European Society in the Age of the Renaissance (1350-1550)

Question 1

Giorgio Vasari

Answer 1

1511-1574, art historian, first to use the word renaissance for art by artists such as Michelangelo. “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects”

Question 2

renaissance

Answer 2

french word meaning ‘rebirth,’ used to describe the rebirth of the culture of classical antiquity in Italy during the 14th to 16th century; a movement not a time period

Question 3

patronage

Answer 3

financial support of writers and artists by cities, groups and individuals, often to produce specific works or works in specific style

Question 4

communes

Answer 4

sworn associations of free men in Italian cities led by merchant guilds that sought political and economic independence from local nobles

Question 5

popolo

Answer 5

disenfranchised common people in italian cities who resented their exclusion from power

Question 6

Venice, Genoa, Milan, Florence, (Rome)

Answer 6

powerful merchant cities, who came into prosperity by overseas trade. florence was the area were the renaissance begun

Question 7

Florentine merchants

Answer 7

they loaned and invested money and even gained control of the papal banking in the 13th century. they also started banking in Northern Africa and across Alps in Europe.

Question 8

14th century crisis in Florence

Answer 8

1344 king Edward III of England repudiated his loans to the Florentine bankers which led many of them to bankruptcy; Black Death killed half of its population not soon after

Question 9

Merchant guilds

Answer 9

built and maintained city walls, regulated trade, collected taxes, and kept civil order

Question 10

citizenship in Northern Italian cities

Answer 10

merchants made it dependent on a property qualification, years of residence and social connections

Question 11

condottieri

Answer 11

military leader who were brought into cities by the merchants to establish order

Question 12

signori

Answer 12

government by one-man rule in italian cities such as Milan; also refers to these rulers

Question 13

courts

Answer 13

magnificent households and palaces were signori and other rulers lived, conducted business, and supported the arts

Question 14

15th century dominant powers

Answer 14

city states of Venice (also ranked as an international power), Milan, Florence, Papal states, Naples.

Question 15

Sforza family

Answer 15

signori who ruled in Milan and several smaller cities from 1447-1535

Question 16

Medici family

Answer 16

banking family who ran the city of Florence from 1434 for three centuries; produced three popes

Question 17

Cosimo, Piero, Lorenzo

Answer 17

part of the Medici family, not public officials

Question 18

permanent embassies

Answer 18

invented by the Italians when they formed alliances between city states; resident ambassadors were placed into cities were political relations and commercial ties needed constant monitoring

Question 19

Girolomao Savonarola

Answer 19

1452-1498; Dominician friar, before the French invasion preached God’s punishment for moral vice and corrupt leadership. appointed as the new leader after the Medicis were expelled. he reformed the government; passed laws against same-sex relations, adultery, drunkenness, organized groups of young men to patrol the streets. after some times he got removed and Medicis returned

Question 20

Habsburg-Valois wars

Answer 20

Italy had become the focus of international ambitions and battleground for foreign armies, particularly for those of the Holy Roman Empire and France

Question 21

Francesco Petrarch

Answer 21

1304-1374, Florentine poet and scholar, he spent looking through Latin material from the classical period, went around the Roman ruins. he came to believe that the period between Roman Empire and his own age was a ‘dark age’ and people whould strive for the perfections of the classical period. proposed a new kind of education in 1350: studia humanitates (liberal studies/arts)

Question 22

humanism

Answer 22

a program of study designed by Italians that emphasized the critical study of Latin and Greek literature with the goal of understanding human nature

Question 23

virtu

Answer 23

the quality of being able to shape the world according to one’s own will

Question 24

Cicero

Answer 24

106-43 BC, Roman author and statesman who’s works were seen as the glory of Roman Empire by the humanists

Question 25

Leonardo Bruni

Answer 25

1374-1444, humanist historian and Florentine city official, wrote the history of Florence in 1436. first to divide history into three eras: ancient, medieval and modern

Question 26

Marsilo Ficino

Answer 26

1433-1499, scholar who started to lecture to an informal group of Florence’s cultural elite. his lectures became know as the Platonic Academy

Question 27

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Answer 27

1463-1494, Ficino’s most gifted student; developed his ideas in a series of 900 theses.

