Italian Renaissance

gigatos | January 30, 2022

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Summary

The Italian Renaissance is an intellectual-cultural movement, period, and art style that emerged in Italy in the 14th century and reached its peak around 1500. Following Jacob Burckhardt, historiography long regarded this cultural movement as a reckoning with the Middle Ages. This view is now considered outdated. Only in art and literature was there a clear break with the previous period of the Middle Ages.

Some historians place the beginning of the Renaissance in the first half of the fourteenth century. However, many aspects of Italian culture and society remained medieval; for example, the Church remained unabatedly powerful. Many Renaissance artworks have a religious theme and are located in religious buildings, such as Leonardo da Vinci”s fresco of the Last Supper in a Milanese monastery, and Michelangelo”s ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel. And even the preeminent Catholic symbol of power, St. Peter”s Basilica, was designed and built in the Renaissance. The notion of a Renaissance (the French translation of the Italian rináscita, rebirth, namely of classical antiquity) originally came from Florentines reflecting on, especially the cultural aspects of, their own history. Especially in Neo-Latin literature and the visual arts from 1300 onwards (the trecento) a gradually more negative attitude towards the preceding Middle Ages, the period between the end of the old world and the trecento, is noticeable. In it, the Middle Ages are increasingly portrayed as a period of darkness, devoid of eloquence, poetry, great sculptures and paintings. Examples of this attitude can be found in the writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio, Salutati and Bruni, and in artists and architects such as Ghiberti and Alberti. These humanists and their followers set out to revive classical ideals after the “period of barbarism,” as they called the Middle Ages. The culture of classical antiquity, considered superior, was to be restored and, if possible, surpassed (translatio, imitatio and aemulatio). These developments, however remarkable, were only supported by a predominantly male elite. For the vast majority of the population, little changed: the Renaissance as a cultural movement in Italy remained largely confined to the circle of the literate and patrons.

The Italian Renaissance peaked around 1500, after which the Italian wars disrupted the region. However, the ideas and artistic expressions of the Renaissance continued to spread throughout Europe. In many European countries, there was not only influence from Italy, but often similar cultural developments of their own.

To begin with, the idea of the Renaissance as a golden age after centuries of darkness was nothing more than a story that the humanists of the time put up themselves; it was a very self-conscious movement that formed its own reputation. In 1492, for example, the Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino claimed for his hometown of Florence the honor that “there the free arts were restored.”

The idea of the Renaissance as a historical period concept was launched by Burckhardt in his 1860 book Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien. Burckhardt spoke of a Kulturepoche. He saw the Renaissance as a whole, expressed in all aspects (politics, science, religion,…) of society. He practically left art out of his work, because in his opinion it followed its own development. Key concepts in the nineteenth-century view of the Renaissance are: realism, secularization and individualism. Opposite characteristics are ascribed to the Middle Ages.

Following Burckhardt, the Italian Renaissance was long considered the beginning of the new era, the Italy of the Medici being the first “modern” culture. On this point, perceptions have since changed radically. Whereas Burckhardt saw a clear break with the Middle Ages, contemporary historians see mainly continuity. Rather than ”modern”, the world of the Renaissance is seen as ”archaic”. Italy was primarily an agrarian society: much of the population worked in agriculture and was illiterate; the economy relied heavily on pack and draught animals. Of the 9-10 million people who lived in Italy, most lived in abject poverty. In fact, prosperity and intellectual culture were confined to the cities. Peter Burke points out that the peasantry of Italy possessed its own culture, but he then pays no attention to it in his study of the Italian Renaissance. It is a different subject. Compared to the flood of publications on the Italian cities, little research has been done on rural life during the Renaissance.

The idea that Renaissance art is superior to medieval art was for a long time the starting point of any study of the Renaissance. Even a comparison of the literary achievements of the Middle Ages and Renaissance fell a priori in favor of the latter. Then every researcher was faced with the task of explaining this sudden burst of creativity in Italy. An early humanist like Leonardo Bruni made a connection with the political freedom of Florence. For him, a republican state system and cultural flourishing were inextricably linked. Giorgio Vasari, who published a collection of biographies of artists in 1550, thought more of social factors, such as critical sense and mutual competition.Yet it took several centuries before serious historiography began to pay attention to cultural developments in Italy in the fifteenth century. Voltaire and the Enlightenment were the turning point in this case: after that, the study of social and cultural developments in the past was also taken seriously. Although by now the pioneering character of the Italian Renaissance is in many respects considered an outdated notion, it is generally agreed that in at least three areas there was a remarkable succession of artistic achievements: in painting, in sculpture, and in architecture. But even in these areas the Renaissance has lost importance: modern art and modern architecture have very consciously turned away from the classical tradition and thus also from the Renaissance.

As is usually the case of the Renaissance, the delineation in time is controversial. The idea of a rebirth can be found in writings from ~1340 onwards and was initially associated mainly with Dante and Giotto. The Italian Renaissance has no sharply defined beginning or end; in art history, dating between ca. 1340 and ca. 1550 is common.

Of course, all data on the size of the population during the Renaissance are based on estimates. Unanimity will not be achieved about them. However, the differences between the views of demographers have narrowed. In the book Italy in the age of the Renaissance, 1300-1550, F. Franceschi gives the following numbers for the population of Italy:

Presumably, a downward trend continued for some time after 1400. The recovery has been stronger in the cities than in the countryside. It took a long time to reach the population level of 1300 again.

The cultural flowering that Italy experienced during the Renaissance cannot be separated from its economic and political structures. Italy was not a political, even a cultural entity, but only a geographical concept. Several Italian dialects existed side by side. Here and there other languages were also spoken. Tuscan, the dialect of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, enjoyed a certain prestige. Those who were educated could often understand Tuscan.

Much of the country is mountainous and not suitable for agriculture. This, combined with its location in Europe and the fact that the sea is rarely far away, meant that it was precisely here that trade flourished early. Trade was concentrated in the cities. Around 1300, there were about 23 cities in northern and central Italy with 20,000 or more inhabitants. This made it one of the most highly urbanized areas in Europe. This was a necessary condition for the emergence of the Renaissance.

