UNIT ONE
THE RENAISSANCE
Introduction
In the very first chapter of your book last year, you learned that our culture, Western culture, has been put together from ideas that come from three sources. These sources are the ideas of the Jews and Christians, the ideas of the Greeks and Romans, and the ideas of the Germanic peoples that the Romans called "barbarians". These ideas are contradictory and do not fit together easily. This fact has always given Western culture a restlessness, a tension not always present in other cultures. Western culture has had to think creatively of ways to make the ideas fit together. Let's see what these ideas are:
In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the Jewish and Christian ideas were more important to the people, but the other ideas, especially those of the Greeks and Romans, did not completely disappear. They just weren't what most people were concerned with. We are now, beginning around 1300-1350, going to see a change in the Europeans' attitudes. They are going to begin to get interested in their Greek and Roman heritage once again. Events happened in Europe at that time that fed this interest, and the Europeans gave themselves over to learning about this ancient heritage they had. Nineteenth century historians called this period of time, from about 1300-1350-1600 or so the Renaissance, or rebirth, of classical civilization. The name stuck, but it is a little misleading. To have had a rebirth of classical civilization, it would have had to be exactly like it was before, and that is not what happened. Christians in these years, 1300-1600 roughly, could not go back and be ancient Greeks and Romans! Too much had happened in the meantime, and after all, ancient Greeks and Romans, the ones the Europeans were interested in, anyway, had not been Christian! What we mean happened in these years is that Europe took a new look at their classical heritage and assimilated what they wanted of it into the culture that was forming in Europe at that time. We will now take a look at this event, the Renaissance.
Why did the Renaissance happen?
There were many factors, which may seem unrelated, that brought about the Renaissance, or 'fed' it in some way. First was the rise of towns that we discussed already. The trade between the towns brought them money and helped ideas to spread; both of these factors were important in the Renaissance. So was the fact that the towns grew more independent and powerful in time. Their citizens, busy middle class craftsmen and merchants, were interested in learning things. The bankers of these towns had the money to put into this new learning. The towns also competed. Each wanted to be the best, to have the most trade, the best variety of goods, the most technology. This led them to support those who were working on better ways to do things. This led to more trade, more new ideas and so on. These towns were also somewhat anticlerical. This means they were beginning to turn away from the church a little bit. The townsmen resented the tithe, or tenth of their income, that they had to give the church; they didn't see what it got them. This made them more willing to listen to the ideas of the Renaissance.
Second was the invention of the printing press and a cheap way to produce paper. Before the invention of the printing press, to get another copy of a book, you had to copy it over by hand. This was a long and tedious process. Needless to say, there weren't many books, and those that there were astronomical in price. The average person did not have books. The church had the books, and it guarded them jealously. The average person didn't even have the Bible. There were not many literate people. There was not much incentive to learn to read when there weren't any books to read. Then, in 1453, or around that, Johann Gutenberg learned how to make movable type and the printing press was invented! The Chinese had invented printing centuries earlier, but it was easier to print the Chinese alphabet since it is a kind of picture writing. Europeans had to deal with the fact that their languages, most of which were written in the Roman alphabet, used letters over and over. For example, the word 'that' has two t's. You had to be able to make hundreds of letter t's. You also had to make upper and lower case letters. Gutenberg's gift to the world was that he figured out a way to solve the problems of printing European languages. The first book Gutenberg printed was the Bible, as you might expect. The invention of the printing press was one of the most important inventions of history. The other invention, without which the printing press would not have been as big as it was, was the discovery of a cheap way to make paper. Europeans learned about paper from the Muslims who learned about it from the Chinese. To make paper, they took old rags - something everyone had lots of - and boiled them until they were the consistency of a thick soup. Then this mixture was pressed and dried and you had paper! With these two inventions, books became a reality for the average person. The inventions made the books so much easier to make, and so many more of them could be made, that the price of them was no longer astronomical. People had an incentive to learn to read and write, so the percentage of literate people grew larger quickly. People could educate themselves. There was some point to thinking about schools for more than just a few noble children taught by a priest. The printing press and paper were factors in the Renaissance because they helped to spread the new and /or recovered learning quickly and easily, and more people could get the benefit of it.