Question 28

Leon Battista Alberti

Answer 28

1404-1472, wrote novels, plays, legal treatises, study of the family, first scientific analysis of perspective, designed churches, palaces and fortifications, invented codes, and a machine that could cipher and decipher them

Question 29

Thomas More

Answer 29

English humanist, who described the perfect society (Utopia). “Utopia” (1516)

Question 30

humanist schools

Answer 30

started to open in Italy at the beginning of the 15th century and in Northern Europe in the early 16th century. women were not allowed in those schools but a few still got the education and wrote about their ideas.

Question 31

Baldassare Castiglione

Answer 31

wrote a book on education “The Courtier” (1528), this set out the education for a perfect gentleman and a perfect lady

Question 32

civic humanism

Answer 32

educated men should be active in the political affairs of their city

Question 33

Niccolo Machiavelli

Answer 33

1469-1527, the most famous and best-known political theorist of this era. “The Prince” (1513) uses examples of classical and contemporary rulers to argue that the function of a ruler is to preserve order and security by using whatever means necessary without making people turn against him

Question 34

Leonardo Da Vinci

Answer 34

1452-1519, considered a genius, he was an engineer, painter, inventor. most famous portrait is Mona Lisa

Question 35

Christian humanists

Answer 35

northern humanists who interpreted Italian ideas about and attitudes toward classical antiquity and humanism in terms of their own religious traditions. classical and christian best elements should be combined

Question 36

Desiderius Erasmus

Answer 36

1466-1536, Dutch humanist from Rotterdam. published his won works but translated many. “The education of a christian prince” (1504), “the praise of folly” (1509), new Latin translation of the New Testament (1516)

Question 37

printing press

Answer 37

developed in Germany in the 1440s. Most known in inventing it was Johann Gutenberg. this technology bridged the gap between written and oral cultures

Question 38

Filippo Brunelleschi

Answer 38

1377-1446, designed buildings that were inspired by the classical past, commissioned to build the dome of the Florentine Cathedral

Question 39

Lorenzo Ghiberti

Answer 39

designed the bronze doors in the adjacent Baptistery

Question 40

Michelangelo

Answer 40

Florentine, painted the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel in 1508-1512, he also created the David (1501-1504), Pieta, Moses, redesigned the plaza and surrounding places in Rome, the dome of Saint Peter’s

Question 41

Giotto

Answer 41

Florentine painter who led the way in the use of realism

Question 42

Pierro della Francesca and Andrea Mantegna

Answer 42

1420-1492 and 1430/’31-1506, pioneered perspective

Question 43

Donatello

Answer 43

1386-1466, sculptor revived the classical figure

Question 44

Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck

Answer 44

1399/1400-1464 and 1366-1441, Flemish painters considered equivalents of the Italian masters and were highly regarded. The latter was the first to successfully use oil based paints

Question 45

Albrecht Dürer

Answer 45

1471-1528, from Germany Nuremberg and studied with Italians. produced woodcuts, engravings in great detail

Question 46

Raphael Sanzio

Answer 46

1483-1520, Florentine who did the frescos in papal apartments, painted hundreds of portraits and devotional images, oversaw large workshops, wrote treatises on his philosophy of art

Question 47

Titian

Answer 47

1490-1576, Venetian, produced portraits, religious subjects, mythological scenes, developed techniques of painting in oil, one of the creators of ‘mannerism’

Question 48

first artistic academy

Answer 48

founded in Florence in 1563

Question 49

debate about women

Answer 49

debate among writers and thinkers in the Renaissance about women’s qualities and proper role in society

Question 50

New Christians

Answer 50

a term for Jews and Muslims in the Iberian peninsula who accepted Christianity, in many cases they included Christians whose families had converted centuries earlier