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Expansion

The city-states of northern and central Italy were (next to Flanders) for a long time the richest region in Europe. As a result of the Crusades, lasting trade relations had been established with the Levant. The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204) then inflicted great damage on its greatest commercial rival, the Byzantine Empire. This allowed Venice and Genoa to further expand their trade network. The main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab countries and then called at the ports of Genoa, Pisa and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes and silk, were imported into Italy and then sold back into the rest of Europe. The more inland city-states benefited from the rich agricultural lands of the Po Valley. Of great importance in the mechanism of economic exchange between France, Germany and the Low Countries were the foires de Champagne, a series of trade fairs held in the county of Champagne.

The growth of trade also stimulated agriculture and mining. The development of trade allowed northern Italy, although not rich in resources, to thrive. Florence became one of the richest cities in northern Italy, which it owed primarily to the manufacture of woolen fabrics. Production was overseen by the influential trade guild, the arte della lana.

In the thirteenth century, much of Europe was experiencing strong economic growth. The trade routes of the Italian states were connected to those of the important Mediterranean ports and later to the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic and the northern regions of Europe. The major city-states of Italy expanded during this period and became de facto fully independent. During this period, a new commercial infrastructure was developed with double-entry bookkeeping, joint-stock companies, an international banking system, a foreign exchange market, insurance, and public debt. Florence became the center of this financial sector and the gold florin became the main currency of international trade.

The new ruling merchant class adapted the feudal aristocratic model to its needs. A hallmark of the high Middle Ages in northern Italy was the rise of urban communes that had broken with control by bishops and local counts. In much of the region, the landed gentry were poorer than the urban patricians who had enriched themselves through inflationary increases in the high medieval money economy. The increase in trade during the early Renaissance further reinforced this evolution. For example, luxury goods were in high demand, leading to an increase in trade and a greater number of merchants who in turn demanded more luxury goods. These changes granted merchants almost complete control over the governments of the Italian city-states, which in turn also stimulated trade. One of the most important consequences of this political control was security. Previously, those who accumulated extreme wealth in a feudal state were constantly at risk of seizure by the monarchs, up to and including the loss of the lands they owned. More northern states, however, did retain many medieval laws that seriously hampered trade, such as the law against usury and the prohibition against trading with non-Christians. In the city-states of Italy, these laws were repealed or rewritten.

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Crisis and contraction

The fourteenth century was a period of economic recession for Europe. The medieval warm period came to an end and average temperatures dropped, so much so that from the fifteenth century onwards there was even a minor ice age. This change in climate significantly reduced agricultural production, leading to repeated famines, exacerbated by the rapid population growth of the previous decades. The Hundred Years” War between England and France disrupted trade throughout northwestern Europe; in the east, the Ottoman Empire began to expand throughout the region. The greatest devastation was caused by the Black Death, which ravaged densely populated northern Italian cities with recurring epidemics. Florence, for example, had a population of 45,000 before the plague, which declined by 25 to 50 percent over the next 47 years.

Paradoxically, it was precisely during this period of instability that the first Renaissance figures, such as Petrarch, came to prominence, and the first signs of Renaissance art were seen in the realism of Giotto. Supposedly, the disasters of the fourteenth century that had struck the population also caused a shortage of labor, so that the remaining part of the European population was richer, better fed, and had more surplus to spend on luxury goods. In addition, the collapse of the Bardi and Peruzzi banks would open the way for the Medici in Florence. The historian Roberto Lopez Sabatino even argues that the economic collapse was one of the main causes of the Renaissance. Florentine supremacy in banking was confirmed by the rise of the Banco del Medici which, founded in 1397, had branches in Milan, Pisa, Venice and Rome by the middle of the fifteenth century, outside Italy in Geneva, Bruges, London and Avignon.

In Italian cities at the time of the Renaissance there was clearly an increasing need to measure time and space. Time was organized, made measurable. This shows a desire for order and regularity. From the end of the fourteenth century, the first mechanical clocks appeared. One of the oldest of these is the famous clock in Padua, completed in 1364. In the fifteenth century, similar clocks were manufactured and hung in Bologna, in Milan (1478), and in St. Mark”s Square in Venice (1499). Subsequently, smaller bells appeared for domestic use.

In older literature, following Marx and Burckhardt, it is often proclaimed that the Renaissance entailed the “victory of the bourgeoisie. This interpretation has proved untenable. However, it is possible to identify developments in the Italian cities of the thirteenth century that can be referred to as ”democratic tendencies”. Before the thirteenth century, it was the nobility and the knighthood that held sway. In the communes, however, the popolo gained a voice in city government. Popolo does not designate “the people,” rather the middle class(es): non- noble wealthy and influential gentry, guild masters, merchants, bankers, entrepreneurs (usually called entrepreneurs in the literature), doctors, teachers, and notaries. Peasants, the poor, and men who performed unskilled work were not part of the popolo. Within the popolo, merchants dominated in the first place, to a lesser extent craftsmen. The fact that the influence of these groups increased greatly was due to their economic importance. To be able to join the magistracy or the city council there were all kinds of restrictive rules: one had to be a member of a guild, be of a certain age and have paid taxes during a (usually long) period.

Courant is the view that in time there was rather a strengthening of the hierarchy. The wealthy merchants and bankers adopted the style and customs of the old elite, the nobility. The turning point in this case was the plague epidemic in the mid-fourteenth century and the subsequent economic crisis. From the moment that the economy stopped growing, but shrank, social mobility declined sharply. The influence of the lower middle classes diminished. Palaces became larger and more ostentatious over time. Members of the urban elites were willing to pay big money for a noble title or for the right to bear a family crest. Because in the city of Durazzo the risk of being infected with the plague was very high, the doge of Venice preferred to have the city governed by a non-noble citizen.

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Women

Burke has compiled a list of the 600 most important writers, scholars and artists, those who defined the image of the Italian Renaissance. In this context, he speaks of the creative elite. He notes that only three women belonged to this intellectual elite: the poets Vittoria Colonna, Veronica Gambara and Tullia d”Aragona. Creativity in women was apparently not encouraged. Joan Kelly argues that for women, there was no Renaissance at all, “at least not during the Renaissance.” There were also female humanists during the Italian Renaissance, such as Isotta Nogarola, although they remained intellectually undervalued because of their gender. Scholarship in a woman was seen as unnatural, and was even – as with Isotta Nogarola – linked to a promiscuous lifestyle.

Incidentally, there is evidence that women were given more freedom of movement over time. More women writers and artists are known from the sixteenth century. Female painters from that century are Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana. There are a few more sixteenth-century poetesses such as Isabella di Morra, considered by some authors to be a pioneer of Romanticism. The fact that more and more writing was done in the vernacular probably gave women more opportunities.

