Exam 1 Study Guide: 15th Century Italian Renaissance Flashcards
Born in Florence 1389, son of a merchant
Medici
What did the Medici dynasty want?
Power, influence, and even the papacy
in the 1400’s, a trading center and a republic of powerful families that wanted political control
Florence
Medici Bank originally ran by
Giovanni Medici, Cosimo’s father
Former pirate, now church worker. Looking to become pope, whose campaign was funded by the Medici
Baldessari Cosa
When was Baldessari elected pope? (Became John XXIII)
1410
What were Giovanni and Cosimo known as since they had full control of the papal accounts?
The God Bankers
What project did Brunelleschi take on?
The Cathedral’s Dome
Self taught genius, with many conflicts with various people, focused on classical ideas
Filipo Brunelleschi
Who patroned Brunelleschi?
Cosimo Medici
Structure in 1410 done by Brunelleschi. It used “classical orders of architecture”, going as far as actually using columns for structural support, which hadn’t been done since Ancient Rome
Orphanage
Brunelleschi became what of the Medici?
Their House Artist
Brunelleschi’s model of the dome showed what?
The largest unsupported dome in Christendom
Where did Brunelleschi write his ideas?
He didn’t. Everything was in code, and purposefully got rid of anything that showed how it was made. Up to this day there is no way of being 100% sure
What did Brunelleschi use to prove his point to the authorities?
An egg.
Building in Ancient Rome with the largest free-standing dome in the world
The Pantheon
Brunelleschi based his idea on the Ancient Roman’s idea of using timber and concrete, but he couldn’t do that now, why?
Not Enough Timber Available
How did Brunelleschi build the dome?
He placed the dome inside octagonal cathedral. Sandstone rings would hold everything together like a barrel
When did Giovanni Medici die and where was he put?
- He was put to rest in St. Lorenzo, a church rebuilt by Brunelleschi
Who was the rival family of the Brunelleschi?
The Albizzi
Cosimo’s wealth and power increasing meant what for the Albizzi?
Their wealth and power would decrease
What happened September 7th of 1433?
Cosimo was summoned to the House of Government, but was imprisoned by the Albizzi in the highest room of the palace. He was accused of treason against the city and her people, and was found guilty. Was sentenced to execution but bribed guards and escaped.
Cosimo survived and escaped the execution, but what happened next?
Medici family was vanished, leaving Florence to the Albizzi
What happened to Brunelleschi now that the Medici were gone?
He was jailed, and the work at the dome was left unfinished
Without the Medici bank, what happened to the business of Florence?
It came to a halt
Within a year of Medici’s exile, what did the Albizzi do?
Lost control of people and attacked the palace of government
The Albizzi’s attack ended the Medici’s exile leaving who in control?
The Medici once again.
The Medici coming back from exile did what for the economy?
Money started coming back, and the Medici collected money from every parish in Europe, threatening ex-communication from church if not. The pope also opened credit with the Medici Bank
Cosimo believed that, “Patronage is a…?”
Political Strategy.
What is the percentage of artists from the Renaissance that were located in Florence?
70%
In 1434 Brunelleschi unveiled?
Linear perspective
Medici commissioned Donatello to do what sculpture?
The David. (The Bronze structure showing the defeat of Goliath in what was argued to be a homoerotic manner)
This was also the first time since ancient Rome that anyone made a free standing bronze sculpture of a nude man.
Florence was often associated with what in the 15th century?
Sodomy and homosexuality. 14k people were tried for the crime of sodomy
When was the dome of the cathedral made?
- Considered the greatest architectural feat in the western world
How many bricks in the dome?
37k tons and over 4 million bricks
When did Cosimo die and what was he declared?
- Declared the “Father of the Fatherland”
The order of the cosmos centered around the concept of Ptolemaic universe. Named after the Greek astronomer Ptolemy. In this geocentric model the Earth was the motionless center of the universe.
Aristotle claimed that the heavens contained 55 spheres with the Primum Mobile (“Prime Mover”) giving motion to all spheres within it.
Medieval cosmology
Having humans at the center of everything. This cosmology was embraced and adapted to fit medieval theology.
The Prime Mover became the Christian god.
