Study guide unit 6: The renaissance in Italy

STUDY GUIDE UNIT 6: “THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY”

• What does the word Renaissance mean?

The word Renaissance means rebirth, an it is commonly taken to imply that during the fourteenth century there was a sudden revival of interest in the classical learning of         Greece and Rome, but it doesn't mean that during the Feudal Age  people weren't interested  in those civilizations.

Why is this period so important ?

This period (which lasted from 1300 to approximately 1650) started in Italy and is really important because during that time  new ways of thinking and  institutions emerged. The characteristics of those ages marked peoples’ lives and they started to perceive themselves as  different civilizations compared to the old ones.

The holy Roman empire, the universal authority of papacy  and the guild system of trade and industry gradually disappeared, and it meant the end of the Feudal Age.

The Renaissance brought an impressive record of new achievements related to different areas like in literature, art, architecture, politics, philosophy, religion, science and education as well as incorporation of dominant ideals and attitudes (ideals which have set the standard of the modern world). They were hedonism, optimism, wordlines, naturalism, individualism and the most important of them is called humanism ( this ideal sees humans as the center of existence or as the protagonist of life  with the ability  to transform the world).

• Which are the causes of the Renaissance?

1.  The influence of the Saracenic and Byzantine civilizations;
2. The development of a flourishing commerce.
3. The growth of cities.
4. The revival of an interest in classical studies in the cathedral and monastic schools;
5. The growth of a critical and skeptical attitude exemplified in the philosophies of such men as Abelard;
6. The gradual escape from the otherworldly and ascetic atmosphere of the early Middle Ages.
7. The revival of the study of the Roman law, with the impetus it gave to the growth of secular interests;
8. The expansion of intellectual interests made possible by the rise of the universities;
9. The Ariscorelianism of the Scholastic philosophy, with its appeal to the authority of a pagan thinker;
10. The growth of naturalism in literature and are;
11. The development of a spirit of scientific inquiry.

• Why did the Renaissance start in Italy?

1. Italy had a stronger classical tradition than any other country of western Europe.
2. Italians had managed to preserve the belief that they were descendants of the ancient Romans. They looked back upon their ancestry with pride.
3. Relics of the ancient pagan spirit were also to be found in the essentially immoral attitude of the Italians. Ethical considerations did not generally weigh with chem so heavily as with northern Europeans. Few Italians appear to have been shocked by the fact that Pope Alexander VI had illegitimate children or that Julius II was a crafty politician and a hard-swearing leader of papal armies.
4. Italy had a more thoroughly secular culture than most other regions of Latin Christendom. The Italian universities were founded primarily for the study of law or medicine rather than theology, and, with the exception of the University of Rome, few of them had any ecclesiastical connections whatsoever.
5. Italy received the full impact of cultural influences from the Byzantine and Saracenic civilizations.
6. The Italian cities were the main beneficiaries of the revival of trade with the East. The economic prosperity thus acquired was the principal foundation of intellectual and artistic progress.

The expansion of city-states in Italy

Under the rule of Gian Galeazzo Visconti the city state of Milan reached out and annexed nearly the whole of the Lombard plain. This expansion aroused the apprehension of Venice. As a consequence, the merchants of that city determined to conquer an inland empire which would protect the avenues of trade with central Europe. By 1454 Venice had succeeded in annexing nearly all of northeastern Italy, including the wealthy city of Padua. Nor did the republic of Florence lag behind in the development of expansionist ambitions. At the end of the 14th century all the district of Tuscany had been taken and in 1406 the great mercantile city of Pisa succumbed to Florentine domination.

Italian painting in the Trecento

Of all the arts, painting was undoubtedly supreme. During the initial period of the Trecento, there was only one artist  of distinction, worthy to be compared to Petrarch and Bocaccio in literature. His name was Giotto. With him, painting definitely took on the status of an independent art. Giotto was pre-eminently a naturalist.

Painting in the Quattrocento

It was not till the Quattrocento that Italian Renaissance painting really attained its majority. By this time, the church was no longer the only patron of artists. While subject matter from Biblical history was still commonly employed. The painting of portraits for the purpose of revealing the hidden mysteries of the soul now became popular.

Also, the Quattrocento was characterized by the introduction of painting in oil. The use of the new technique doubtless had much to do with the artistic advance of this period. Since Oil does not dry so quickly as water, the painter could now work more leisurely, taking his time with the more difficult parts of the picture and making corrections if necessary as he went along.

Who were the Florentine painters?

Masaccio

 He died at age of twenty-seven, Masaccio inspired the work of Italian painters for a hundred years. He is considered the first of the realists in Renaissance art.

Fra Lippo Lippi

 The best known of the painters who followed directly the paths marked by Masaccio were Fra Lippo Lippi  and Botticelli.

  Fra Lippo Lippi was a member of a religious brotherhood. For his portraits of saints and maddonas he chose as models the ordinary men and women of the city of Florence. Probably his chief contribution to painting was a tradition of psychological analysis. He seems to have been the first to have made the face the mirror of the soul.

Botticelli

   He carried the method of psychological treatment even farther. In spite of his sensitive feeling for nature which led him to paint with such delicate skill the subtle loveliness of youth, the summer sky, and the tender bloom of spring, Botticelli was interested in the spiritual beauty of the soul. He was strongly influenced by Neo-Platonism and dreamed of the reconciliation of pagan and Christian thought.

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