Third was the fact that in 1453, there was a sudden influx into Europe of old Greek and Roman knowledge. This happened because in 1453, the same year as the printing press was invented, the Turks conquered Constantinople. Christians fled the city in droves. They could not afford to be caught there; the Turks would kill them. The Christians grabbed what they could of the Greek treasures in the city and came into Western Europe with them. The printing press and paper made it possible to reproduce the manuscripts quickly, and before long, most of Europe was aware of what the refugees from Constantinople had brought. This was a factor in the Renaissance because it made the old manuscripts available for easy study by those who were interested.
Fourth was the fact that Muslim knowledge and technology had been filtering slowly into Europe since the Crusades. The printing press helped to spread that as well. Some of the knowledge had real practical applications; for example, merchants could use the new number system for their accounts, as could banks, and the trips of exploration would have been impossible without the new numbers. The astrolabes and the triangular sails that were used came from the Muslims also. Scholars soon got to work translating Arab books into Latin. This was a factor because the new information was exciting to people and this made them want to learn more.
The fact that the new information that the explorers were finding out was filtering back to Europe was the fifth thing. This new information was exciting and made the people want to know more about it. This led to more study and learning. The success of these trips also gave Europeans a great sense of achievement and made them confident of their ability to solve other problems. This in turn made them feel kinship with the ancient Greeks who had also felt confident of their ability to solve problems.
Where did the Renaissance begin?
The Renaissance began in Italy in four city-states. These were Milan, Genoa, Florence and Venice. Florence was the leader of these cities, and she was the richest. These cities were like little countries. They were independent and ran themselves. Florence was, to all intents and purposes, run by the rich banking family de Medici. The de Medicis had their 'fingers in many pies' as the saying goes. They were into banking , government, and as you'll see in the next chapter, into the church as well. The de Medicis wanted to make Florence more beautiful than any other city state and they had the money to do it. They invited artists and sculptors to come to Florence. These artists were doing their art work a new way. They were copying the ideas of the Greeks and Romans. Before we can see what was new, we need to know what the old way was like.
Art - Before and During the Renaissance
In the Middle Ages, art existed for the purpose of furthering religion. Paintings, sculptures, what have you, always had a religious theme. They were to teach illiterate people Bible stories, or to show graphically the horrors of hell and the glories of heaven. Sometimes the paintings were done in a series, like a modern day comic strip. You 'read' the pictures in a certain sequence and it told a story. Since the stories weren't about people living now, it did not matter a lot whether the paintings were very realistic or not. Generally paintings were painted in such a way that you knew who the saints were and who the sinners were, which was the thing that mattered most. The saints all wore haloes! For a medium to paint with, painters in the Middle Ages had used a kind of paint known as 'egg tempera'. It is made (you can make it easily) from the yolks of eggs and dye. In those times, they used natural dyes such as different colored dirt for browns, indigo for blues, certain kinds of berries for red, and so on. The 'white' of the egg was not discarded. It was used as a kind of glue - for example, to glue on the real gold that they used to make the haloes on the saints. Egg tempera makes very bright and lively colors, but it has one serious disadvantage. It dries almost on contact with the canvas or wood or whatever you were painting on, so you could not change a mistake. You could not experiment with it. Painters also did not know a lot about painting in such a way that the painting looks three-dimensional. Since they weren't trying to make the painting look real, they hadn't really pursued that.
It will be the goal of Renaissance artists to make their artwork as realistic as possible. They studied the artwork of the Greeks to try to figure out how it was done. They tried to copy the Greek art as much as they could. However, our Italian artists had a lot to learn before they could paint like ancient Greeks. First, they had to learn to observe, that is, to really look at things and study them. They had to notice the relative sizes of things. They had to notice that things look smaller when they're far away and that the color of things way off in the distance is a hazy blue. They had to notice that things seem to disappear off into the distance in a single point. They also needed to study things like ratio and proportion and geometrical shapes. This doesn't seem to be related to art, but it very much is! They had to study perspective; that is, how you paint a picture so that it looks like a two dimensional piece of canvas or paper has three dimensions. They also had to study optics, which is the study of the way light behaves, and how we perceive things visually, and in order to paint humans correctly, they had to study human anatomy.
Fortunately, at about the same the artists were studying these things, a new medium was developed for them to paint in. It was oil paint. This did not make as bright and pretty colors, but it had the advantage of drying more slowly so an artist could experiment, and it had the advantage of being removable with turpentine while wet, so an artist could change something he or she didn't like.