Politically, the boot of Italy consisted of three parts. This three-part division was the result of the long-standing struggle between the kings

Thirteenth century

The northern Italian city-states had had to fight for their independence. Two German emperors defended the rights of the empire: Frederick I Barbarossa and his grandson Frederick II (1212-1250), who was also king of Sicily. The struggle between the emperors” supporters, the Ghibellini, and the papists, the Guelfi, affected Italian political relations for a long time. The pope encouraged Charles of Anjou, a brother of Louis the Holy, to conquer Naples and Sicily. The battle of Benevento (1266) sealed the downfall of the Hohenstaufen. However, the regime of the French was so hated that a popular uprising drove them out of Sicily again in 1282.

Initially, almost all Italian city-states were republics. The city governors called themselves consuls. In the course of time, almost everywhere one man (and his family) drew power to himself. Such sole rule is called signoria.

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The century of Dante and Petrarch (about 1275-1375)

In the late Middle Ages (from ~1300), Latium, the region around Rome, and southern Italy were poorer than northern Italy. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Church State was a disjointed whole, vulnerable to external interference such as that of France. The papacy was defied by France, which, under pressure from King Philip the Handsome (1285-1314), installed a pope in the southern French town of Avignon. Sicily had experienced periods of prosperity during the Emirate of Sicily, and later during the two centuries it was an independent kingdom. The fall of the Hohenstaufen put an end to independence and economic prosperity. Economically, southern Italy and Sicily were important primarily as suppliers of raw materials, primarily grain and wool, and as markets.

The failed expedition of Roman King Henry VII of Luxembourg in 1310-1313 made it clear that the empire had become more or less irrelevant in Italy. The power of the French monarchy gradually declined after its zenith under Philip the Handsome; as a result, France for a long time interfered less in the affairs of the peninsula.

Venice, Florence, Siena, Genoa, Lucca and Perugia were still republics in 1300. Most of the city-states had now become signoria.

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From the death of Petrarch to the Peace of Lodi (1374-1454)

In the years following Petrarch”s death, Italy”s political landscape underwent a number of significant changes. In 1376, Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome. From this point on, the popes began to become more actively involved in Italian politics again. The Western Schism of 1378 to 1417 tore Christianity apart and undermined the authority of the Church. It also took the popes to maintain their authority over the Roman nobility.

In Florence, the guilds lost much of their political influence. The Ciompi of 1378, a revolt of Florentine textile workers, failed; the city government took on an increasingly oligarchical character. Similar developments took place in other Italian cities.

In addition to internal strife, war between city-states was a recurring phenomenon. For example, Gian Galeazzo Visconti (†1402), the first Duke of Milan, pursued an aggressive policy aimed at expansion. There was also unrest in the kingdom of Naples. Queen Johanna I was deposed in 1381. This was followed by fighting between the Anjou dynasty and the Aragon dynasty. In time, the dynasty of Aragon won: in 1442 Alphonsus V conquered Naples. Especially the Republic of Venice succeeded in expanding its territory. The republic conquered not only Istria and Friuli, but also a large number of formerly independent cities. Successively Treviso (1388), Vicenza (1404), Verona and Padua (1405), Brescia (1426) and Bergamo (1428) were added to Venice”s territory. Several French kings sought to expand power in northern Italy. They believed that the Duchy of Milan belonged to them because the daughter of Gian Galeazzo Visconti had married Louis of Orleans. From 1396 to 1409, the French ruled in Genoa.

Gradually, in the fifteenth century, some regional powers emerged: the Duchy of Milan, the republics of Venice and Florence, and the Church State. In the signory, the rule had now become hereditary. Famous families include the Visconti in Milan, the Este family in Ferrara, the Gonzaga”s in Mantua, and the Della Scala”s in Verona.

The military expenditures of the Italian city-states were of a considerable magnitude. Over time, these expenditures increased, and so did the state debts of the city-states. In 1433, the state debt of Florence was 4 million florins.

In 1375, a student of Petrarch, Coluccio Salutati, a humanist, became chancellor of the republic of Florence. In the following years a number of important artists were born: the architect Brunelleschi in 1377, the sculptors Ghiberti and Donatello in 1378 and 1386. Therefore, it is customary to have the Early Renaissance begin in these years.

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Highlight of the Renaissance (1454-1527)

The wealth, cultural influence, and division of the Italian states made Italy an attractive target for monarchs seeking territory expansion. In the fifteenth century, the Turks were already making some attempts to do so. In 1494, King Charles VIII crossed the Alps with a French army. Without much difficulty he marched up to the kingdom of Naples to claim the throne there, but after the Battle of Fornovo in 1495 he had to abandon all his plans for Italy. In the following decades, several European states nevertheless made attempts to conquer parts of Italy. The rivalry between France and the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire and the also Habsburg Spain played the main role in this. The plundering of Rome (Sacco di Roma) in 1527 by the troops of Emperor Charles V was a sad low point. Although it is difficult to pinpoint one specific year as the ”end of the Renaissance in Italy”, it was a sign of the times: the heyday of the Renaissance was over in Italy.

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After the Sacco di Roma (1527)

In the battle for Italy between the French Valois and the Habsburgs, the Habsburgs emerged as the clear winners. For nearly two centuries, the Spanish dominated Italian politics.

From ~1540 onwards, the Catholic Church followed a very different policy: fighting the “Protestant heresies” was now given top priority. Many books were banned; the intellectual climate changed greatly. The spirit of the Counter-Reformation prevailed.

The importance of the ongoing rivalry and struggle between the cities and different social classes of Italy declined sharply. The cultural expressions of the Renaissance largely lost touch with current events. Intellectual debate continued mainly in the study.

For medieval man, all of life from birth to death was governed by the Christian faith. It was not unusual to attend Mass daily. The distinction between the sacred and the profane was often not sharp. (Only the Council of Trent (1545-1563) would change this). The familiarity with the “sacred” expressed itself in behavior that later centuries would judge as “disrespectful. Numerous reports from contemporaries show that in Raphael”s century it was not uncommon to talk during Mass, or to walk through the church. Churches were used for eating, drinking, dancing, gambling and begging. Church buildings were used as warehouses.

