Renaissance is a French word that means “rebirth.” It is used to describe the period of European history that stretched roughly from the mid-1300s through the 1500s. During that time, important changes took place in what people thought, in what they wrote, in their painting, sculpture, and architecture, and, indeed, in every aspect of life. It seemed as though the world was being reborn: hence the name Renaissance. The Renaissance followed the period now known as the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages there were two institutions that controlled much of Europe. The Holy Roman Empire influenced the political life of the people, and through the papacy the popes of the Roman Catholic church controlled the religious life. Both of these institutions began to lose power toward the end of the Middle Ages. There was also a growing use of money in Europe and with it grew trade and the wealth of bankers and merchants. People thus found themselves in a changing world that seemed full of possibilities. The ideas behind the RenaissanceThe intellectual excitement of the Renaissance was inspired in part by a unique way of thinking about the world called humanism. This set of ideas was especially popular during the 14th century in northern Italy. A group of scholars there became interested in the works of ancient Greek and Roman writers. In contrast to the focus on God and religion that often characterized the Middle Ages, the ancients had emphasized the importance of the individual in society. Following the example of ancient thinkers such as Socrates, 14th-century Italian humanists such as Francesco Petrarch examined all aspects of the world around them using reason and a method of thorough questioning. They felt that pursuing ideas in this manner would lead them to understand the world and to reach their full potential as human beings. - Bronze self-portrait plaque of Leon Battista Alberti, from about 1435.
By the turn of the 15th century, an intellectual Renaissance sprang out of these ideas. Education systems were set up that emphasized Greek and Latin literature and Roman history. One example of a person who flourished as a result of this environment was Leon Battista Alberti. He was a “Renaissance man,” meaning that he pursued a wide variety of interests in order to better himself: Alberti was an essayist, architect, scientist, and mathematician, among other things. He believed that “man can do all things if he will.” Spread of the Renaissance - Erasmus, oil painting by Hans Holbein the Younger; in the Louvre, in Paris, France.
By the mid-15th century, the development of the printing press allowed texts to be reproduced cheaply and easily. As a result, people in other European countries were influenced by the ideas that came out of Italy. One very influential thinker was the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. Although a religious man, he used the humanist concept of reason to challenge what he felt were ignorant and superstitious aspects of the church. The Renaissance spirit in scienceThis spirit of inquiry and self-discovery also led to a Renaissance in science. In the Middle Ages, scholars usually took their scientific knowledge from books. During the Renaissance, however, people such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo began to experiment and observe for themselves. The Polish-born Copernicus challenged the long-held belief that the Earth was the center of the universe and that the sun revolved around it. - A woodcut shows Andreas Vesalius studying human anatomy. The woodcut was probably made by Vesalius …
Andreas Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, first dissected the human body in a scientific way during this period. The Englishman Francis Bacon set out the new Renaissance attitude toward science in his great book The Advancement of Learning. He argued that it is necessary to be certain of the truth, and the only way of being certain is by observation and testing. Renaissance of the visual artsFlorence became the center of a flourishing Renaissance of the visual arts. Its rulers, the Medici family, spent great amounts of money on pictures, buildings, and statues. Early Renaissance artists such as Masaccio were inspired by the sculpture and other artistic remains of ancient Greece and Rome. These artists adopted the ancient qualities of grace, harmony, and beauty in place of the heavier, stiff art that had dominated the Middle Ages. Other important early Renaissance figures in painting and sculpture included Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Luca Della Robbia, Sandro Botticelli, and Fra Angelico. Filippo Brunelleschi began a Renaissance in architecture. The full flowering of the Renaissance (the “High Renaissance”) came in the late 15th and early 16th centuries in Florence and other Italian cities. The first great artist of this period was Leonardo da Vinci, who embodied the many-sided genius that characterized the Renaissance. He painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but he was also an architect, poet, engineer, and scientist. Indeed, Leonardo saw scientific research, such as the precise study of human anatomy, as part of his path towards becoming a great artist. The two other key figures of the High Renaissance were Michelangelo and Raphael, who achieved a unique sense of harmony in their work. They and other artists from the period portrayed religious figures such as the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ with a realistic, human quality. This humanity was in contrast to the more idealistic representations of religion in the Middle Ages. Further reflecting this focus on the individual, artists began to create portraits of regular people, not just of religious icons. Other key artists from later in this period were Correggio and the Venetians Titian and Tintoretto. Donato Bramante also introduced a High Renaissance style to architecture. Italy's Renaissance in the visual arts spread to the rest of Europe in the early 16th century. North of the Alps—in Flanders, Holland, and Germany—major Renaissance artists included Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein. These artists kept elements of their national artistic traditions, but they copied the style and format of portraiture from Italy. Late RenaissanceBy the early 16th century, Renaissance figures began to explore even more radical ideas. This was the case in Niccolò Machiavelli's book The Prince. Here Machiavelli studied the world of politics by using reason and scientific methods. What he said shocked many people, because he did not judge people's actions as either good or bad; instead, he simply observed them in what he thought was a “scientific” way. The visual arts also began to shock. The Mannerist style, which began to form by the 1520s, rejected the natural, harmonious look at the world in Renaissance art in favor of a more artificial, emotional view of subjects. In this way, the stage was set in all areas of creativity for a new era of exploration. |