CHAPTER 12: THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION
12A- THE RENAISSANCE MAN
The Renaissance Man, also known as a polymath, is named after Leonardo daVinci, the quintessential example of a Renaissance Man. A Renaissance Man was a well-rounded individual, gifted and skilled in many different areas.
A Renaissance Man in the fifteenth or sixteenth century would be an intellectual philosopher, studying a wide variety of subjects. Usually, the Renaissance Man would be a writer and an artist, as well as skilled in science or inventions and math. Often, but not always, the Renaissance Man was also good at athletics, such as jousting. A Renaissance Man may be formally educated, but could also be self-taught. Either way, a thirst for learning and knowledge was key.
Leonardo daVinci was the prototype of a Renaissance Man. DaVinci was a philosopher and a well-known artist. You may be familiar with some of his most famous paintings, such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper.
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DaVinci was also a brilliant mathematician, which helped him in his inventions. Some of his inventions included a flying machine and the precursors to the modern tank and machine gun! Like many Renaissance Men of his time, DaVinci was a Christian and studied theology, or the study of religions. This is one of the differences between historical Renaissance Men and Renaissance Men today.
Another difference is that, because women today have access to the same education and opportunities as men, today we can have Renaissance Men and Renaissance Women! Perhaps that’s why the term polymath is a popular alternative to Renaissance Man. Either way, today’s Renaissance Men are still philosophical thinkers who read and write a lot.
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They are also gifted artistically, though this can take many forms, such as music or acting as well as visual arts. Renaissance Men today are often athletic and may speak several languages, another feature shared by DaVinci. However, DaVinci would have studied ancient Greek and Latin, whereas today’s Renaissance Men might study any number of languages.
12B- ITALLIAN RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance began in Italy and lasted from ca. 1350-1600. The period we know as the high Renaissance, when most of the famous art and architecture was created, lasted from ca.1450-1550. The word Renaissance means rebirth, and it is called that because it was a cultural renewal, or rebirth, following the middle ages. But why did the Renaissance begin in Italy? Mostly that had to do with geography.
Italy is located in the center of the Mediterranean Sea. Because it is a peninsula, Italy has lots of ports for trading. And the location of the Mediterranean Sea was the center of the known world in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Think about it -- the Mediterranean is the crossroads of three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. That made it an important crossroads of trade, as well, especially with the powerful Islamic Empire. And Italy had a major hand in that trade, meaning they gained a lot of wealth. In addition to wealth, Italy was exposed to ideas from other cultures, and these two things combined to give birth to the Renaissance. Within Italy, the cities that were central to the Renaissance were Florence, Rome, and Venice
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But there’s someone else who deserves some credit. His name was Francesco Petrarch, and he is known as the Father of Humanism, the dominant philosophy of the time. Petrarch popularized studying ancient Greek and Roman texts, and that also had a huge influence on Renaissance thinking. Renaissance artists studied ancient Greek and Roman architecture and statues and modeled some of their own artworks after the ancients.
Some of the most famous Renaissance artists were Leonardo da Vinci, who painted the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, and Michelangelo Buonarotti, who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and sculpted the statue of David. In addition to famous artists, there were important politicians such as Niccolo Machiavelli and the Medici Family, which ruled Florence for hundreds of years and supported the development of famous artworks.
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12C- THE WORKS OF LEONARDO DA VINCI
Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most talented people in history. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, and a writer. The phrase “Renaissance Man”, meaning someone who knows and does many things very well, was created to describe Leonardo’s many talents. Leonardo da Vinci was a very curious person and wanted to know everything about nature. He was born in Vinci, Italy on April 15, 1452.
Leonardo began his art career as a teenager and worked as an apprentice under a famous artist. During his apprenticeship he learned the principles of art, and began drawing, painting, and sculpting. These were the foundational years that eventually led to him creating some of the most famous artworks in history.
His famous paintings are The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. The Last Supper is a painting of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. It was painted as a mural on a wall in Milan, Italy and is almost 30 feet wide. Da Vicini started the painting in 1495 and completed it in 1498. This painting is famous because of its use of the one point linear perspective technique. This where the relationship between high, width, depth, and position create a 3 dimensional image and emphasise a figure, in this case the figure is Jesus Christ.