In the cities of Italy, a substantial part of the population belonged to the clergy. Estimates have been made of the number of clergy in Florence. Burke refers to research by Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber, published in 1978. They estimated the population of Florence in 1427 to be 38,000. Among these were about 300 priests, and more than 1,100 monks, nuns, and mendicants. Over time, the number of clergy actually increased relatively. Incidentally, the distinction between clergy and laity was not always clear. There are reports of clergymen working as bricklayers, or carrying weapons. There was (still) no training for priests. There was therefore much criticism of the clergy. In Italy the criticism sounded even fiercer than in the surrounding countries. We find these critical sounds in the stories of Boccaccio and the writings of Poggio Bracciolini, among others.

Renaissance Pope

Most Renaissance Popes behaved like secular princes. Reconquest and later expansion of the Church State seemed to be their main goal. The papal curia was primarily designed to generate as much revenue as possible. Despite recurring calls for reform, everything remained as it was.

At the time of the Renaissance, the Borgia family, the Della Rovere family, and the Medici each produced two popes. The wealthy popes and cardinals increasingly acted as patrons for Renaissance art and architecture, and took the initiative in (re)constructing Rome”s architectural landmarks.

The humanists Nicholas V (1447-1455) and Pius II (1458-1464) succeeded in fulfilling their role as pope with a sufficient sense of responsibility. Under Sixtus IV (1471-1484), decline set in. He widely used the authority he enjoyed as pope for the enrichment of his family, Della Rovere. Notorious is his involvement in the Pazzi conspiracy (1478). Innocent VIII (1484-1492) primarily promoted the interests of his own children. His successor was the infamous Alexander VI, Rodrigo de Borja (1492-1503). He was a key player in the complex web of international European diplomacy. His warmongering on behalf of his son, Cesare Borgia, ultimately yielded very little. “Within the Vatican, this disastrous pontificate represented the nadir of corruption and moral decay.”.

The large number of literate people made possible the sudden blossoming of Italian literature. Before the thirteenth century, writers with any ambition always wrote in Latin. This was in stark contrast to developments in France and Spain, where high-level literature was produced in the vernacular. Apart from literary purposes, from the thirteenth century onwards the vernacular was also widely used in everyday life: people wrote countless sermons, business letters, political reports, diaries and family chronicles in the local vernacular. After the introduction of printing at the end of the fifteenth century, nowhere were so many books published in the vernacular as in Italy.

Florence, the main city in Tuscany, is rightly considered the first city of the Renaissance. It experienced an unprecedented cultural boom during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. It was a medium-sized city by Italian standards; in the fifteenth century it had about 60,000 inhabitants. The city owed its prosperity in particular to a flourishing wool industry, the manufacture of woollen fabrics. Twelve artists” guilds regulated trade and formed the basis of Florence”s commercial success. Wealthy members of the guilds held important positions in government and were among the most influential citizens of society. The Palazzo Vecchio, built in 1299, was the home of the Florentine guilds. It functioned as the seat of municipal government and the heart of Florentine culture. It was here that the 5,000 guild members, who also possessed voting rights, met to discuss city affairs and make decisions. Among them, in addition to textile workers and bankers, were masons and builders, sculptors, lawyers and notaries.

It was a few Florentine writers who defined the image of the Renaissance. In the fourteenth century they were Dante, in fact still typically a medievalist, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Machiavelli (†1527) made an important contribution to political theory.

Around 1400, a war raged between Florence and Milan. Duke Gian Galeazzo Visconti not only ruled in Verona, Vicenza and Padua, but also extended his power southward. He conquered Pisa, Perugia, Siena and Bologna. Florence rightfully felt surrounded. It managed to resist Milan”s pressure until the duke succumbed to the plague in 1402. The chancellor of Florence, Leonardo Bruni, defended Florence”s political independence with the pen. He compared Florence to the Athens of Pericles and to Rome before the emperors had put an end to freedom.

During the fifteenth century the Medici,a family of merchants and bankers, gradually made themselves masters of power. The family owed its wealth to Giovanni de” Medici (1360-1429). Giovanni”s son, Cosimo de” Medici (1389-1464),enjoyed the support of the poorer sections of the population. Although republican institutions were maintained, he controlled politics. Lorenzo il Magnifico (1449-1492), his grandson, enjoyed particular fame as a poet, connoisseur of art and patron. Cosimo de” Medici attracted Niccolò Niccoli (1364-1437), an enthusiastic collector and copyist of ancient Greek manuscripts. Under his influence, Florence became a center of humanism.

The culture of the urban renaissance and the penitential preaching of the mendicant orders clashed. The prior of a Dominican monastery, Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498) had such an influence on the population with his preaching that it destroyed all signs of secular life: the ruling family of the Medici had to leave the city of Florence.

In the sixteenth century, Tuscany became a grand duchy. The Medici would rule there until 1737.

The ideals of the Renaissance spread from Florence to its Tuscan neighbors, such as Siena and Lucca. Tuscan culture soon became the model for all the states of northern Italy, and the Tuscan language variant of Italian became dominant (especially in written literature) throughout the region. When Francesco Sforza came to power in Milan in 1447, he rapidly transformed this medieval city into a major center of art and science. One of the scholars attracted by this was the architect and humanist Leone Battista Alberti, who would play an important role in the theory of Renaissance art. Duke Francesco Sforza had the Ospedale Maggiore built and the Palazzo dell”Arengo restored, among other things. The Sforzas were friends of the Florentine de” Medici family. Together they stabilized relations between the cities with the Peace of Lodi and other treaties so that a long period of peace dawned for all of Italy. This created an exceptionally favorable climate for the flowering of the arts and letters.

Venice, one of the richest Italian cities as a result of its control of the Adriatic, also became a center for Renaissance culture, particularly architecture. Like Florence, Venice was a republic during the Renaissance. Actually, Renaissance Venice was more of an “empire,” ruling over part of the territory of present-day Italy and controlling much of the Adriatic coast and many islands. Its stable political climate and thriving trade economy had weathered well the period of the Black Death and the fall of trading partner Constantinople. This healthy economy, as in Florence, was an important factor that promoted the flourishing of the arts. It attracted many artists who were able to obtain commissions from wealthy patrons in Venice.

Smaller towns also came under Renaissance influence through patronage: Ferrara and Mantua under the Gonzaga family and Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro.

In Naples, the Renaissance was ushered in under the patronage of Alfonso I, who conquered Naples in 1443. Artists such as Francesco Laurana and Antonello da Messina, and writers such as the poet Jacopo Sannazaro and the humanist scholar Angelo Poliziano he provided the necessary help and encouragement. During the period of the viceroys, the population of Naples grew from 100,000 to 300,000. In Europe only Paris was more populous. The most important of the viceroys was Pedro Álvarez de Toledo. He introduced heavy taxes but also improved the appearance of Naples. For example, he had the main street (which still bears his name) widened, provided paved roads, had old buildings restored and new buildings erected, and reinforced the city wall.

