Western Humanities 201 10 (The Renaissance)

Question 1

Renaissance

Answer 1

Period from about 1300-1550. From the French word rebirth. The artistic, cultural, and intellectual movement marked by the revival of classical and humanistic values that began in Italy in the mid 14th century and had spread across Europe by the mid Sixteenth century.

Question 2

Humanism

Answer 2

An attitude that is concerned with humanity, its achievements, and its potential; the study of the humanities; in the Renaissance, identified with studia humanitatis.

Question 3

Coluccio Salutati

Answer 3

chancellor of Florence, founded and endowed many schools; Florence had no university. Argued that family life and public service, not penance and retreat from the work, should be held up as exemplary ideals. He also argued that the liberty of free, educated citizens created an environment in which people could flourish.

Question 4

Guarino of Verona

Answer 4

Stressed the importance of learning Latin and Greek in their classical purity. He believed that constant reading of and reflection on classical texts would inculcate their values in modern people. He also emphasized the importance of rhetoric, the art of speaking elegantly and persuasively, as opposed to the stress on logic and grammar that had dominated the middle ages.

Question 5

Laura Cereta

Answer 5

Eighteen year old girl and early woman humanist.

Question 6

Vittorino da Feltre

Answer 6

favored a curriculum that exercised the body and the mind - the ideal of the ancient Greek schools. His educational theories were put into practice at the school he founded in Mantua at the ruler’s request.

Leonardo Bruni - typifies the practical, civic humanist = the kind of man who believed that properly educated individuals would make for better civic community. The chief secretary of Florence’s governing body. He also worked for both the Medicis and the papacy and wrote ‘History the Florentine People.”

Question 7

Lorenzo Valla

Answer 7

exposed the Donation of Constantine as a forgery by noting that its vocabulary and grammar could not date from the fourth century.

Question 8

Cosimo de’ Medici

Answer 8

Established the Platonic Academy at one of his villas near Florence. Here, scholars gathered to examine and to discuss the writings of Plato as well as those of the Neoplatonists.

Question 9

Marsilio Ficino

Answer 9

Director of the Platonic Academy, commissioned by Cosimo to translate Plato’s work into Latin. Made himself the leading voice of Florentine Neoplatonism by harmonizing Platonic ideas with Christian teachings. Made Plato’s teaching on love central to Neoplatonism.

Question 10

Sandro Botticelli

Answer 10

Influenced by Ficino’s Neoplatonism, created several allegorical paintings in which divine love and beauty are represented by image from pre-Christian Rome. Venus, the goddess of love for example.
Pico della Mirandola - Ficino’s most talented student. Surpassed his master’s accomplishments by the breadth of his learning and virtuosity of his mind. Impressed everyone with his command of languages, his range of knowledge, and his spirited arguments. His goal was the synthesis of Platonism and Aristotelisnism within a Christian framework that also encompassed Jewish, Arab, and Persian ideas.

Question 11

High Renaissance

Answer 11

Lasting from 1494-1520. A time when the classical principles of beauty, balance, order, serenity, harmony and rational design reached a state of near perfection. Popes became the leading patrons of the new style. Time span for three important artists - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo and writer Machiavelli thrived.

Question 12

Mannerism

Answer 12

A cultural movement between 1520-1600 that grew out of a rebellion against the Renaissance’s artistic norms of symmetry and balance; Characterized in art by distortion and incongruity and in thought and literature by belief that human nature is depraved.

Question 13

Michelangelo

Answer 13

Embodied the “Renaissance man,” the well rounded cultural ideal of the period. Made remarkable achievements in architecture, painting and sculpture. He was a dedicated poet. Classicism in his High Renaissance style included the Petrarchan sonnet and the Neoplatonic philosophy that he had absorbed as a youth in Florence. In his verses, Platonic love, while originating in physical beauty, ultimately leads to the divine.
Madrigal - Irregular verse form

Question 14

Castiglione

Answer 14

Wrote “The Book of the Courtier” (or simply The Courtier), which was one of the most influential books of the High Renaissance. It became the bible of courteous behavior for Europe’s upper class until about 1800. His book turned away from the medieval values and lead his followers into the modern world. It argued that social relations between the sexes ought to be governed by Platonic Love, and also that women in society should be the educated equals of men.

Question 15

Machiavelli

Answer 15

Held a negative view of human nature and made human weakness the central message of his writings. In his writings the bleak view of human nature is meant to restore sanity to a world that he thought had gone made. Left a stronger imprint on western culture than any other figure who lived between 1494 and 1564. “The Prince” is his most enduring contribution, which inaugurated a revolution in political thought.

Question 16

Machiavellianism

Answer 16

The view that politics should be separated from morals and dedicated to the achievement of desired ends through any means necessary. Coined to describe the amoral notation that “the end justifies any means.”