reasoning and
   empirical evidence. Humanist education was based on the study of
   poetry, grammar, ethics and rhetoric. Above all, humanists asserted
   "the genius of man... the unique and extraordinary ability of the human
   mind."

   Humanist scholars shaped the intellectual landscape throughout the
   early modern period. Political philosophers such as Niccolò Machiavelli
   and Thomas More revived the ideas of Greek and Roman thinkers, and
   applied them in critiques of contemporary government. Theologians,
   notably Erasmus and Martin Luther, challenged the Aristotelian status
   quo, introducing radical new ideas of justification and faith (for
   more, see Religion below).

Art

   Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical
   past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. The School of
   Athens (above) is perhaps the most extended study in this.
   Raphael was famous for depicting illustrious figures of the Classical
   past with the features of his Renaissance contemporaries. The School of
   Athens (above) is perhaps the most extended study in this.

   One of the distinguishing features Renaissance art is its development
   of highly realistic linear perspective. Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)
   is credited with first treating the canvas as a window into space, but
   it was not until the work of Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and Leon
   Battista Alberti (1404–1472) that perspective was formalised as an
   artistic technique. The development of perspective was part of a wider
   trend towards realism in the arts (for more, see Renaissance
   Classicism). To that end, painters also developed other techniques,
   studying light, shadow, and, famously in the case of Leonardo da Vinci,
   human anatomy. Underlying these changes in artistic method was a
   renewed desire to depict the beauty of nature, and to unravel the
   axioms of aesthetics.

   By the late 15th century, these artistic ideas were spreading into
   Northern Europe, where they developed and changed. In the Netherlands,
   a particularly vibrant artistic culture developed, with artists such as
   Joachim Patinir and Pieter Aertsen fusing the new techniques with local
   religious iconography (for more, see Renaissance in the Netherlands).
   Later, the work of Pieter Brueghel the Elder would inspire artists to
   depict themes of everyday life.

   In architecture, Renaissance ideas of aesthetics were fused with the
   flourishing discipline of mathematics. Architects such as Filippo
   Brunelleschi used rediscovered knowledge from Vitruvius and others to
   build in the classical style, as well as to achieve feats of
   engineering not previously possible - Brunelleschi's dome on the Duomo
   of Florence being the most famous example.

Science

   The upheavals occurring in the arts and humanities were mirrored by a
   dynamic period of change in the sciences. Some have seen this flurry of
   activity as a " scientific revolution," heralding the beginning of the
   modern age. Others have seen it merely as an acceleration of a
   continuous process stretching from the ancient world to the present
   day. Regardless, there is general agreement that the Renaissance saw
   significant changes in the way the universe was viewed and the methods
   with which philosophers sought to explain natural phenomena.

   Science and art were very much intermingled in the early Renaissance,
   with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci making observational drawings of
   anatomy and nature. Yet the most significant development of the era was
   not a specific discovery, but rather a process for discovery, the
   scientific method. This revolutionary new way of learning about the
   world focused on empirical evidence, the importance of mathematics, and
   discarding the Aristotelian " final cause" in favour of a mechanical
   philosophy. Early and influential proponents of these ideas included
   Copernicus and Galileo. While both were later hailed as thinkers of
   seminal importance, at the time they attracted much controversy,
   particularly from the Roman Catholic Church.

   The new scientific method led to great contributions in the fields of
   astronomy, physics, biology, and anatomy. With the publication of
   Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica, a new confidence was placed in
   the role of dissection, observation, and a mechanistic view of anatomy.

Religion

   It should be emphasised that the new ideals of humanism, although more
   secular in some aspects, developed against an unquestioned Christian
   backdrop, especially in the Northern Renaissance. Indeed, much (if not
   most) of the new art was comissioned by or in dedication to the Church.
   However, the Renaissance had a profound effect on contemporary
   theology, particularly in the way people perceived the relationship
   between man and God. Many of the period's foremost theologians were
   followers of the humanist method, including Erasmus, Zwingli, Thomas
   More, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. Humanism and the Renaissance
   therefore played a direct role in sparking the Reformation, as well as
   in many other contemporaneous religious debates and conflicts.

Renaissance self-awareness

   By the fifteenth century, writers, artists and architects in Italy were
   well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using
   phrases like modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et
   alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe
   their work. As to the term “rebirth,” Albrecht Dürer may have been the
   first to use such a term when, in 1523, he used Wiedererwachung
   (English: reawakening) to describe Italian art. The term "la rinascita"
   first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Vite
   de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives
   of the Artists, 1550-68). Vasari divides the age into three phases: the
   first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto, and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second
   phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi, and Donatello; the third centers
   on Leonardo da Vinci and culminates with Michelangelo. It was not just
   the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this
   development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study
   and imitate nature.