Rome lagged somewhat behind those first few years. Even though the papacy returned in 1417, the city remained poor and largely a ruin. Under the warlike Pope Julius II (Il Papa Terribile), the rebuilding of St. Peter”s Basilica began. As the papacy fell under the control of wealthy families from the north, such as the Medici and the Borgias, the spirit of Renaissance art and philosophy began to strongly influence the Vatican. Pope Sixtus IV continued the work of Nicholas V and ordered the construction of the Sistine Chapel. Pope Sixtus V, in turn, instigated a major Roman city expansion.

Artists and architects did not usually stay in the city where they were born. Depending on the commissions they received, they sometimes stayed in another city for years. Michelangelo, for example, a Tuscan native of Caprese, worked in Rome for several years. Raphael Santi was born in Urbino, went to Florence to be inspired by the style of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and a few years later moved to Rome to work there.

Italy would remain at the forefront of the artistic field in Europe until the 17th century. Stimulated by initiatives of the French court, however, France took over this role in the course of this century. The Royal Academy of Sculpture and Painting in Paris, founded in 1648, even surpassed in fame that of Florence (the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno), which had been founded in 1563 by Giorgio Vasari as the first art academy in Europe. The academy in Rome was also surpassed in importance and prestige by the French academy, and it was especially the Paris academy that would become the guiding force for academic art education in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The dissemination of the heritage of the Renaissance, especially of the visual arts, proceeded along three paths:

In particular, the linear perspective and the precise depiction of the human anatomy made a great impression on artists outside Italy. The countries that came into contact with Italian Renaissance culture never blindly assimilated the examples of the Italians, but developed their own “national” variants of, for example, architecture and painting. Thus, the School of Fontainebleau emerged in France, which, although inspired by Italian examples, took on a character all its own.

The artists and architects of the Low Countries also did not simply blindly adopt themes and techniques of Italian masters, but gave them their own interpretation. The first academies of the Northern Netherlands were founded towards the end of the 17th century. However, the situation for artists in the Republic of the Netherlands differed significantly from that of their Italian counterparts. Dutch visual artists hardly received commissions from the court, which was not due to the quality of these painters, but to the fact that they preferred to depict non-classical subjects. The court therefore often awarded the commissions to foreign artists. Artists from the Northern Netherlands could also expect few commissions from the clergy, since strict Calvinism prohibited paintings in churches and other buildings. Painting in the Golden Age therefore took on a completely different face from that of, say, France. They painted mainly landscapes, portraits and still lifes for wealthy citizens. Classicism, however, would also gain influence in the Netherlands as a reaction against naturalism towards the end of the 17th century. The art of the Flemish Primitives (or Early Netherlandish painting) – see for example Jan van Eyck – coincides with the Italian Renaissance, but is nevertheless often considered a separate art movement that leans more strongly against the medieval conceptions of art.

The words ”Italian Renaissance” are often primarily associated with the works of art from this (stylistic) period: the frescoes, paintings, sculptures, buildings, etc. This overlooks the fact that contemporaries at the time were more likely to boast about rediscovering texts from Antiquity and what this had brought about: in the eyes of the humanists, nothing less than the revival of civilization. Humanists, following the example of the Romans, liked to dress in togas and held a higher social position than a fine artist. Being able to write a speech in the style of Cicero or an ode like Horace was valued more highly than producing a painting or sculpture. An additional consequence of the intensive study of the ancient manuscripts was the emergence of what may be called “modern research methods. Here was the initial impetus for the later modern study of history and linguistics. The passion for ancient writings and their critical study led to a renewal in the arts.

Further examination of the group Burke called the creative elite reveals that the group of writers, scholars, and artists can be divided socially into two groups. On the one hand, there were the writers, humanists, and scholars. Many of them were of nobility; also, most had been educated at a university. The painters and sculptors were generally from less privileged backgrounds. Most knew little about theology and the classics and were therefore often dismissed as “ignorant. They had learned their skill in practice, as apprentices in the workshop of an established artist. Because many artists kept a kind of “store,” they were sometimes compared to shoemakers and grocers.

Patronage

It is a myth that the artists of the Renaissance were free to develop their own ideas and creativity. It was to a large extent the patrons from whom the initiative came in the creation of all architecture, sculpture and paintings. It is also incorrect to look back on the artist-patron relationship in this period with contemporary views on art. After all, in the fifteenth century it was the patron who was considered the true creator of the work. It was also the patron who exercised control over the final outcome of the commission.Not all art was commissioned. A market for art was cautiously beginning to develop. Artists were producing works of art and then trying to monetize them.

Hollingsworth distinguishes several groups of patrons during the period of the Italian Renaissance: the wealthy merchants of cities like Florence and Venice, the politically powerful rulers of the various city-states (especially those of Milan, Naples, Urbino, Ferrara and Mantua), and the papal court in Rome. In addition to the aforementioned, there are of course less wealthy merchants, bankers of all kinds and rulers of less powerful states such as Siena and Genoa who also acted as patrons for artists, architects and craftsmen they recruited for the decoration of their houses.The main patron was the Church. This immediately explains why the majority of the paintings dealt with a religious subject. For that matter, religious art was also in great demand among lay people. Some were hung in churches and chapels, others in private homes. Sometimes members of the clergy ordered non-religious art.

At the time of the Renaissance, those who produced “art” often maintained remarkably close ties to the milieu of those in power. Art was widely used to legitimize power. Conversely, a ruler was expected to commission art on a regular basis and to contribute substantially to all kinds of public rituals, such as parades and gatherings.Many important art collections were therefore formed by powerful and wealthy patrons. All belonged to the aristocracy of power (princes, dukes, kings, pope) and of the economy (great merchants, who invested their money in the production of art). The royal courts were the centers where Renaissance culture flourished par excellence. Some examples:

The patronage of art and architecture was a means for the popes to increase the prestige of the Church State, as well as a consequence of the personal preferences of individual popes. The popes did not clearly assume their role as patrons of art and architecture until the fifteenth century.Because the popes resided or were divided in Avignon after 1309, Rome remained architecturally underdeveloped compared to other major cities. Pope Nicholas V established the famous Vatican Library. Pope Sixtus IV took radical measures that had a significant beautifying effect on Rome”s cityscape. He embarked on a massive project to redesign and reconstruct Rome, widening its streets and demolishing its dilapidated ruins. He also sponsored the works on the Sistine Chapel and enlisted the help of many artists from other Italian city-states. Pope Julius II acted as patron of arts. His successor, Leo X, is known for his patronage of Raphael, whose paintings were given a major role in the redesign of the Vatican.

