Renaissance Flashcards
Renaissance
Started in Italy and began an explosion of creativity and art. 1300-1600
Classical ideas from Greece and Rome, “rebirth” (late 14th to mid-17th century) An era which emphasized
education, art and critical thinking.
Ideals of a Renaissance Male
Writers introduced the idea that all educated people were expected to create art, master almost every area of study, and one who achieved this was called a “universal man” - a title sought after by many. Castiglione had this title due to dance, sing, write poetry, skilled rider, wrestler, and swordsman.
Ideals of a Renaissance Female
According to “The Courtier” upper-class women were suppose to be classics, charming, dainty, pure, yet not expected to seek fame, but inspire art (and not create it, even though many rebelled). A few women, such as Isabella d’Este, exercised power due to blood, inheritance, and marriage.
Three Advantages of Italy
Thriving cities, wealthy merchant class and classical heritage from Greece and Rome.
Individualism
Stressed personality, uniqueness and personal development, A belief in the importance of the individual and the virtue of self-reliance and personal independence. During the Renaissance shows the shift from medieval thinking of the group to the new thinking of the self.
People recognized that individual achievement was limited and so it was celebrated when achieved.
Humanism
- focuses on individual achievements
- less focus on church
Secularism
A doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations. The idea that ethical and moral standards should be formulated and adhered to for life on earth, not to accommodate the prescriptions of a deity and promises of a comfortable afterlife.
Basic concern with material world instead of with internal or spiritual matters.
EXample: On Pleasure was written by Lorenzo Valla defending the pleasure of the senses as being the highest good.
City-State
A city that, with its surrounding territory, forms an independent state.
Urban Nobility
Made citizenship and political participation in the city states dependent on: a property qualification years of residence within a city social connections Example: Lorenzo Medici
Patron
A financial supporter of the arts
1. Cosimo and Lorenzo Medici
Signori
Despots or one-man rulers
Oligarchy
A form of government in which the power to rule is held by a small, usually self-appointed elite.
Rule of merchant aristocracies.
Medici
Lorenzo was a Renaissance ideal, clever politician and patron.
Cosomo was a dictator but let people think that they had power–got and maintained power through loans in the family bank
Family ruled all of Italy due to the banking-although most were not in govt. still maintained a significant amount of power.
Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446) Italian artist, architect, and engineer. Designed the church of San Lorenzo. Renaissance architects like him sought to reflect a human centered world. Won competition to build Duomo in Florence which was influential (US Capital)
Ghiberti
(1378 - 1455) A Florentine sculptor and goldsmith who taught both Donatello and Filippo Brunelleschi. He is best known for two pairs of bronze doors on the Florence Baptistery (associated with the Duomo, or Florentine Cathedral). He produced a single, low-relief panel to win a 1401 competition (defeating Brunelleschi) for the commission to design the 28 panels for the north doors. After that, he was given another commission to design ten panels for the east doors.
Humanities
The return of subjects taught in Greek and Roman Schools: knowledge concerned with human beings and their culture: philosophy, literature, and the fine arts, as distinguished from the sciences. Same Idea as humanism–grammar, rhetoric, literature, poetry, history based on ancient texts.
Francesco Petrarch
(1304-1374) Often thought of as The Father of Renaissance Humanism; he admired classical texts and believed they should be studied. Was a poet (Sonnets to Laura) and was influential. found and assembled a library of Greek and Roman manuscripts.
Christine De Pizan
(1365-1429) an Italian-born French intellectual and poet. She was a feminist of medieval times. She is known as probably the first female professional author and writer since ancient times. She wrote The City of Ladies.
Boccacio
humanist writer who wrote “The Decameron” a series of realistic, sometimes off color stories -was satire (made fun of) middle ages, and compares the two ages. Uses cutting humor to illustrate the human condition.
Treatise
a written work dealing formally systematically with a system
Castiglioni
according to him, an educated man of the upper class should have a broad background in many academic subjects. "The Courtier" (1528) had a very broader influence on education, this treatise sought to train, discipline, and fashion tough men into ideal gentlemen/Renaissance men.
Machiavelli
“The Prince” (1513) which states it is better to be feared then loved, and shows ways to gain and maintain power. Politically aided the Medici’s, and was the first Political Scientist who studied the political behavior of others. Said appearance is everything, and how you are portrayed is how you are.
Colonna
(1492-1547) Woman writer who gained fame during the Renaissance usually wrote about personal subjects, not politics. Born into a nobel family, and in 1509 married Marquis. She also exchanged sonnets with Michelangelo, and helped Castiglione publish The Courier.