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Later in his career, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by a wealthy french merchant to paint the The Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa was painted around 1503, and depicts an unknown woman with a mysterious smile. Historians believed the Mona Lisa took approximately 4 years to complete. Leonardo was one of the first artists to paint in the 1 point perspective which uses the background in portrait paintings.
Leonardo was also a skilled inventor and scientist. His journal has over 13,000 pages of inventions and scientific drawings. Some of these drawings are of technology that we have today such as helicopters, machines, and musical instruments. He also studied the human body and drew anatomical depictions of his theories.
Leonardo’s notebooks are hard to read because he wrote backwards using mirror writing. He did this because he was left handed and it was the easier way to write with a quill pen. His notebooks were published after his death. Many are housed in European museums and libraries and continue to give us insight into the awe and curiosity that Leonardo da Vinci had for the natural world.
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12D- MICHELANGELO AND THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Another great artist whose talents rose to fame during the Renaissance is Michelangelo Buonarroti. He was a great painter and sculptor and is renowned for many works of art. He was born in Caprese, Italy on March 6, 1475. His family later moved to Florence which had a large influence on his artistic development. At 13, Michelangelo trained to become an artist by apprenticing with established painter and artist, Domenico Ghirlandaio. After a short time, Michelangelo was being sent to work with the most famous and accomplished artists of the Renaissance.
Michelangelo’s work became very well known and he was commissioned to create amazing sculptures. His most famous sculpture is the statue of David. He was commissioned by the wool workers in Florence to create the statue in the image of David from the Bible. It is 17 feet tall and was one of the largest statues in Rome at that time. He began the statue in 1501 and completed it a few years later in 1504. The statue of David was the symbol of Florence, and it is considered to be a perfect sculpture.
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After the completion of the statue of David, Michelangelo was asked by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel is famous for its richly decorated interior and collection of Renaissance art. Many significant Renaissance painters such as Perugino, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio were commissioned to paint frescos in the chapel. Michelangelo thought of himself as a sculptor and was reluctant to do the painting, but in 1508 he agreed, and completed it in 1511. This was one of his most challenging works. To complete the painting, Michelangelo stood on a scaffold 60 feet in the air and painted looking up with his arms above his head. The painting was done in Fresco style, with wet plaster that was painted before it dried.
The smell and heat made it very difficult to paint and Michelangelo wrote about how sick it made him. Nevertheless he completed it and other amazing paintings in the chapel such as The Last Judgment. The paintings on the Sistine Chapel provided awe and amazement to all who came to see it
Michelangelo was also a brilliant architect. His most famous structure is St. Peter’s Basilica. Unfortunately he died before its completion, but his designs created inspiration for many of the architectural techniques still used today.
12E- HUMANISM DURING THE RENAISSANCE
Humanism was an important philosophy that helped ignite the curiosity and desire for knowledge that led to the beginning of the Renaissance. By the 13th century, people began wanting to learn more about classic Greek and Roman culture, literature, and philosophy. This study began to affect how people saw the world.
One major effect was that people began questioning the systems they were living in. Humanists believed people should be educated in classical art, literature, and science. They also believed that God gave humanity great potential and that humans should make the most of it rather than blindly following a religious plan.
Humanism spread through the 14th and 16th centuries inspiring the work of many important artists, scientists, and philosophers.
One of the founders of Humanist philosophy in the Renaissance is Francesco Petrarch (seen here). Through his writings and poetry he encouraged people to take interest in nature and value human qualities such as logic and reason.
Giovanni Boccaccio was a writer and humanist philosopher whose work Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, helped guide renaissance thinkers to learn about the ancient Greek classics.
Humanist aspects of these writers influenced later works such as Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote which used satire to criticize aspects of the church and Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince which forced people to question how states were governed.
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Humanists celebrated the individual and this was also evident in the artistic techniques of Renaissance painters. The sculptor Donatello used perspective and natural human postures and stances in his St. Mark statue and bronze sculpture The Feast of Herod.
The realistic portrayal of humans and use of depth and perspective is prominent in works such as The Wedding of the Virgin and Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Raphael, as well as in The Last Supper and The Mona Lisa painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Michelangelo’s works such as The Pieta and The Reaction of Adam show human emotions and have realistic features, a common theme in renaissance humanist art.