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Philosophy and literature; humanism

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, humanists formed a new group of secular scholars. Medieval scholars of the scholastic era usually belonged to the clergy. With the growth of literacy in cities such as Florence, children of wealthy merchants now had the opportunity to study.

In the Middle Ages, the Bible and the Church Fathers were studied primarily (exegesis). In addition, the works of pagan authors such as Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Caesar, Livius, Tacitus, and Seneca were read and copied. However, many manuscripts lay dormant in libraries; people often did not know where certain works were kept. As a result, it seemed that more than half of the corpus had disappeared. A number of Greek texts were known in the West only in often poor translations into Latin.

The movement that has subsequently come to be called “humanism” originated in the thirteenth century. At the time, Lovato dei Lovati and Geri d”Arezzo advocated more time and attention to classical authors in education. This plea eventually became popular among teachers, notaries, and other members of the elite. The early humanists were full of praise for the classical texts of Cicero, Virgil, and Seneca, among others. These texts often had a practical purpose and were drafted as dialogues, speeches, and treatises. In studying these texts, the humanists paid close attention to form and style, and they subjected the Greek and Latin manuscripts to a thorough analysis. In doing so, they laid the foundation for a critical philology that described the literary and stylistic characteristics of the texts in detail. The great example of the humanists was the orator Cicero. They admired both his eloquence and his active political involvement and eye for the public good.

Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) can be considered the “leader” of the humanists. He was the son of a merchant exiled from Florence. He spent part of his life near the papal court in Avignon. He studied law and received the lower ordinations. He traveled extensively. His restless, ambivalent nature is evident in his numerous letters and writings. He greatly admired both Cicero and Augustine. By even writing two letters to Cicero, he revived a classical genre. It was an established fact for Petrarch that eloquence and virtù (= virtue) are related. This idea is the starting point of the humanist movement. Petrarch also showed the way in terms of collecting and editing classical texts. Famous is his discovery in 1345 of a copy of the letters of Cicero to his friend Atticus.

One of the first humanists, besides Petrarch and Angelo Polziano, was the Florentine Leonardo Bruni. He published “History of the Florentine People” (Historiae Florentini populi libri XII), which can be considered the first modern history book. Thus, he was the first historian to make a threefold division of history into the “great periods”: antiquity, Middle Ages, and New Age. As secretary to the papal chancellery and later as chancellor of Florence, he also had great influence on politics. Other key figures in humanist philology include Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) and Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499).

During the Renaissance in Italy, the intellectual elite became more attentive to man and the potential of his intellect. The work of the literati and philologists was later given the name “humanism. The umanista emphasized the study of classical texts in upbringing and education. The term is derived from studia humanitatis, a fifteenth-century curriculum composed of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and ethics, which aimed at elevating the intellectual and moral qualities of the individual. This ideal was also called the human virtù. To achieve this, a reform of culture was necessary. Hence, Renaissance humanism can be considered the engine of the Renaissance: the ignorant and passive medievalist had to give way to the active Renaissance man, who sought to harness the full potential of the individual. It is sometimes suggested that the Christian faith lost importance because of the increased attention to the classics. The writings of the influential Petrarch do not demonstrate this at all. Petrarch was convinced that reading and studying classical authors would lead to a more virtuous and also a more Christian walk of life.

Burckhardt believed that the goal of the humanists was “to know what the antiques knew, to write as the antiques wrote, and to think and even feel as the antiques thought and felt.” ”Reproduction of Antiquity” was, in this view, the main goal of the humanists. Reproduction was shaped by manuscript tracing, text criticism, and imitation. Burckhardt”s view is somewhat naive and also does the humanists short. Reproduction was not the primary goal. The historical factual material and literary skills of Classical Antiquity were a powerful weapon the humanists wielded to interpret and justify the political reality in which they themselves lived. They opposed the courtly culture of the knights and the scholastic tradition of the universities. They were well aware of the great differences in the political, religious and social fields between antiquity and the present. “This ability to discern both meaningful connections and pronounced differences, coupled with the desire to rival the cultural ideal of antiquity, distinguishes Italian Renaissance humanism from earlier attempts to revive classical ideals.”

In the fifteenth century, Greek scholars fled to Italy after the conquest of Byzantium (1453) by the Ottomans. Their linguistic work would stimulate linguistic studies at the newly established academies of Florence and Venice during the Renaissance. On their flight from the Turks, these Byzantines took with them sometimes precious manuscripts, and of course their knowledge of (ancient) Greek. Thus they made a crucial contribution to the Renaissance. In Italy and abroad, humanist scholars searched monastery libraries for ancient manuscripts and thus rediscovered Tacitus and other Latin authors. With Vitruvius, the architectural principles of antiquity came to light again. Renaissance artists were encouraged to surpass the great works of the ancients (in the spirit of the painter Apelles).

Aristotle remained the most influential Greek philosopher, although his thinking increasingly had to compete with that of Plato. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) translated Plato”s work and wrote commentaries to it that contributed greatly to the spread of Plato”s teachings. Many Renaissance thinkers were therefore adherents of Neoplatonism, which became known in intellectual circles around Florence not only through Ficino but also through the work of Georgios Gemistos Plethon and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. A philosophical bastion of Aristotle”s thinking remained the University of Padua. There Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1524) studied Aristotle”s texts without the mediation of Thomism and Averroes. In general, it can be said that the theocentrism of the Middle Ages gave way to an anthropocentric world view.

With the work of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), particularly the Divina commedia, the literature of the Middle Ages reached its zenith. At the same time, there are elements in his work that point forward to later developments.

Francesco Petrarch and Boccaccio, like Dante, wrote some of their work in the vernacular. They stimulated interest in the classical heritage by translating, imitating and, if possible, surpassing classical authors (translatio, imitatio and aemulatio). Petrarch”s influence on later humanism is great. Boccaccio is best known as the author of the Decamerone, which enjoyed almost immediate success throughout Europe. After Petrarch”s death in 1374, virtually no poetry of significance was written in Italian for 100 years.