This cosmology gave way to the great chain of being in 1579
Anthropocentric
The father, Son and Holy Spirit are known as what?
Trinitarian God
The Ancient Regime, traditionally believed that humanity was stratified by God in terms of a hierarchical class system. What order did it go in?
Clergy
Nobility
Peasants/Bourgeoise
What event overturned the socio-political believed of the Ancient Regime and what year did it happen?
The French Revolution, 1789-1792
Movement specifically concerned with retrieval and interpretation of ideas and artifacts, (texts, images, pottery, buildings), of classical antiquity, (Ancient Greece and Rome), but more broadly with human individuals and their achievements
Humanism
Classical antiquity was thought of as?
The Golden Age of mankind, and hence worthy of study and emulation
The Middle Ages were conceived as what by Renaissance thinkers?
The dark ae that happened between the fall of the Roman Empire (ca 400) and the Renaissance of Europen civilisation in their own time (ca 1400)
The David, Donatello
God favoured Florence for the same reason he favoured David
Milan was the enemy (the hat, Goliath), Florence was the David
Milan and Florence were enemies
NOT public sculpture
Medici commissioned it
Medici was a humanists and supported art and culture
Masaccio The Tribute Money
Used linear perspective
Trying to bring figures to life, (naturalism)
Story of St. Peter paying taxes thanks to Jesus giving him a coin inside the mouth of a fish
All the lines converge at Jesus’s head
Some people think Brunelleschi helped him with this
Brancacci chapel in Florence
Masaccio, The Holy Trinity
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Virgin, John, and the donors + deceased who tells us about death
I was once like you, you will be where I am now
Remember to be a good christian bc you never know how soon you’ll be with God
Piero della Francesca, Madonna della Misericordia
Represents the Virgin, offering protection as a symbol of representation of the church, Mother Church
Intercessor between sinners and humans that need her help and will plead their case with God
Geometrical body
Christian philosophy of God being a rational God who created the world with an underlining divine geometry
Uses ancient philosophy like Plato (ideal forms in abstract forms)
Ideal form, gets corrupted and individualised when it gets put out onto the world
Piero della Francesca, Resurrection
Tree will not flourish until tree of death comes back by resurrecting
Sleeping soldiers at the base of the image represent spiritual blindness
Mantegna Dead Christ
Using perspective, now we’re looking at him from our perspective with showed the wounds
Intended for devout christians to contemplate the mysteries of the christian religion through looking at his body
Kneel, meditate in front of the body
Look at his body, “oh my god we killed him”
Boticelli
One of the most important artists
Worked for Medici
Birth of Venus and
Botticelli, Primavera
Humanists view, maybe for marriage as a wedding gift. Reminds Medici viewer of the Christian wife
Showed here as Venus, goddess of love and fertility
Representation of the earth itself
Nymph associated with plants and god of west wind fall in love and marry. She then transform from Cloris to Flora, Goddess of flowers
Hermes or Mercury, god who protects boundaries, keeping trouble from finding its way into marriage. Stopping clouds from coming in
Pagan imagery for symbolism so it was ok
Botticelli, Birth of Venus
Hora, symbolising probably spring
Sepher blowing “lustful” winds
Her getting covered to protect her from these winds
Newborn Venus represents newborn soul
Fertility, lust, need to be rationalised
Her pose, gently swaying towards land, shes ‘weightless’
Wants to idealise this form, representative of ideal form, celestial form
Beauty puts you in touch with all God forms
Goddess like, shes transcendence (WILL BE IN TEST)
Idealised beauty
2 Venuses: One who belongs to celestial form (idealised beauty) and the one who is more human form, Fucchino
Representation of higher beauty
Camera degli spodi mantegna
Looking down at smiling
Plants are going to rolled and fall on us
Linear Perspective
Leonardo Da Vinci, Virgin of the Rocks
First completed painting
Sfumato: Smoky light
Softened forms and darker look = sfumato in this painting
Standard gathering of figures, which people could identify
Virgin, Angel, Two male babies
Meeting in the wilderness
Someone was killing babies under 2 in fear that he might be Jesus
Christ explains to John the baptist, when im 30 you will baptise me
John wanted to live in the wilderness bc he wanted to prepare spiritually for Jesus
One baby is christ, the other one is John the baptist
Problem because the angel is pointing at the one that people think is John the Baptist
But angel’s hand is doing the John the Baptist hand
Foreshadowing of meeting in the wilderness
Prefiguration of the baptism of Christ that took place during meeting in the wilderness
Left child is Jesus, right child is John
Immaculate conception of the virgin and her salvation of mankind
Leonardo the Last Supper
Linear perspective
Wants to choreograph diff poses to show confusion, sadness, to christ pronouncement fo the last supper “one of you will betray me”
1. Pronouncement that hes going to be crucified, and the other one will betray him
2. He takes the bread and wine
Numerical proportions of the space of the room.
