The Renaissance - WordPress.com · 12/20/2012 1 The Renaissance & Exploration European Natural Resources & Trade Routes c. 1400 • Northern Italian cities dominated trade Italy in

12/20/2012

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The Renaissance

& Exploration

European Natural Resources & Trade Routes c. 1400

• Northern Italian cities dominated trade

Italy in the 14th & 15th Centuries

• Compared to Northern Europe,

Italy’s politics were fragmented, and highly competitive

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Urban Population Center Estimates

• 1346• >50,000 – 125,000

• Cairo

• Constantinople

• Florence

• Genoa

• Ghent

• Milan

• Paris

• Tabriz

• Venice

• 1483• >50,000 – 125,000

• Cairo

• Florence

• Genoa

• Istanbul

• Milan

• Naples

• Paris

• Tabriz

• Venice

http://scholar.chem.nyu.edu/tekpages/urbanpop.html

Three Geniuses

• Giotto

• Dante

• Petrarch

Giotto?

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Dante

• Divine Comedy

– Paradise

– Purgatory

– Hell

• Written in the

vernacular

Petrarch’s Laura

Love of Classical

Learning

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Worldly Pleasures

Ideals of Behavior

• The “Emily Post” of

the Renaissance

Renaissance Men

• Physical, social, artistic and intellectual development

• Michelangelo – Painter, sculptor, poet,

architect, engineer

• DaVinci– scientist, mathematician,

engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer

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Renaissance Women

• Objects of

admiration and inspiration…with a

few notable

exceptions

• Beatrice & Laura

• Isabella & Caterina

Duke & Duchess

of Urbino

Florence

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The Medici

Masaccio

• Oldest surviving

perspective painting

Masaccio

• Chiaroscuro

– Contrast between light and dark

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Perspective provides a narrative focus

One, Two, Three

Donatello

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Machiavelli

• “The Prince”– The ends justify the means.

• There is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power.

• Authority and power are essentially coequal

• Whoever has power has the right to command

• Goodness does not ensure power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good.

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Christian Humanism: Social

Regeneration Through Education

Desiderius Erasmus (1469-1536)

Thomas More (1478-1535)

Utopia (1516)

The Renaissance Beyond

Northern Italy• Papal power returns as Martin V brings the

papacy back to Rome

• Popes as patrons of the arts

– Michelangelo

– Raphael

– DaVinci

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Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel

Raphael

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Da Vinci’s Notebooks

Ghiberti

• Lost wax casting

Renaissance in Northern Europe

• Royal courts in France, Germany, etc.

• German masters– Durer

– Holbein

• Flanders– Jan van Eyck

– Pieter Brugel

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Age of Exploration

• Search for spices

– Monopoly control = huge profits

• Desire to spread Christianity

– Re-conquer Northern Africa

• New technology

– Caravel

– Compass

The Portuguese