The artists of the Renaissance painted about far more than just religious subjects. They painted historical scenes, portraits, scenes of Greek and Roman mythology, still lifes (pictures of, say, a bowl of fruit on a table), and scenes of nature. Even the religious paintings were done differently. They were now a lot more realistic. For example, when they painted baby Jesus, he looked like a real baby does. The saints, Mary and Joseph looked like real people. The angels looked rather human also.
An artist in Renaissance times was dependent upon finding a patron. A patron in a sense hired you and paid your bills. He gave you a place to live and food to eat. Without patrons, artists starved. In return for his patronizing you, you as the artist had to produce acceptable artwork for your patron. This was true of musicians as well. Patrons included wealthy families like the de Medicis or the church. Michelangelo, for example, was hired by the Pope to do a chapel for the new Saint Peter's and St. Paul's Cathedral in Rome. Patrons felt it was their duty to give money to artists, sculptors, musicians, and other people who could make their cities more beautiful and more entertaining.
Renaissance Music
In the medieval times, music was considered a 'science' because mathematics is part of musical notation and theory. As with art, the purpose of music in the Middle Ages was religious. Music was for glorifying God. The mainstay of medieval music was Gregorian chant or plainsong, which does not have much variation and has only one voice, no harmony at all. Monks chanted the mass in plainsong. At the close of the Middle Ages, more intricate forms of music appeared. Musicians in Belgium, Holland and northern France developed the technique of polyphony which means many voices - in other words, the music had some harmony. Most music you listen to is polyphonic. French and Flemish musicians took this form of music to Italy and introduced it there; meanwhile, they picked up popular tunes to folk dances and folk songs.
During the Renaissance, new instruments were developed or imported. The violin, the double bass, the harpsichord, and the organ with keyboards, pedals and stops were developed. The kettledrum was borrowed from the Polish army and the lute from Spain. It became the thing to have professional singers in your cathedrals and all the courts had a retinue of musicians. Some courts had organized choral groups, and music was becoming part of the popular culture.
Renaissance Thought - Humanism
As you have already read, during the Renaissance years, the old Greek and Roman manuscripts came into Western Europe. Some of these came by way of merchants who got them from Muslims, and lots came when the scholars fled Constantinople. Some of the manuscripts had been translated into Arabic by Muslims; those would need to be translated back into Greek or Latin. Scholars set to work doing that. Little had been lost, for as you learned earlier this year, Greek translates well into Arabic and the reverse is true, also. The printing press was available to duplicate the manuscripts by the hundreds and European scholars got down to reading the books of the ancient Greeks and Romans. As they read, they found out what the Greeks had thought about man. They learned that the Greeks had considered man the most important creation there was; man and his mind and his ability to reason. The Greeks had thought that men should spend their time learning, in asking scientific type questions and in pursuing the answers to these in a logical manner. Greeks wanted proof of things. Things that had no proof they weren't interested in. Greeks thought this earth was beautiful and good and that man should study it. Men should search for beauty and truth. Man should also study man and subjects that had to do with man or things man had created. Therefore, men should study things like history, sociology, psychology, political science, art, music, mathematics, science, and literature. Man should also study religion but he must be rational and logical about this study. Renaissance scholars called themselves humanists because they studied man in the way that the ancient Greek did.
It should be becoming obvious to you by now that if a Renaissance person pursues things the way an ancient Greek would is going to be flying in the face of his religion which tells him to put God first; that leading a good life is the most important thing; that this earth is sinful and you should not take too much interest in it; rather , you should concentrate on the afterlife and going to heaven when you died; that you should spend your time in prayer and meditation and not in learning and asking questions; that you should have faith. Humanists thought about this a little while, and they came up with a rationalization: since God created man, and man was God's favorite creation, the God wouldn't mind if a humanist studies man.
With that dilemma solved, the humanists dove into classical literature, history, political science and philosophy. They read it and they studied it. They then tried to write literature, history and philosophy in the style of the ancient Greeks. They made sure more copies were made of the ancient manuscripts so they would never get lost. They planned out what they thought people should learn. The school curriculum you have today, the subjects you study, reflects the effect of those Renaissance humanists. A humanist thought it was important to know all the subjects that dealt with man or things man created equally. You should know history, literature, philosophy, science, math , political science, art, music, drama, languages (to them, that would have been Greek and Latin); how to write and how to argue logically. Humanists also studied the Bible from a more rational point of view than had been done before. Old Greek manuscripts of the Bible, especially the New Testament, were now available, not just the Latin translation they had been using. They found upon reading the Greek original that some things were different from what the church said and taught. Thus some seeds of doubt of the church were sown. Humanists also translated works into the languages people actually spoke. This was good because now more people could read the works. However, when they wanted to translate the Bible, the church said no.