The Renaissance Spreads

   In the 15th century the Renaissance spread with great speed from its
   birthplace in Florence, first to the rest of Italy, and soon to the
   rest of Europe. The invention of the printing press allowed the rapid
   transmission of these new ideas. As it spread, its ideas diversified
   and changed, being adapted to local culture. In the twentieth century,
   scholars began to break the Renaissance into regional and national
   movements, including:
     * The Italian Renaissance
     * The English Renaissance
     * The German Renaissance
     * The Northern Renaissance
     * The French Renaissance
     * The Renaissance in the Netherlands
     * The Polish Renaissance
     * The Spanish Renaissance
     * Renaissance architecture in Eastern Europe

The Northern Renaissance

   The Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck, painted 1434
   The Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck, painted 1434

   The Renaissance as it occurred in Northern Europe has been termed the
   "Northern Renaissance". It arrived first in France, imported by King
   Charles VIII after his invasion of Italy. Francis I imported Italian
   art and artists, including Leonardo Da Vinci, and at great expense
   built ornate palaces. Writers such as François Rabelais, Pierre de
   Ronsard, Joachim du Bellay and Michel de Montaigne, painters such as
   Jean Clouet and musicians such as Jean Mouton also borrowed from the
   spirit of the Italian Renaissance.

   In the second half of the 15th century, Italians brought the new style
   to Poland and Hungary. After the marriage in 1476 of Matthias Corvinus,
   King of Hungary, to Beatrix of Naples, Buda became the one of the most
   important artistic centres of the Renaissance north of the Alps. The
   most important humanists living in Matthias' court were Antonio Bonfini
   and Janus Pannonius. In 1526 the Ottoman conquest of Hungary put an
   abrupt end to the short-lived Hungarian Renaissance.

   An early Italian humanist who came to Poland in the mid-15th century
   was Filip Callimachus. Many Italian artists came to Poland with Bona
   Sforza of Milano, when she married King Zygmunt I of Poland in 1518.
   This was supported by temporarily strengthened monarchies in both
   areas, as well as by newly-established universities.

   The spirit of the age spread from France to the Low Countries and
   Germany, and finally by the late 16th century to England, Scandinavia,
   and remaining parts of Central Europe. In these areas humanism became
   closely linked to the turmoil of the Protestant Reformation, and the
   art and writing of the German Renaissance frequently reflected this
   dispute.

   In England, the Elizabethan era marked the beginning of the English
   Renaissance with the work of writers William Shakespeare, Christopher
   Marlowe, John Milton, and Edmund Spenser, as well as great artists,
   architects (such as Inigo Jones), and composers such as Thomas Tallis,
   John Taverner, and William Byrd.
   Poznań City Hall rebuilt from the Gothic style by Giovanni Batista di
   Quadro (1550-1555).
   Poznań City Hall rebuilt from the Gothic style by Giovanni Batista di
   Quadro ( 1550- 1555).

   The Renaissance arrived in the Iberian peninsula through the
   Mediterranean possessions of the Aragonese Crown and the city of
   Valencia. Early Iberian Renaissance writers include Ausiàs March,
   Joanot Martorell, Fernando de Rojas, Juan del Encina, Garcilaso de la
   Vega, Gil Vicente and Bernardim Ribeiro. The late Renaissance in Spain
   saw writers such as Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Luis de Góngora
   and Tirso de Molina, artists such as El Greco and composers such as
   Tomás Luis de Victoria. In Portugal writers such as Sá de Miranda and
   Luís de Camões and artists such as Nuno Gonçalves appeared.

   While Renaissance ideas were moving north from Italy, there was a
   simultaneous southward spread of innovation, particularly in music. The
   music of the 15th century Burgundian School defined the beginning of
   the Renaissance in that art and the polyphony of the Netherlanders, as
   it moved with the musicians themselves into Italy, formed the core of
   what was the first true international style in music since the
   standardization of Gregorian Chant in the 9th century. The culmination
   of the Netherlandish school was in the music of the Italian composer,
   Palestrina. At the end of the 16th century Italy again became a centre
   of musical innovation, with the development of the polychoral style of
   the Venetian School, which spread northward into Germany around 1600.

