378-382 Flashcards
Who threatened Florence’s library?
Giangaleazzo Visconti
Who was Petrarch?
called the father of Italian Renaissance humanism
Who wrote New Cicero?
Leonardo Bruni
Who taught in Florence from 1396 to 1400?
Manuel Chrysoloras
Who commissioned a translation of Plato’s dialogues by Marsilio Ficino?
Cosimo de’ Medici
What did Marsilio Ficino dedicate his life to?
the translation of PLato and the exposition of the Platonic philosophy known as Neoplatonism
What was the manuscript that Marsilio Ficino translated into Latin?
Corpus Hermeticum
Who was Ficino’s pupil?
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
What did Pico produce?
Oration on the Dignity of Man
What was Dante’s masterpiece?
The Divine Comedy
What does “Inferno” represent symbolically?
despair
What does “Purgatory” represent?
hope
In Paradise, who is Dante guided by?
Saint Bernard
What does Saint Bernard symbolize?
mystical contemplation
What does paradise reflect?
perfection or salvation
Who was one of the extraordinary vernacular writers of the age?
Christine de Pizan
Who was Christine de Pizan’s father?
Charles V
When did her husband die?
when she was 25
How long were the married?
10 years
What was one book she wrote?
The Book of the City of Ladies
What was the significance ofJohannes Gutenberg’s bible?
it was the first real book produced from movable type
What were two characteristics of the italian renaissance?
individualism and secularism
Where were individualism and secularism most noticible?
in the intellectual and artistic realms of italian culture
What was the most important literary movement associated with the renaissance?
humanism
What was renaissance humanism?
it was an intellectual movement based on the study of the classics (literary works of Greece and Rome) humanists studied the liberal arts which were all based on the study of Ancient Greek and roman authors (these subjects are what we call the humanities)
Who was called the father of Italian renaissance humanism?
Petrarch
Who was the first intellectual to characterize the Middle Ages as a period of darkness?
petrarch
Petrarch’s interest in the classics led him on a search for what?
forgotten latin manuscripts
Petrarch’s search for latin manuscripts set in motion what?
it set in motion a ransacking of monastic libraries throughout Europe
Petrarch’s emphasis on pure Classical Latin made what fashionable?
it made it fashionable for humanists to use cicero as a model for prose and Virgil as a model for poetry
Who was the milanese tyrant who threatened the liberty of the city of Florence
Giangaleazzo Visconti
Who was the classical roman statesmen and intellectual who became the model for humanists
Cicero
Who was a florentine patriot, humanist, chancellor of the city, and wrote a biography of cicero?
Leonardo Bruni
What was the title of Bruni’s biography of Cicero?
New Cicero
Who served as the inspiration for the renaissance ideal that one must live an active life for ones state and everything including riches must be considered good if it increases ones power of action?
Cicero
What did civic humanism reflect?
civic humanism reflected the values of the urban society of the Italian renaissance it intensified involvement of humanist intellectuals in the government
WHo was one of the first italian humanists to gain thorough knowledge of greek?
Leonardo Bruni
Who was Bruni a pupil of?
the byzantine scholar Manuel Chrysolaras
The second half of the 15th century saw a dramatic upsurge of interest in the works of who?
Plato
Who was the de facto ruler of Florence who commissioned a translation of Plato’s dialogues ?
Cosimo de Medici
Who did he commission to translate Plato’s works?
Marsilio Ficino
Who dedicated his life to the translation of Plato and the platonic phillosophy known as nioplatonism
Marsilio Ficino
What two ideas in neoplatonism based on
it was based on the neoplatonic hierarchy of substances
theory of spiritual love
What is neoplatonic hierarchy of substances mean?
great chain of being from lowest form of physical matter (plants) to the purest spirit (God) and humans occupy the middle position
humans were the link the material world and the spiritual world
What was the highest duty of humans according to the Platonic hierarchy of substances?
their duty was the apprehend higher things and ascend toward union with God that was the true end of human existence
What did Ficino’s theory of spiritual (or Platonic) love maintain?
it maintained that just as all people are bound together in their common humanity by love so too are all parts of the universe are held together by bonds of sympathetic love
What was another product of the Florentine intellectual environment?
renaissance Hermeticism
What else did Ficino translate?
he translated a greek manuscript into Latin entitled Corpus Hermeticum
What two kinds of writings did Corpus Hermeticum contain?
One type stressed the occult sciences (astrology, alchemy, and magic) the other focused on theological and philosophical beliefs and speculations
Who was the most prominent Magi in italy?
Ficino and his friend and pupil Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
What is Pico’s most famous writing?
the oration on the dignity of man
What did the Oration say?
it offered a ringing statement of unlimited human potential
What did Pico consider magic to be?
he accepted it as the science of the divine
How did the humanist movement have an effect on education?
renaissance humanists believed that human beings could be dramatically changed by education, they wrote treaties on education and open schools based on their ideas (liberal studies)
What did humanists believe that liberal studies were the key to?
they thought it was a key to true freedom enabling individuals to reach their full potential
What were considered liberal studies 9liberal arts)
according to humanists they included history, moral philosophy, and rhetoric, and letters (grammar and logic) poetry, mathematics, astronomy, music
According to humanists, what was the purpose of a liberal education?
the purpose of a liberal education was to produce individuals who followed a path of virtue and wisdom and possessed the rhetorical by which they could persuade others to take it they also stressd physical education
What were some physical education skills pupils were taught?
javelin throwing, archery, dancing, running, wrestling, hunting, and swimming
What was the purpose of humanist schools?
their purpose was to educate and elite the ruling classes of their communities
What does vernacular mean?
the language spoken in ones own region
Works of whom helped make vernacular language more popular
dante and Christine de Pizan
Who came from an old florentine noble family that had fallen on hard times?
dante
What was dante’s masterpiece (written in Italian vernacular)
the divine comedy
What is the divine comedy about?
its the story of the sole’s progression to salvation, its a lengthily poem divided into three sections
What do the three major sections of the divine comedy correspond to and what are they called?
they correspond to the realms of the afterworld, hell purgatory, heaven/paradise hell= inferno purgatory= purgatory heaven= paradise
What is Dante’s inferno about?
in inferno, Dante is led on an imaginary journey through hell, by his guide, who is the classical author, Virgil
Symbolically, inferno reflects despair
WHat does the second stage, purgatory, reflect?
hope
What does Paradises represent?
it reflects perfection or salvation
What is Christine de Pizan best known for?
her french prose works written in defense of women called
the book of the city of ladies
What was one of the most important technological innovations of civilization during the period of the renaissance
the development of printing
WHo developed printing from moveable metal type?
it was a gradual process that culminated when Johannes Gutenberg completed the process
What is the first real book produced from moveable type?
Gutenberg’s bible
What was especially well known as a printing center?
Venice
What was the most popular subject matter for books?
books religious in character
What was second in importance in subject matter in books?
latin and greek classics, medieval grammar, legal handbooks, works in philosophy, and a growing number of popular romances
What was one of the largest industries in Europe during the renaissance?
printing
Name 5 benefits of printing
encouraged the development of scholarly research
facilitated cooperation among scholars
encouraged the desire to obtain knowledge
helped produce standardized texts
stimulated the rise of expanding lay reading public
