Renaissance
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- French:
- “Rebirth”
What does the word “Renaissance” mean?
Renaissance is a French word meaning “rebirth.” It refers to a period in European civilization that was marked by a revival of Classical learning and wisdom. The Renaissance saw many contributions to different fields, including new scientific laws, new forms of art and architecture, and new religious and political ideas.
When did the Renaissance happen?
There is some debate over when exactly the Renaissance began. However, it is generally believed to have begun inItaly during the 14th century, after the end of theMiddle Ages, and it reached its height there between the 1490s and the 1520s, a period referred to as the High Renaissance. Renaissance ideas and ways of thinking also began spreading to the rest of Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.
The Renaissance as a unified historical period ended in Italy with thefall of Rome in 1527, and it was eclipsed by theReformation andCounter-Reformation elsewhere in Europe by the end of the 16th century.
Who are some important people of the Renaissance?
Prominent figures of the European Renaissance include:
- Niccolò Machiavelli, the philosopher and statesman known for the political treatiseThe Prince
- Francis Bacon, a statesman and philosopher considered the master of the English tongue
- Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who developed the theory that the solar system was centered on the Sun
- the poetsPetrarch andGiovanni Boccaccio, who laid the foundations forhumanism, the mode of thought at the core of the Renaissance
- William Shakespeare, considered the greatest English dramatist of all time
- Galileo, an astronomer and mathematician who helped disprove much medieval-era thinking in science
- the explorersChristopher Columbus,Ferdinand Magellan, andHernán Cortés
What is Renaissance art?
One of the fields that embodied the Renaissance was fine art, especially painting and sculpture.Renaissance art was inspired by Classical Greek and Roman art, and it is known for its grace, harmony, and beauty. Artists worked from the living model and perfected techniques such as the use of perspective. In addition, the Renaissance saw the refinement of mediums, notably oils.Leonardo da Vinci,Michelangelo, andRaphael are widely considered the leading artists of the period.
What does “Renaissance man” mean?
The idea of aRenaissance man developed inItaly and derived fromLeon Battista Alberti’s notion that “a man can do all things if he will.” The ideal embodied the basic tenets of Renaissancehumanism, which considered humankind the center of the universe and led to the belief that people should try to embrace all knowledge and develop their own abilities as fully as possible.Leonardo da Vinci is a leading example of a Renaissance man, noted for his achievements inart,science,music,architecture, andinvention.
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Renaissance, period in European civilization immediately following theMiddle Ages and conventionally held to have been characterized by a surge of interest inClassical scholarship and values. The Renaissance also witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents, the substitution of theCopernican for thePtolemaic system ofastronomy, the decline of thefeudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerfulinnovations aspaper,printing, themariner’s compass, andgunpowder. To the scholars and thinkers of the day, however, it was primarily a time of the revival of Classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation.
A brief treatment of the Renaissance follows. For full treatment,seehistory of Europe: The Renaissance.
Origins and rise ofhumanism
The termMiddle Ages was coined by scholars in the 15th century to designate the interval between the downfall of the Classical world ofGreece andRome and its rediscovery at the beginning of their own century, a revival in which they felt they were participating. Indeed, the notion of a long period of cultural darkness had been expressed byPetrarch even earlier. Events at the end of the Middle Ages, particularly beginning in the 12th century, set in motion a series of social, political, andintellectual transformations that culminated in the Renaissance. These included the increasing failure of theRoman Catholic Church and theHoly Roman Empire to provide a stable and unifying framework for the organization of spiritual and material life, the rise in importance of city-states and nationalmonarchies, the development of national languages, and the breakup of the old feudal structures.
While the spirit of the Renaissance ultimately took many forms, it was expressed earliest by the intellectual movement calledhumanism. Humanism was initiated bysecular men of letters rather than by the scholar-clerics who had dominatedmedieval intellectual life and had developed theScholastic philosophy. Humanism began and achieved fruition first inItaly. Its predecessors were men likeDante andPetrarch, and its chief protagonists included Giannozzo Manetti,Leonardo Bruni,Marsilio Ficino,Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,Lorenzo Valla, andColuccio Salutati. Thefall of Constantinople in 1453 provided humanism with a major boost, for many eastern scholars fled to Italy, bringing with them important books and manuscripts and a tradition of Greek scholarship.
Humanism had several significant features. First, it took human nature in all of its variousmanifestations and achievements as its subject. Second, it stressed the unity and compatibility of thetruth found in all philosophical and theological schools and systems, a doctrine known assyncretism. Third, it emphasized the dignity of humankind. In place of the medieval ideal of a life of penance as the highest and noblest form of human activity, the humanists looked to the struggle of creation and the attempt to exert mastery over nature. Finally, humanism looked forward to a rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. In the course of striving to recover it, however, the humanists assisted in the consolidation of a new spiritual and intellectual outlook and in the development of a new body of knowledge. The effect of humanism was to help men break free from the mental strictures imposed by religious orthodoxy, to inspire free inquiry andcriticism, and to inspire a new confidence in the possibilities of human thought and creations.
