Renaissance

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Renaissance
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Conception of modern

• In the Renaissance, with a new historical sense,
  arose the conception of modern and ancient
  times, separated by a long period with a
  different life style and appropriately called the
  Middle Ages- Palmer p. 53

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Effects

• The effects of the Renaissance . . . Involved a
  whole area of culture which is neither
  theological nor scientific but concerns
  essentially moral and civic questions, asking
  what man ought to be or ought to do, and is
  reflected in matters of taste, style , propriety,
  decorum, personal character, and education. In
  particular . . . in Italy, it was almost purely
  secular

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Italian city-states

• Towns were independent city-states
• Merchant oligarchies
• Florence
• Medici family

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What captivated Italians was the vast range of
human powers

• Leonardo Bruni
• The whole glory of man lies in activity (1433)
• Republicanism encouraged civic consciousness or
  sense of public duty

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The great individual shaped his own destiny

• A man of virtu, in the arts, in war, or in
  statecraft was a man who knew what he was doing,
  who from resources within himself, made the best
  use of his opportunities, hewing his way through
  the world, and excelling in all that he did.

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Painting

• While subjects remained conservative, conception
  and presentation was new
• New feeling of space, three dimensional by
  depicting distance through variation of size, and
  techniques of shading or chiaroscuro added to the
  illustion of physical volume

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Humanism The Birth of Literature

• Rising interest of litterae humaniores
• Class of men who looked at writing as lifes work
• Preferred the classical style of Cicero
• Were not members of clergy

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Cult of antiquity

• Kindred spirits
• Found qualities that medieval writing did not
  have, new range of interests, a new sensibility,
  discussion of political and civic questions, a
  world presented without the overarching framework
  of religious belief

Francesco Petrarca, the first man of
letters Wrote in vernacular like Dante
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Brunis History of Florence

• Bruni saw the past as clearly past , different
  but relevant to the present and he introduced a
  new division of historical periods
• On the model of Livy, he adopted a flowing
  narrative
• He also used history for a political purpose, to
  show the long history of liberty worth fighting
  for

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New need for authentic sources

• Lorenzo Valla, one of the founders of textual
  criticism, proved Donation of Constantine was a
  forgery
• Pico della Mirandola and others looked for truth
  not founded in Christian Scriptures

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