Transcript Italian Renaissance

Italian
Renaissance
Renaissance
•
•
•
•
“rebirth”
cultural awakening in Europe
started in Italy
about 1350 – 1600
Why Italy?
• center of trade routes
• attachment to classical
(Roman) traditions
• prosperous city-states
• Florence, Venice, Rome
•
•
Causes
Crusades
–
increased trade for new eastern products
–
encouraged use of credit/banking
–
stimulated production of Western goods to trade
Banking:
–
bankers charging interest
–
letters of credit to expand the money supply
–
new accounting/bookkeeping practices (using Arabic
numerals)
–
church rules against using/charging interest (usury) = more
secularism in northern Italy
Causes
• The rise of wealthy patrons
such as the Medici family
of Florence (1434 to 1737
CE/AD) who supported and
sponsored the works of art
literature and music
• http://www.pbs.org/empires/medici/m
edici/index.html
New Ideas
• individualism – emphasis on
person as individual rather
than part of a group
• humanism – focus on worldly
themes instead of religious
Key People
•
•
•
•
Niccolo Machiavelli
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Petrarch
Niccolo Machiavelli
• wrote The Prince – handbook
for princes on ruling
• supported absolute power
• end justifies the means
• try to do good, evil if needed
Medieval VS Renaissance
Medieval Art
 Focus on religious
(Christian) themes; art was
a way to salvation for the
artist
 Flat perspective and
disproportionate size
 Gothic art lays the
foundation for Humanism
Renaissance Art
 Religious themes are
incorporated into a
focus on individuals,
secular/worldly
manners and realism
(Humanism)
 Use of 3D perspective
and vivid colors
Leonardo da Vinci
• artist, scientist, inventor
• painted Mona Lisa and The
Last Supper
• “Renaissance man”
Mona Lisa
The Last Supper
Michelangelo
• artist – painter and sculptor
• painted ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel
• sculpted David
Sistine Chapel
David
Petrarch
• poet and scholar
• love sonnets inspired poetry
in Romeo and Juliet
• humanist writings
Soleasi Nel Mio Cor
She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has
come,
'Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth
finds room,
Might rend the rocks with pity for their
doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words
enshrine;
They weep within my heart; and ears
are deaf
Save mine alone, and I am crushed
with care,
And naught remains to me save
mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we
are,
Assuredly desire is blind and brief,
Assuredly its hope but ends in
death.
Translated by Thomas Wentworth
Higginson.
Northern
Renaissance
Northern
Renaissance
• Growing wealth
in Northern Europe
• Mixed humanism
and Christianity
• Reasons it was late getting there:
– Lack of economic growth, Black
Death, Hundred Years War
• Invented by Johannes
Gutenberg
• Bible – first book printed
• Helped spread the
Renaissance ideas
Printi
ng
Press
Artists –
Northern
Renaissance
• Durer
– “Leonardo of the north”
• Van Eyck
• Rembrandt
Northern
Humanists
•
Northern humanists were more religious
•
Sir Thomas More:
–
–
•
Create a better world,
Book is about an ideal, peaceful society
Erasmus:
–
–
–
Utopia
The Praise of Folly
Mocks blind traditions of Church
He wanted the bible translated into everyday languages.
He still valued religion
Northern
Literature
• Shakespeare
– Poet and playwright
– Romeo and Juliet (influenced
by sonnets of Petrarch)
– Hamlet, Macbeth, A Mid
Summer Night’s Dream, etc.
The End!
Beautiful Florence, where it all started