   The paintings of the Italian Renaissance differed from those of the
   Northern Renaissance. Italian Renaissance artists were among the first
   to paint secular scenes, breaking away from the purely religious art of
   medieval painters. At first, Northern Renaissance artists remained
   focused on religious subjects, such as the contemporary religious
   upheaval portrayed by Albrecht Dürer. Later on, the works of Pieter
   Bruegel influenced artists to paint scenes of daily life rather than
   religious or classical themes. It was also during the northern
   Renaissance that Flemish brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck perfected the
   oil painting technique, which enabled artists to produce strong colors
   on a hard surface that could survive for centuries.

Historiography of the Renaissance

The Renaissance as a historical age

   It was not until the nineteenth century that the French word
   Renaissance achieved popularity in describing the cultural movement
   that began in the late 13th century. The Renaissance was first defined
   by French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874), in his 1855 work,
   Histoire de France. For Michelet, the Renaissance was more a
   development in science than in art and culture. He asserted that it
   spanned the period from Columbus to Copernicus to Galileo; that is,
   from the end of the fifteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth
   century. The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, (1818-1897) in his Die
   Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, by contrast, defined the Renaissance
   as the period between Giotto and Michelangelo. His book was widely read
   and was influential in the development of the modern interpretation of
   the Italian Renaissance. However, Buckhardt has been accused of setting
   forth a linear Whiggish view of history, seeing the Renaissance as the
   origin of the modern world.

   More recently, historians have been much less keen to define the
   Renaissance as a historical age, or even a coherent cultural movement.
   As Randolph Starn has put it,

   “   Rather than a period with definitive beginnings and endings and
     consistent content in between, the Renaissance can be (and occasionally
      has been) seen as a movement of practices and ideas to which specific
     groups and identifiable persons variously responded in different times
      and places. It would be in this sense a network of diverse, sometimes
      converging, sometimes conflicting cultures, not a single, time-bound
                                    culture.                                ”

                               —Randolph Starn

For Better or For Worse?

   Alexander VI, a Borgia pope infamous for his corruption.
   Alexander VI, a Borgia pope infamous for his corruption.

   Many historians now view the Italian Renaissance more as an
   intellectual and ideological change than as a substantive one. Some
   marxist historians, for example, hold the view that the changes in art,
   literature, and philosophy were part of a general trend away from
   feudalism towards capitalism, resulting in a bourgeois class with
   leisure time to devote to the arts.

   Many historians now point out that most of the negative social factors
   popularly associated with the "medieval" period - poverty, ignorance,
   warfare, religious and political persecution, for example - seem to
   have worsened in this era which saw the rise of Machiavelli, the Wars
   of Religion, the corrupt Borgia Popes, and the intensified witch-hunts
   of the 16th century. Many people who lived during the Renaissance did
   not view it as the "golden age" imagined by certain 19th-century
   authors, but were concerned by these social maladies. Significantly,
   though, the artists, writers, and patrons involved in the cultural
   movements in question believed they were living in a new era that was a
   clean break from the Middle Ages.

   Johan Huizinga ( 1872– 1945) acknowledged the existence of the
   Renaissance but questioned whether it was a positive change. In his
   book The Waning of the Middle Ages, he argued that the Renaissance was
   a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was
   important. The Latin language, for instance, had evolved greatly from
   the classical period and was still a living language used in the church
   and elsewhere. The Renaissance obsession with classical purity halted
   its further evolution and saw Latin revert to its classical form.
   Robert S. Lopez has contended that it was a period of deep economic
   recession. Meanwhile George Sarton and Lynn Thorndike have both argued
   that scientific progress was slowed.

   Historians have begun to consider the word Renaissance as unnecessarily
   loaded, implying an unambiguously positive rebirth from the supposedly
   more primitive "Dark Ages" (Middle Ages). Many historians now prefer to
   use the term " Early Modern" for this period, a more neutral term that
   highlights the period as a transitional one that led to the modern
   world.

Other Renaissances

   The term Renaissance has also been used to define time periods outside
   of the 15th and 16th centuries. Charles H. Haskins (1870–1937), for
   example, made a convincing case for a Renaissance of the 12th century.
   Other historians have argued for a Carolingian Renaissance in the
   eighth and ninth centuries, and still later for an Ottonian Renaissance
   in the tenth century. Other periods of cultural rebirth have also been
   termed "renaissances", such as the Bengal Renaissance or the Harlem
   Renaissance.
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