Humanism drew its roots from Greek and Roman mythology, and Botticelli included these in his works The Birth of Venus and Venus and Mars, depicting Venus with realistic human features. Jan Van Eyck’s work depicts renaissance humanism in Northern Europe.
Examples of his art such as The Arnolfini Portrait and the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin reflect humanism's intricacy with symbolism and detailed textures and lighting.
12F- IMPORTANT WRITERS AND RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
The Renaissance was an evolutionary period for the people in Europe. New philosophies such as humanism developed and grew throughout the 13th-16th centuries. These philosophical greatly concepts influenced art and literature of the time. In fact, some of history’s greatest works of literature were created during the Renaissance.
One of the first literary works that contributed to the Renaissance was the Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri in 1321. Dante was one of the most prominent developing forces of Italian literature and the Renaissance. The Divine Comedy is a three part epic poem of Dante’s fictional journey into the afterlife. It represents the soul’s journey towards god. The poem was written in Italian instead of Latin which marks the end of the Middle Ages and rise of Renaissance humanism. Through his writing he contributed to the growth of humanism, created new literary elements that later authors adopted, and challenged the power of the Church.
Another important Renaissance literary work is The Praise of Folly. It was written by Desiderius Erasmus in 1509. The essay critiques the practices of the Church and its political allies. It created much controversy and played an important role in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation.
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The Prince was a book written in 1513 by Niccolo Machiavelli that criticized another important institution; the government. The book presented many controversial concepts and theories about politics and power. He used the character of “a new prince” that would come to power through deceit, force, and careful calculation. He justified the use of doing wrong things to get power if it meant that that power could be used to do good. Although controversial, it is seen as the earliest work of modern political philosophy. This political thought influenced many leaders throughout history.
The later part of Renaissance history gave way to works such as Don Quixote written by Miguel de Cervantes of Spain in 1612. This was considered the first modern novel and is one of the most ready pieces of Western literature in history. It was a renaissance humanist critique on how people often chase impractical delusions of idealism and nobility.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance (and perhaps of all human history) was William Shakespeare. Born in England around April 1564, Shakespeare was a playwright, poet, and actor. His works comprise of over 150 sonnets and nearly 40 plays, including Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and more.
12G- COMPARING THE ITALIAN AND NORTHERN RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance was a period that drastically changed Europe from the end of the 13th century. During this time many works of art, science, and philosophy created a new value system in society. This spread throughout Europe for the next few centuries. Each part of Europe experienced their own unique changes due to their differences in cultures, but historians map out two major Renaissance movements in Italy and Northern Europe. Though these two renaissances share some commonalities, they also have distinct differences.
The Renaissance began in Italy in the late 13th century and lasted until the 1600s. This period marked the transition from the medieval period to Early Modern Europe. The French term renaissance means “rebirth”, and it was believed that this period was a “rebirth” of the learning of ancient culture and philosophy. This interest in ancient knowledge led to many cultural achievements such as the development of the humanist philosophy which inspired many brilliant works of literature and art.
The Italian Renaissance was heavily focused on the upper class with elaborate works of art that were commissioned by wealthy families and organizations. The art focused on Greek and Roman mythology and had many religious themes. Italy was governed by city-states which influenced how the Renaissance spread.
The Northern Renaissance occurred in northern Europe and areas outside of Italy. There was little influence from the Italian Renaissance until 1450. After 1450, ideas such as humanism began to spread around Europe and resulted in renaissance movements in Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, and Poland. Many countries imported Italian art which also helped start renaissances in northern Europe. Art of the Northern Renaissance was focused on daily peasant life and valued simple pious living.
The Northern Renaissance was directly linked to the Protestant Reformation characterized by continued conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church. The North had more centralized nations that did not produce as many wealthy merchant classes that commissioned art.
In both renaissances, the art produced imitated nature through emotional intensity. They also included religious scenery and themes. The power of education and individualism were foundational beliefs in both movements. Through the cultivation of knowledge of the classics, the Italian and Northern Renaissance impacted Europe and history forever.
12H- THE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Considered to be the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare produced many brilliant plays and poems in his lifetime. He was born on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He grew up in a large family of six children. He began learning about poetry, history, and languages at an early age in grammar school.