From Italy the new humanist spirit and the Renaissance it engendered spread north to all parts of Europe, aided by the invention of the mechanizedprinting press, which allowed literacy and the availability of Classical texts to grow explosively. Foremost among northern humanists wasDesiderius Erasmus, whosePraise of Folly (1509) epitomized themoral essence of humanism in its insistence on heartfelt goodness as opposed to formalistic piety. The intellectual stimulation provided by humanists helped spark theReformation, from which, however, many humanists, including Erasmus, recoiled. By the end of the 16th century the battle of Reformation andCounter-Reformation had commanded much ofEurope’s energy and attention, while the intellectual life was poised on the brink of theEnlightenment.
Artistic developments and the emergence ofFlorence
It was inart that the spirit of theRenaissance achieved its sharpest formulation. Art came to be seen as a branch of knowledge, valuable in its own right and capable of providing people with images of God and his creations as well as with insights into humankind’s position in the universe. In the hands of men such asLeonardo da Vinci it was even ascience, a means for exploring nature and a record of discoveries. Art was to be based on the observation of the visible world and practiced according to mathematical principles of balance, harmony, andperspective, which were developed at this time. In the works of painters such asMasaccio, the brothersPietro andAmbrogio Lorenzetti,Fra Angelico,Sandro Botticelli,Perugino,Piero della Francesca,Raphael, andTitian; sculptors such asGiovanni Pisano,Donatello,Andrea del Verrocchio,Lorenzo Ghiberti, andMichelangelo; and architects such asLeon Battista Alberti,Filippo Brunelleschi,Andrea Palladio,Michelozzo, andFilarete, the dignity of humanity found expression in the arts.
InItaly the Renaissance proper was preceded by an important “proto-renaissance” in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which drew inspiration fromFranciscan radicalism.St. Francis of Assisi had rejected the formalScholasticism of the prevailing Christiantheology and gone out among the poor praising the beauties and spiritual value of nature. His example inspired Italian artists and poets to take pleasure in the world around them. The work of the most famous artist of the proto-renaissance period,Giotto (1266/67 or 1276–1337), reveals a new pictorial style that depends on clear, simple structure and great psychological penetration rather than on the flat, linear decorativeness and hierarchicalcompositions of his predecessors and contemporaries, such as the Florentine painterCimabue and the Siennese paintersDuccio andSimone Martini. The great poetDante lived at about the same time as Giotto, and hispoetry shows a similar concern with inward experience and the subtle shades and variations ofhuman nature. Although hisDivine Comedy belongs to the Middle Ages in its plan and ideas, its subjective spirit and power of expression look forward to the Renaissance.Petrarch andGiovanni Boccaccio also belong to this proto-renaissance period, both through their extensive studies ofLatin literature and through their writings in thevernacular. Unfortunately, the terrible plague of 1348 (known as theBlack Death) and subsequentcivil wars submerged both the revival of humanistic studies and the growing interest inindividualism and naturalism revealed in the works of Giotto and Dante. The spirit of the Renaissance did not surface again until the 15th century.
In 1401−02 the goldsmith and painterLorenzo Ghiberti won a competition held at Florence and was awarded the commission forbronze doors to be placed on the baptistery of San Giovanni. According to traditional accounts,Filippo Brunelleschi, who was among Ghiberti’s competitors, and his friendDonatello left for Rome soon after; there they immersed themselves in the study of ancientarchitecture andsculpture. When they returned to Florence and began to put their knowledge into practice, the rationalized art of the ancient world was reborn. The founder of Renaissancepainting wasMasaccio (1401–28). The intellectuality of hisconceptions, the monumentality of his compositions, and the high degree ofnaturalism in his works mark Masaccio as a pivotal figure in Renaissance painting. The succeeding generation of artists—Piero della Francesca, thePollaiuolo brothers, andAndrea del Verrocchio—pressed forward with researches intolinear andaerial perspective andanatomy, developing a style of scientific naturalism.
The situation inFlorence was uniquely favourable to the arts. The civic pride of Florentines found expression in statues of the patron saints commissioned from Ghiberti and Donatello forniches in the grain-market guildhall known as Or San Michele, and in the largest dome built since antiquity, placed by Brunelleschi onthe Duomo. The cost of construction and decoration of palaces, churches, and monasteries was underwritten by wealthy merchant families, chief among whom were theMedici family.
The Medici traded in all of the major cities in Europe, and one of the most famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art,The Portinari Altarpiece, byHugo van der Goes (c. 1476;Uffizi, Florence), was commissioned by their agent, Tommaso Portinari. Instead of being painted with the customary tempera of the period, the work is painted withtranslucent oil glazes that produce brilliant jewel-like colour and a glossy surface. EarlyNorthern Renaissance painters were more concerned with the detailed reproduction of objects and their symbolic meaning than with the study of scientific perspective and anatomy even after these achievements became widely known. On the other hand, central Italian painters began to adopt the oil medium soon afterThe Portinari Altarpiece was brought to Florence in 1476.