The Italian Renaissance

Question 1

Pico della Mirandola

Answer 1

Humanist, leading figure of the Renaissance revival of Plato’s philosophy of neo-Platonism, wrote “Oration of the Dignity of Man”

Question 2

Niccolo Machiavelli

Answer 2

“It is much safer to be feared than loved”, wrote “The Prince” and The Discourses, had a cynical view of human nature, “the ends justify the means”

Question 3

Baldassare Castiglione

Answer 3

wrote The Book of the Courtier

Question 4

Petrarch

Answer 4

The Father of Humanism, the first to write in the Italian vernacular

Question 5

Lorenzo Valla

Answer 5

exposed the Donation of Constantine because of his knowledge of language

Question 6

Filippo Brunelleschi

Answer 6

designed the famous Renaissance Cathedral of Santa Maria dome and reestablished linear perspective in art

Question 7

Erasmus of Rotterdam

Answer 7

did the most for the Northern Renaissance, wrote In Praise of Folly that satirically critiqued the present monastic system, yet he did not seek to defy papal authority

Question 8

Girolamo Savonarola

Answer 8

anti-Renaissance because “it makes people less pious and lose their religious fervor” gains control of Florence after power vacuum of Lorenzo and the Pope’s death, but is excommunicated and tried and executed as a heretic

Question 9

Cosimo de Medici

Answer 9

brokered the Peace of Lodi between Italian city states