Famous fifteenth-century poets who wrote in the vernacular include Luigi Pulci (Morgante), Matteo Maria Boiardo (with the poem Orlando innamorato), and Ludovico Ariosto (Orlando furioso). Fifteenth-century writers such as the poet Angelo Poliziano and the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek.

In the early sixteenth century, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote Il Principe (The Prince) and Castiglione Il libro del cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), both of which attempted to influence the political, intellectual, and moral climate of their times. A key concept in Machiavelli”s posthumously published Il Principe is virtù, which should be understood as boldness rather than virtue. After all, a ruler with virtù could break his word, lie and even commit murder in the interests of the state. Despite the fact that it is now considered one of the first works on political philosophy, Machiavelli”s theories did not receive much of a hearing among his contemporaries. His plays, on the other hand, including his masterpiece La mandragola (The Alruin) from c. 1518, would form the basis of a whole new style of theater. By focusing on local social problems, his theatrical work marked the transition for Europe from the 15th-century works inspired by the Latin comedies of Plautus and Terentius to the English Renaissance theater best known as William Shakespeare.

Of great importance in this whole development is the work of the printer Aldus Manutius who, with his established Aldine printing house in Venice, stimulated the production of the small, relatively inexpensive portable book. He was also the first to publish books in Ancient Greek.

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Fine Arts

The way people in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries viewed art objects is fundamentally different from the way we view and interpret them today. The concept of “work of art” did not exist. According to Burke it is more accurate to speak of images before ~1500. Contemporaries were very much aware of the fact that, for example, paintings are transient.

Religious images were sacred. It was believed that (some) images of the Virgin Mary and of Christian saints could perform miracles. Images of St. Sebastian were very popular, as this saint was expected to offer protection against the plague. Music was attributed similar therapeutic powers. In Florence, people carried an image of the Blessed Virgin (from the church of Impruneta) in a procession through the city to end periods of drought or excessive rainfall. Some images with a non-Christian theme were also presumably expected to have ”magical” influence. An example is the frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia at Ferrara. These frescoes deal with astrological themes. For example, it is quite possible that Botticelli”s Primavera was intended to evoke the beneficial influence of the planet Venus.

In the Middle Ages, art was considered a craft, an ars mechanica that was practiced not for its own sake but for the purpose of beautifying or depicting something. The practical purpose here prevailed. Church buildings also had a kind of function in this respect, namely to bring man closer to God and to strengthen him in what he believed, and probably also to inspire awe. This was especially evident in the Gothic architectural style, which is characterized by impressive, heavenward-looking structures. In this, the builder and artist was seen as a craftsman, not an intellectual.

This changed in the Renaissance. What had already been known as artes liberales (liberal arts) in the Middle Ages gradually became more important and began to be part of a more intellectual vision of the visual arts. Art now had a much more individual purpose and became an intellectual process, associating it with the theory of beauty for the first time in art history. This relationship between intellect and art was something the humanists also found in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. These Greek thinkers would have a major impact on Renaissance art theory. Ultimately, Aristotle would exert a greater influence and the achievement of beauty was determined primarily by the application of a set of fixed rules and not, Platonically interpreted, as an imitation of an ideal that was actually unachievable.

Thus, what distinguished Renaissance art from medieval art included the following:

The person who gave art theory a theoretical foundation was Leon Battista Alberti. He wrote three tracts on art:

These tracts set the tone for a more empirical (Aristotelian) approach to the visual arts. Alberti”s conception of art would prove very influential and his ideas of disegno, imitatio and harmony (as a recreation of nature) quickly found acceptance among artists and humanists.

Someone whose views went against Alberti”s emphasis on proper proportion and application of rules was the philosopher Marsilio Ficino. He emphasized rather the metaphysical and the invisible, something that could not be found in the material world through imitation of nature. With him, it was actually more about the inspiration, intuition and creative idea, rather than the skill of the maker. So in this he followed Plato more than Aristotle.

By which artists these two views were then followed is, of course, not so unambiguously ascertainable. Raphael, for example, writes in a letter to his friend Baldassare Castiglione that in order to paint a beautiful woman he must be able to draw all kinds of beautiful parts of women. But in the same letter, he then goes on to say that – if those “parts” are not available appeals to a ”certa idea” and that, in turn, sounds very platonic.

Michelangelo, in turn, can count as an example of an artist who approaches his subject more from a metaphysical perspective. From him is known the statement that with the unprocessed block of marble in front of him, he already sees the image in it and just has to “take it out. He saw artistry more as an individual talent, not as the application of fixed rules. An artist had to have the ”artist”s eye” (giudizio dell” occhio).

The influence of Alberti”s “Della pintura” (Latin: The pictura) was considerable. Central to this work are a number of concepts that every Renaissance artist was expected to know. Two of the most important were:

The goal of the historia was a clear, orderly presentation that could move, instruct and amaze the viewer.

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Architecture

The presence of a large number of Roman ruins inspired Italian architects without actually copying these classical examples. This was probably due in part to the fact that these structures had not been sufficiently preserved. Renaissance artists made sketches of the ruined buildings and used elements of what they found in their own work. For example, Brunelleschi”s and later Michelangelo”s domes were clearly inspired by the dome of the Pantheon, one of the better-preserved structures of the classical past. And Andrea del Palladio (1518-1580) would influence architecture far beyond Italy with his realizations of villas and churches.

In Florence, the Renaissance style was introduced by Leone Battista Alberti with a revolutionary but incomplete monument in Rimini. Alberti, with his De re aedificatoria X (Ten Books on Architecture), was the first to provide a theoretical treatment of architecture in antiquity. Some of the oldest buildings with Renaissance features are Brunelleschi”s Church of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel. The interior of the Spirito Santo expresses a new sense of light, brightness and space typical of the early Italian Renaissance. The architecture was to reflect the philosophy of humanism and clarity of mind, in contrast to the “darkness” and spirituality of the Middle Ages. The revival of classical antiquity is also illustrated by the Palazzo Rucellai. The columns here follow the classical scheme with Doric capitals on the first floor, Ionic capitals on the second floor and Corinthian capitals on the upper floor.

In Mantua, it was Leone Battista Alberti who introduced the “new” antique style, although his main work, the Sant”Andrea, was not begun until after his death.

The High Renaissance, as the style is now called, was introduced to Rome with Donato Bramante”s Tempietto in the courtyard of the Church of San Pietro in Montorio (1502) and his original, centrally-framed St. Peter”s Basilica (1506). This remarkable architectural commission would influence many Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo and Giacomo della Porta.