Musical, numerical ratios** (in test)
LOOK AT GOOGLE DOC!
Cecillia Gallerani Leonardo
Represents 16yr old mistress of duke
Aristocrat portraits usually in profile view, ¾ view is more informal
Innovations
What is she looking at? Duke
Holding an hermin, emblem for the duke
Erotically caressing the duke, as she looks at him
Mona Lisa Leonardo
Sfumato
Built up with glazes, a lot of oil, little painting to create translucent, smoky look
Penultimate effort to bring naturalism
Landscape is mythical and symbolic of earth and all its processes through time
Leonardo, St. Anne with Virgin and Child
Vigin on the lap of her mother
Jesus is playing with lamb, that represents his death, sacrificial lamb
Sfumato
Virgin is sad about his death, but acknowledges the fact thats going to happen
Divine and human
Brunelleschi dome
Herring dome pattern and flower of iron rods (2 things that made this work)
Worldview of Christian Middle Ages
Understood at a level of broad generality, the “worldview” of the Christian Middle Ages was metaphysically oriented (“beyond the physical”): earthly life was conceived as a pilgrimage back to God, a personal journey to an eternal, supreme happiness in heaven, or hell. Earthly life, in fact the earth itself, was thought to be intrinsically worthless: their sole purpose was to provide an opportunity and stage for individual Christians to act out the drama of their own redemption. Even worse, the Earth was the playground of the Devil who was relentlessly trying to capture individuals with earthly temptations (sins involving sex, power, pride, gluttony, etc.) so that he could draw them down into Hell to suffer along with him.
Florence thought of itself as?
The very embodiment of “civilization” and her enemies as the “barbarians”. They perceived themselves as defending republican virtues and democracy over and against the tyrannical governments of their enemies. As the poet, humanist, historian, and politician, Leonardo Bruni expressed it in his “In Praise of the City of Florence” Flroence was a “New Athens” because they were willing to stand up to the barbaric tyranny of their enemies who were militarily superior to them in the same way the ancient Athens, against all odds, stood up to and defeat the Persian Empire. They also felt that they were “favoured by God and were therefore able to stand up to their enemies like David to Goliath”
Microcosm and macrocosm
Two aspects of a theory developed by Ancient Greek philosophers to describe human beings and their place in the universe. Kosmos at this time meant “order” in a general sense and implied a harmonious, and therefore beautiful, arrangement of parts in any organic system; hence it also referred to order in human societies, reflected in good government.
Comparisons between society and the human being, as well as society and the universe, were varieties of microcosmic theory.
These analogies enjoyed a long life, first in the Mediterranean region during antiquity and later throughout Europe during the Middle Ages. The ideas were commonplace during the Renaissance and early modern times but lost their plausibility when a mechanistic model of the universe became dominant in the 17/18th centuries during the cognitive revolution of modern science.
The Seven Liberal Arts were composed of the Trivium and Quadrivium. What did they each include?
The Trivium included grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the Quadrivium was composed of the 4 mathematically based disciplines:
Arithmetic: number considered abstractly
Geometry: number considered spatially
Music: number considered in time
Astronomy: number in time and space considered together.
Renaissance artists began to argue that painting was now also based upon the truth of mathematics because it was grounded in geometrical optics (ie, linear perspective), and therefore should be included among the liberal arts.
Macrocosm and microcosm
The macrocosm is the world as a whole, with a microcosm being one small part, often mankind, taken as a model of it
The Great Chain of Being
hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by Medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God
