Transcript Ch. 12 Slides - Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance
1375 - 1527
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Why Italy?
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Geography
Urbanization
Social Factors - nobles in conflict:
Guelf (pro-papal) vs. Ghibelline
(pro-imperial) leads to the rise of
merchants - an oligarchy
Princes, commercial elites and
popes become patrons of the arts
Political Variety - city states develop
different forms of government
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The politics of Italian city-states
during the Renaissance Era:
• Florence - oligarchic republic - Medici family ruled
• Milan - hereditary despotism of Visconti family was overthrown by
the Francesco Sforza - a condottieri and Sforza family ruled as a
military dictatorship
• Papal States - despotism by pope
• Venice - a republic, ruled by a doge
• Naples - feudal monarchy
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Popes to know:
Pope Alexander VI
The Borgia Pope
1492 - 1503
Pope Julius II
“The Warrior Pope”
1503 - 1513
Michelangelo’s
Creation Scene of
the Sistine Chapel
Pope Leo X
1513 - 1521
Medici family
vs.
Martin Luther
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Political
ideas
and
events:
• diplomacy is born in Italy - ambassadors, and concept of balance of
power
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Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople in1453 - hurts Italian
merchants
Peace of Lodi signed in1454 by Florence, Milan and Venice = 40
years of peace among city-states
Habsburg-Valois Wars
1494 French army invades Italy - ends Peace of Lodi
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Girolamo Savonarola (1452 - 1498) welcomes the French forces
of King Charles VIII to Florence - Savonarola rules Florence 4
years - theocracy
1527 Charles V’s mercenary army sacks Rome = end of Italian
Renaissance
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Economy of Italy:
• Florence = textile - wool
• banking - financed trade and elections; usury
frowned upon by the church
• Venice and Genoa = trade, banking,
shipbuilding
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Characteristics of Italian Renaissance
Secularism - worldliness, patrons and their families included in art
Return to the Classics: Ancient Greece and Rome, architecture,
symmetry and balance - geometric perspective, depth
Individualism - glorify the goodness of man, depicted as heroic,
divine, rational
Civic Humanism - civic virtue through education - be good citizens,
a secular model for individual and political behavior
rationalism
vernacular literature - especially in Germany promotes a national
culture - Luther’s writings contribute to development of German
language
“Tuscan Triumvirate” Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio - Florentine
writers
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Art and Architecture:
Perspective - the illusion of three-dimensional space
Subject Matter - more secular - portraits
Order, balance and symmetry
Return of classical Greco-Roman culture including the use of
ancient models like Roman goddesses
Platonism - flattering view of humans; ideal, perfect state of humans
In architecture the graceful spikes and soaring arches of Gothic
cathedrals were replaced with round-arches from Roman times and
Greek columns
Public spaces known such as the piazza were constructed in Italian
city-states to replicate the open public spaces of the past Greek
agora or the Roman forum - OR - work is commissioned by patron
families for their courtyards - prince and popes enhance their
prestige by commissioning paintings and architectural works based
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on classical styles
• Francesco Petrarch - father of humanism
Italian
writers:
• Alighieri
Dante’s Divine
Comedy 1321
• Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron
• Lorenzo Valla - Donation of Constantine
• Pico della Mirandola - Oration on the Dignity
of Man
• Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the
Courtier
• Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince
• Petrarch - Father of Humanism
• Baldassar Castiglione’s - Book of the Courtier
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Late Medieval and
Early Renaissance view of women:
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Misogynist critiques of women from both secular and clerical writers
Women seen as devious, domineering and demanding
The Church saw women as the sinful daughters of Eve - temptress
Cases of female infanticide existed among the poor - perhaps tied to
dowry
Among the nobles - daughters were sent to convents - opportunity
for education and leadership among women
The Renaissance did not bring any significant change to the status
of women. The only change is that elite women now presided over
social gatherings but merely as decorative figures. The few
exceptions of women writers and painters were those who were able
to break through with the help of their fathers or husbands.
Renaissance society remained patriarchal.
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Renaissance Writers:
Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier - women were to make
themselves pleasing to the man
Christine de Pizan - compiles list of famous women and praises
them for their loyalty, bravery and morality
1500‘s - Debate on women rulers or acting as advisers to child kings
- Example: Catherine de Medici of France
In villages, gender differences were controlled and defended.
Women who were thought to be more powerful than men were
ridiculed. Bands of neighbors shouted insults, banged sticks and
pans in disapproval. In carnival plays, woodcuts and stories
domineering wives were portrayed wearing pants and henpecked
husbands were washing diapers alongside professors in dunce caps
and peasants riding princes.
Christine
de
Pizan
Italian female Renaissance
writer:
The Treasure of the City of
Ladies 1404
Tells of accomplishments of
great women in history.
Gives advice to princesses,
court ladies, but also wives of
merchants, artisans,
peasants and even
prostitutes.
Status of Jews
• Throughout Europe many were
moneylenders and merchants.
• They did not live apart from the Christian
population until 1400’s when they were
forced to do so by civil and ecclesiastical
authorities.
• The popes forced Jews in Rome to wear
distinctive badges.
• Venice established the first “ghetto” in 1516
Status of Jews in Spain
conversos - Jews in Spain
that converted to
Christianity for new
opportunities in education
and to avoid attacks.
1492 Ferdinand and
Isabella in their goal for
religious uniformity decreed
all Jews had to convert or
leave Spain.