The beginning of Late Renaissance architecture (Mannerism) in 1550 was marked by the development of a new column by Andrea Palladio. Colossal columns over two stories high or more adorned the facades.

Music

Music was an inseparable part of everyday life; social activities without music (singing, dancing) were a rarity.

In the fourteenth century, music in Italy developed its own sound, which differed greatly from the ars nova in France. Musicologists made a connection with social developments. In France, the power of the monarchy and political stability were growing rapidly; in much of Italy, anarchy reigned. Moreover, in Italy there was hardly a tradition of polyphonic music as in France. In the courts of Italy, the tradition of the troubadours continued. The music of the trecento is remarkably simple and transparent; its expressiveness lies in its meandering melodies. Improvisation undoubtedly played a major role.

Although musicologists usually treat the music of the trecento (fourteenth century) together with that of the late Middle Ages, the following features can be associated with the early Renaissance:

Burckhardt paid virtually no attention to music in his studies. It would also be extremely difficult to relate the music of the fifteenth century to a “rebirth of classical antiquity. There was hardly any question of a rediscovery of music from antiquity. The music theory of the ancient Greeks was broadly known thanks to the work of Boëthius (†524). His idea of the ”harmony of the spheres” (musica mundana) was popular in learned circles during both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and still lives on in astrology. Only during the sixteenth century did the ideas of the ancient Greeks lead to experimentation. A good example is the experiments with chromatics of the theorist Vicentino. His most important work appeared in 1555.

From the beginning of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, the center of musical innovation was in the Low Countries. Italy produced few important composers during this period. However, music was in high demand. Venice and Rome (after 1420) were the main centers. To meet the increasing demand, a flood of talented composers and musicians from the Low Countries migrated to Italy. Many of them sang in either the papal choir in Rome or in the choirs of the numerous chapels established by the princes and cardinals in Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan, Ferrara and elsewhere. They brought with them their polyphonic style, and thus greatly influenced the music in Italy. Dufay, for example, wrote the motet “Nuper rosarum flores” on the occasion of the dedication of Florence Cathedral in 1436. The most important of the “Dutch” composers in Italy was Josquin des Prez. He worked in Milan, Rome and Ferrara.

In 1501, the printer Petrucci began publishing music in Venice. He began with chansons, masses and motets, the main genres. For some years he also published collections of frottole. Frottole, polyphonic songs for solo singers with a usually amorous character, were popular at the Italian courts.

The predominant forms of church music in the sixteenth century were the mass and the motet. By far the most famous composer of sixteenth-century church music in Italy was Palestrina. He was the most prominent member of the Roman school, whose supple, emotionally controlled polyphony would become defining for the sixteenth century. Other Italian composers of the late sixteenth century focused on the most important secular form of the era, the madrigal. For nearly a hundred years, these secular songs for multiple singers were spread throughout Europe. Composers of madrigals include Jacques Arcadelt, Cypriano de Rore, Luca Marenzio, Philippe de Monte, Carlo Gesualdo, and Claudio Monteverdi.

Italy was also a center of innovation in instrumental music. In the early 16th century, improvisation on the keyboard was highly valued, and there were also numerous composers who wrote virtuosic keyboard music. Many well-known instruments were also invented and perfected in the late Renaissance, such as the violin, whose earliest forms came into use in the 1550s.

By the late sixteenth century, Italy was the musical center of Europe. Almost all of the innovations that ushered in the transition to the Baroque originated in northern Italy in the last decades of the century. In Venice there were the multi-chorus works of the Venetian School.

An important music theorist was Zarlino (1517-1590).

Dance

Our knowledge of 15th-century Italian dances comes mainly from the surviving works of three Italian Renaissance masters of dance: Domenico da Piacenza, Guglielmo Ebreo and Antonio Cornazzano da Pesaro. Their works deal with roughly the same steps and dances, although some evolution is noticeable.

The main types of dances they describe are the bassa danze and balletti. These are the earliest well-documented European dances, which means we now have a reasonable knowledge of the choreography, dance steps and music used.

As much as they admired classical scholars like Plato, Galen and Archimedes, it did not stop Renaissance intellectuals from investigating nature for themselves and drawing their own conclusions. In geography, authorities such as Ptolemy and Strabo were rediscovered, but the Florentine scientist Paolo Toscanelli (1397-1482), for example, did not hesitate to put his own insights above classical masters. Toscanelli”s ideas about a narrow Atlantic encouraged the Genoese Christopher Columbus to seek a westward route to Asia in 1492. Amerigo Vespucci, also a Florentine, showed that Columbus had discovered a New World that the ancients had no knowledge of. The great merit of “engineers” like Leonardo da Vinci who sought practical solutions to practical problems was the trust they placed in experimentation. For example, da Vinci increased his knowledge of anatomy by observing for himself, and as a sculptor he obtained knowledge of the casting of metals. In turn, his study of the trajectory of a projectile helped him design catapults for the military. This was revolutionary, because in the Middle Ages people simply repeated what the authorities of the classical past had said. According to some researchers, Leonardo da Vinci could even be called the “father of modern science” because of the experiments he conducted and the clearly “scientific method” he used. However, science would be revitalized during this period mainly in northern Europe, with figures such as Nicholas Copernicus, Francis Bacon and, even later, René Descartes. The Italian mathematicians Scipione del Ferro, Girolamo Cardano, Niccolò Tartaglia and Lodovico Ferrari devised a solution to the third-degree equation and the fourth-degree equation. As a corollary, Rafael Bombelli devised the complex numbers. Finally, the Italian Renaissance culminated in the work of Galileo Galilei, who became one of the founders of the scientific method in the first decades of the 17th century with a series of groundbreaking astronomical and physical works.

Even in circles of scholars, Ptolemy”s worldview was widely accepted: the earth was the center of the universe. Around the earth were the seven “celestial spheres,” each with its own planet. Of these spheres, that of the moon was closest to the earth. Influences were attributed to the various planets. This antique-medieval worldview is very nicely described in the Divina commedia.

Although the Renaissance was not a time of groundbreaking innovations in the natural sciences, it can be said that the study of mathematics and medicine during this period was the impetus for a true scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries. During the Italian Renaissance, however, the greatest intellectual attention went to the study of classical texts. Thus, philologists laid the foundation for the philosophy of humanism.

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