Later in William’s life, he began acting in a company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. He started writing plays for the company and they became very popular. After his first theatre was shut down, he and his company built The Globe Theatre where many of William’s plays were acted out. Shakespeare’s poems and plays spanned many genres including tragedy, comedy, and historical pieces.
Shakespeare wrote poetry in the form of sonnets. Sonnets are poems with 14 lines and follow a specific structure. Shakespearean sonnets would rhyme the first and third line, the second and fourth line, and so on. The Sonnet derived from earlier Renaissance writer and poet, Petrarch. Shakespeare’s most famous sonnet is Sonnet 18 because of Shakespeare's ability to capture the feeling of love clearly and succinctly.
Another famous Shakespearean sonnet is Sonnet 116 which expresses the importance of true love in friendship. Shakespeare also wrote sonnets about philosophical concepts such as aging and time as seen in works such as Sonnet 73.
Shakespeare is perhaps most famous for his plays. Shakespeare’s First Folio of plays are grouped into three categories including tragedies, comedies and histories. His earliest and most well known tragedy is Romeo and Juliette around 1591. His greatest tragedies were written in the later part of his life and career including King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Julius Caesar.
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Shakespeare was also a brilliant comedic playwright. His most famous comedies are The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice.
Through his plays about historical figures he helped define the genre of the historic play. His most famous historical works depicted the lives of medieval kings and events in English history. Richard II and Richard III are famous plays about England’s Hundred Years War, and the plays Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI provide a dramatization about the reigns of the monarch which they are named after. Shakespeare’s histories were important in helping to define England's national identity and continue to entertain and inspire writers today.
12I- PROBLEMS INSIDE THE MEDIEVAL CATHOLIC CHURCH
In 1517, a monk named Martin Luther addressed several problems he saw within the Catholic Church. On Halloween night, he nailed a list of these problems to the door of the church in the town where he lived: Wittenberg, Germany. That list contained 95 of his grievances and is known today as the 95 Theses.
The 95 Theses pointed out several things wrong with the Catholic Church at the time. One of the biggest things was the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were a piece of paper from the Church that was supposed to lessen a person’s time in purgatory and help them get to heaven faster. Luther disagreed with this, saying that buying indulgences had no impact on whether or not people would go to heaven.
In addition to indulgences, the 95 Theses pointed out other problems as well. These problems included priests not being well educated and some of the higher leaders in the Church being corrupt. In addition, Luther stated that the Pope himself had too much power over the Church and politics.
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Luther also wrote down his own ideas about faith. These included that salvation came only from believing in God, and that the Bible was the sole place to get information about one’s faith. Perhaps most radically, Luther believed that all Christians were equal before God and therefore there was no need to have a Pope at all!
The printing press helped spread Luther’s ideas and he became very popular. The movement he started became known as the Protestant Reformation, and the people who followed him away from the Catholic Church became known as Protestants. As a result, the Catholic Church started its own Counter Reformation and made some sweeping changes, such as stopping the sale of indulgences
12J- THE WIVES OF HENRY VIII
Henry VIII was king of England from 1509 to 1547. During that time he had a total of six wives! The main reason for this was his desire for a son to be the heir to his throne. He was nervous that a daughter might not be able to hold on to power in England (ironically enough, his daughter Elizabeth would rule for over 40 years).
Some of his wives met very tragic ends. There’s a rhyme to make it easy to remember what happened to each wife: Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.
Henry VIII’s first wife was Catherine of Aragon. Together they had only one child, a daughter named Mary. Unfortunately, it was risky for girls to inherit the throne and Henry felt that he needed a male heir. With Catherine unable to give him a male heir, Henry sought an annulment from the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church denied the annulment because marriage was supposed to be for life in the Catholic Church. Henry broke away from the church and formed his own church, known as the Church of England. In that church he got a divorce from Catherine.
After divorcing Catherine, Henry married his second wife, Anne Boleyn. They quickly had a child, but it was another daughter, Elizabeth. Desperate for a male heir, Henry had Anne charged with a variety of crimes against him and she was beheaded.
