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The “Rebirth” of Western Europe (1300s – 1600s)

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The Italian Renaissance

    • Possible causes?
      • The Crusades
      • Bubonic Plague
      • The Fall of Constantinople
      • Start of modern banking
      • Creation of wealthy merchants & private citizens

The Medici Family, powerful bankers from Florence, become Patrons of the arts

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The City of Florence… in 1480… and Today

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Florence Cathedral, known as the Duomo, was completed in 1436 by Filippo Brunelleschi and still holds the largest brick dome in the world (Florence, Italy)

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  • Painters use realistic styles copied from Greco-Roman Antiquity and develop the use of linear perspective (placing 3D material on 2D painting surfaces)

Renaissance Art in Italy

Filippo Brunelleschi developed the geometric method of linear perspective, still used by artists and architects today…

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European art with poor perspective…

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The Delivery of Keys (fresco) by Pietro Perugino, 1482 (Vatican City, Rome)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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The Last Supper (fresco) by Leonardo da Vinci, 1498 (Milan, Italy)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio or Raphael, 1510 (Vatican City, Rome)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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Fibonacci and the Golden Ratio?

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The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, 1506 (Louvre Museum, Paris, France)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, 1486 (Florence, Italy)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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The Venus of Urbino by Tiziano Vecelli or Titian, 1538 (Florence, Italy)

European Renaissance Art in Italy

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The Quintessential “Renaissance Man”?

Excerpts from Leonardo’s Journals and Notes (CODEX)

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  • HUMANISM: A rejection of Medieval European values. A new concentration on Greek and Roman texts, philosophy, and secular human achievements and intellect.

Renaissance Values

"What a piece of work is a man, How noble in

Reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving

how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel!

in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the

world, the paragon of animals.”

–William Shakespeare, Hamlet (late 1500s)

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The Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck, 1434 (National Gallery, London, UK)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563 (Austria, Vienna)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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Young Hare (1502) and Great Piece of Turf (1503) by Albrecht Dürer (Vienna, Austria)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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Portrait of Jakob Fugger by Albrecht Dürer, 1520 (Augsburg, Germany)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537 (Liverpool, UK)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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Portrait of Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1539 (Louvre, Paris, France)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533 (National Gallery, London, UK)

European Renaissance Art in the North

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Effects of Gutenberg’s Printing Press?

Gutenberg’s Press –The most important invention of the millennium??

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WHY???

🡪 Printing makes information widely available

🡪 Vernacular languages are written down and spread

Italian: Dante Alighieri’s Inferno & Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince English: Sir Thomas More’ Utopia & William Shakespeare’s plays

Spanish: Miguel de Cervantes’ Adventure of Don Quixote

German: Martin Luther’s translation of The Bible

🡪 Illiterate people benefit by having books read to them, and are encouraged to become literate

🡪 Published accounts of maps and charts lead to more discoveries

🡪 Published legal proceedings make rights clearer to people

🡪 Political structures and religious practices are questioned

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The Protestant Reformation

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Causes of the Reformation

  • Secularism and Humanism of the Renaissance
  • Printing Press spreads ideas
  • Decrease in respect for the Pope
  • Poorly educated priests
  • Church corruption
  • Early works of John Wycliffe and Jan Hus focusing on the Bible

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A Lutheran anti-Pope caricature (1500s)

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The Spread of Gutenberg’s Printing Press

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Martin Luther

  • Martin Luther protests the selling of indulgences (pardon for a sin)
  • In 1517, he posts his 95 THESES on the doors of Wittenburg Cathedral, protesting the indulgence-merchants
  • Luther’s 95 Theses are reprinted and begin circulation throughout the Holy Roman Empire
  • Luther rejects the Pope’s authority:
    • Christians win salvation through good works and faith
    • Belief in the Bible, not the Pope
    • All Christians are equal and can interpret the Bible themselves, without priests or clergy
  • Followers gain the name Lutherans

The “Theses Doors” (Wittenberg, Germany)

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The Spread of Lutheranism

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The German Peasant’s Revolt (1525)

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England: the Tudors

Portrait of Henry VIII, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1537 (Liverpool, UK)

Six: the Musical (2021 on Broadway)

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England: the Tudors

Official portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 1575

    • Elizabeth I: Daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn
    • The last of the House of Tudor dynasty to rule England

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John Calvin’s World in the 16th Century

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Protestant�Churches�in France�(Late 16th Century)

Eventually crushed as the Catholic Church in France persecutes Protestants during the Counter-Reformation

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The Reformation (16th Century)

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  • As the Catholic Church’s power lessens, the power of Western monarchs grow further while they build up their armies and expand their territories overseas

• The Reformation’s questioning of beliefs brings about a new Western intellectual movement by the 17th century— The Enlightenment & Scientific Revolution

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