Cause of the Renaissance

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Cause of the Renaissance

• Classical knowledge brought into Europe via(3
  ways)
• Classics important because
• Satisfy increasing need for practical knowledge
• Supported involvement in urban affairs
• Pre-Christian, so didnt require all emphasis to
  be on afterlife

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The Dignity of Man and the Revival of Humanism

• Man is Gods most excellent creation
• Man is excellent because he alone can know God
• Man also has the ability to master his fate, and
  live happily in this world

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The Humanities

• Replaced Medieval Scholasticism
• Focused more on ethical and political philosophy
• Curriculum based on
• Language Latin and Greek
• Literature poetry, the sonnet
• History Theocentric vs. Anthrocentric
• Ethics Civic Humanism (city-states)

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City-States of Renaissance Italy
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Why did the Renaissance Originate in Italy?

• Strongest urban development
• Very little distinction between landed
  aristocracy and wealthy merchants
• Commerce and trade created a greater demand for
  literacy
• Italy was littered with reminders of its
  classical past
• Wealthiest in Europe (trade and banking)

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Patronage of the Arts

• Demonstrating civic pride
• Competition between wealthy families
• Types of works building of palaces, chapels,
  decoration of churchesuse of family coat of arms

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Humanist Writers

• Francis Petrach (1304-1374) Father of Italian
  Renaissance Humanism
• Collected ancient Roman manuscripts
• Most known for his Laura love poems
• Development of vernacular language

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Francis Petrarch

• What nymph of fountains, goddess of the trees,
• loosed such fine, gold hair to the wind?
• When did a heart so many virtues seize,
• that, through their total, I my death will find?
• He looks for divine beauty uselessly
• who never saw the eyes that she reveals,
• how tenderly she lets them move and see
• nor can he know how love kills, or how it heals,
• who does not hear how she sighs, so sweetly -
• so sweet her speech, so sweet her laughters
  peals.

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The Printing Press

• Johann Gutenberg, born 1398, a German
  metal-worker
• Added the innovation of movable-type metal,
  interchangeable characters
• Replacing wood block type - expensive
• Borrowed from China?
• The Gutenberg Bibles, beginning 1455
• Legacy will allow for future turning points
  including the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation
  and the Scientific Revolution

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Michelangelos Pieta 1498-9
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• Michelangelos David.
• Detail of the Hand.

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The Printing Press

• Johann Gutenberg, born 1398, a German
  metal-worker
• Added the innovation of movable-type metal,
  interchangeable characters
• Replacing wood block type - expensive
• Borrowed from China?
• The Gutenberg Bibles, beginning 1455
• Legacy will allow for future turning points
  including the Renaissance, Protestant Reformation
  and the Scientific Revolution

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• 
  

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Niccolo Machiavelli published The Prince in 1513

• Dedicated to the Medici of Florence
• Earliest supporter of Italian unification
• Government possesses no supernatural power
• A ruler should never pander to public opinion
• A ruler should promote religion among his
  subjects, but not possess Christian virtues
  himself

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Christian Humanism

• Centered in Northern Europe
• Focused ancient texts of biblical teachings and
  those of early Church fathers
• Goal was to turn away from vanity and toward a
  purer form of Christianity

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Desiderius Erasmus

• ON MONKS
• And next these come those that commonly call
  themselves the religious and monks, most false in
  both titles, when both a great part of them are
  farthest from religion
• ON THE POPE AND THE CARDINALS
• A most inhuman and economical thing, and more to
  be execrated, that those great princes of the
  Church and true lights of the world should be
  reduced to a staff and a wallet