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Following Anne Boleyn’s execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, wife number three. With Jane, Henry finally got his long-awaited son! Tragically, Jane died of complications from childbirth. Henry was heartbroken, but despite his heartbreak, would eventually marry again.
Henry VIII’s fourth wife was Anne of Cleves. Anne of Cleves was German and Henry married her to form a political alliance. The marriage was very short lived, however, because Henry did not like Anne. He called her smelly and said she looked like a horse! Therefore Henry divorced her quickly. He did, however, pay for a nice house for her to live in as long as she wanted
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After Anne of Cleves, Henry fell in love with a less aristocratic wife named Catherine Howard. For a while things went fine, until Henry suspected Catherine of cheating on him and accused her of adultery. Catherine was executed on charges of adultery, whether they were true or not.
Henry’s last wife was Catherine Parr. She was the only wife to outlive him! By this time Henry was older and in poor health, so Catherine served almost as a nurse to him. She also convinced Henry to make peace with his daughters from his first two marriages, so that Mary and Elizabeth would each eventually inherit the throne of England.
12K- THE GUTENBERG PRINTING PRESS
The printing press was invented by a German named Johannes Gutenberg around the year 1450. Prior to the invention of the printing press, all books and other materials had to be written by hand, usually by monks and other people in the Church. This was very time consuming and made books very expensive. As a result, only wealthy people could afford to have books and many people never learned to read at all.
When Gutenberg invented the printing press, he invented a system called movable type. This meant that small metal letters could be arranged to make a page of writing and then stamped onto the paper by the press. This way, a lot of copies of each page could be made quickly.
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The printing press had an enormous impact on Europe and the world. Because books and other print materials, such as newspapers, were readily available, they became more affordable too. This meant that a lot more people had access to printed information. This allowed information to spread much farther and faster than ever before. As a result, people learned about what was happening in the news and about developments in society. And in the long run, this access to information increased literacy rates throughout much of Europe. The printing press even paved the way for major changes such as the Protestant Reformation.
12L- THE COUNCIL OF TRENT & COUNTER REFORMATION
The Council of Trent was the most important movement of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s first significant reply to the growing Protestants Reformation. The primary purpose of the council was to refute the beliefs of the Protestants, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and also to make the set of beliefs in Catholicism even clearer. About 40 Catholic bishops attended about 25 Council sessions over 18 years.
Protestants endorse justification by faith alone apart from anything (including good works), a position the Catholic Church condemned as heresy. During the sixth session, the Council issued a decree saying that, “If anyone saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.”
During the Protestant Reformation, the doctrine of transubstantiation was heavily criticized as an Aristotelian “pseudophilosophy.” The 13th session reaffirmed and defined transubstantiation as “that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood – the species only of the bread and wine remaining – which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation.”
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Protestants claimed that the only source and norm for the Christian faith was Holy Scripture. The Council affirmed two sources of special revelation: Holy Scripture and traditions of the church (including the “unwritten traditions”).
In Catholic theology, an indulgence is a forgiveness of temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has been forgiven. Under Catholic teaching, every sin must be purified either here on earth or after death in a state called purgatory. The selling of indulgences was not part of official Catholic teaching, though in Martin Luther’s era, the practice had become common. (Luther was appalled by the sermon of an indulgence vendor named John Tetzel who said, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.”) The Council called for the reform of the practice, yet damned those who “say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them.”
In Catholic theology, purgatory is a place of temporary punishment for those who denied yet were not free from “venial” sins (a lesser sin that does not result in a complete separation from God and eternal damnation). The council affirmed the doctrine of purgatory and damned anyone who claimed, “that after the grace of justification has been received the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out for any repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid.”
In the 24th session, the council issued decrees on marriage which affirmed the excellence of celibacy, condemned concubinage, and made the validity of marriage dependent upon the wedding taking place before a priest and two witnesses. In the case of a divorce, the right of the innocent party to marry again was denied so long as the other party was alive, even if the other party had committed adultery.
At the request of Pope Gregory XIII, the Council approved a plan to correct the errors to the Julian calendar that would allow for a more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. The reform included reducing the number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Although Protestant countries in Europe initially refused to adopt the “Gregorian calendar” (also known as the Western or Christian calendar), it eventually became the most widely accepted and used civil calendar in the world.