The Renaissance Unit II - Origins. After the darkness has been dispelled, our grandsons will be able...

The Renaissance

Unit II - Origins

After the darkness has

been dispelled, our

grandsons will be able to walk back into the pure radiance of

the past

The hope of winning public honours is the

same for all......

He who despises painting

loves neither

philosophy nor nature

We can surely say that he was sent

by heaven to renew the art of

architecture

If any prince bases his

state upon mercenaries, he will never succeed in making it stable or secure

The principal and true

profession of the courtier ought to be that of arms

Petrarch Machiavelli Leonardo

CastiglioneVasari

Salutati

Renaissance Italyurban culture

strong merchant class

city-states

center of trade

educated elite

City-States/EconomiesItaly - contact between East and West

Florence - center of textile industry

banking - facilitated international commerce

Venice and Genoa - trade, shipbuilding,insurance

growth of merchant capitalism

Florencecenter of cultural revival

many schools, university

high literacy rate

population equal to london

Government by Signoria and Councils

Medici

Cosimo de’ Medici (1389-1464)

Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492)

Social Classes

Elites (popolo grasso) - nobles, merchants - patricians

mass of urban population (popolo minuto) - artisans, laborers; in countryside, peasants

Humanismrediscovery of classical learning

Petrarch - father of italian humanism

Tuscan poet

classical world - ideal

Humanism vs Scholasticism

Focus on liberal arts (humanitas) - grammar, logic, music, math, astronomy, rhetoric

humanists - new education served to teach the “art of living”

Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)

Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529)

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

Leonardo da vinci (1452-1519)

Expressed humanist spirit

Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457)

Donation of Constantine

Erasmus (1469-1536) - greatest of the northern humanists

Critic of scholasticism, monastic life

called for reform

Christian humanism

Sir Thomas more (1466-1536)

Leading English humanist

Author of Utopia

promoter of New Learning