Renaissance Science
Humanism both encouraged the advance of science and obstructed it at the same time. The Renaissance was actually an age of preparation for the scientific revolution that will come in the 1600's. Humanists translated and made available texts by ancient Greek scientists such as Galen, Ptolemy and Archimedes. Humanism obstructed the growth of science by saying that the old Greek masters, such as Aristotle, could not have made any mistakes. This led many a Renaissance scientist to back off if his research showed something that contradicted the old Greek masters. Advances were made in astronomy and in medicine during the Renaissance years. Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, for the first time, asserted that the earth could not be the center of the universe; the math didn't work out right for it to be the center. This information was so threatening to the church that Copernicus was silenced by them. If the earth was not the center of the universe, and man wasn't any more special than any other creation in the universe, then the church would have to alter its thinking and teaching on certain matters, and they did not want to do this. Advances were made in medicine in that people were now willing to dissect a human body to learn what was inside; as the Black Death increased in the 1300's, it began to occur to the people to isolate the sick. However, Europeans still didn't make any connection between dirt and infection and disease. They operated on people (mainly amputations) in less than sanitary conditions; they didn't sterilize their instruments, and they didn't have the knowledge of how to keep a wound clean after surgery, so people died from infection as much as they did from the operations.
In technology, the Renaissance brought inventions such as the printing press, paper, the use of astrolabes and compasses; the invention of a way to grind glass so as to make a lens which could be used to magnify and to make far away things seem closer; the invention of eyeglasses for improved sight for some people; the invention of weight and then spring driven clocks and watches; and the invention of firearms, which completely changed warfare. Huge walls and suits of armor were no longer much good for defense as the bullet could go through armor and cannon balls could easily knock down a wall. Making firearms was the result of two kinds of technology coming together at the right time just as paper and the printing press was. Europeans learned to make gunpowder form the Muslims who had learned it from the Chinese. At the same time they also learned how to make a hollow metal tube. They also learned at this time better ways for extracting and smelting ores.
The Renaissance and the church
The Renaissance was the new thing in Europe in the years 13-1600. Everyone wanted to participate in the Renaissance. It was cool and awesome. Of course, the poor didn't participate; the peasants weren't 'Renaissance men'. The Renaissance was for nobles, rich middle class people, and certain people in the church. The lowly parish priest carried on his daily activities, very unaffected by things like the Renaissance. The higher clergy, however, were very much into the Renaissance. This was something that perhaps they shouldn't have done. The clergy were not supposed to be too interested in this world and the things of this world. When they became worldly and unconcerned about the spiritual life, they set a bad example for the people and they made hypocrites of themselves. However, given the popularity of the Renaissance, it would have been hard for them to resist the temptation. The higher clergy, especially in Italy, wanted to redo their churches in Renaissance style; they wanted to hire artists to do these churches for them. They hired musicians to play and sing at the church services for them; and they lived in a grand style. The problem was, where did the money come from to do all this? Some clergy were independently wealthy but not all of them. The clergy began to raise money in ways that weren't exactly honest. For example, they began to charge high rates for pilgrims who came to a cathedral to see the holy relics - a relic is something that was used by a famous person who is now dead - and sometimes, these clergy even made up relics that weren't real. We will see in the next chapter how once the clergy got started on these little dishonesties, it was very hard to stop.
The Renaissance also encouraged a certain amount of doubt of the church. The Renaissance led people to question what they were told, and if they were told something, to look it up to see if it was true. The Renaissance also led people to think they did not need the church as much as they had before. People no longer went to the church as the institution that knew everything! They had other sources of information now. The Renaissance made people like this earth, and thus, they turned away from the church a little. On the other hand, the Renaissance also made thinking people feel a little bit guilty. They knew their religion wouldn't want them to be as world centered as they had become. We will see how this conflict between not wanting the church around anymore and yet also knowing they needed it played out for people in the next chapter. We are now going to look at the life of a typical Renaissance man as a way of reviewing the chapter.
Leonardo da Vinci - a typical Renaissance man
Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 in the village of Vinci. He was a strange and lonely child. He seemed to live in a world of his own. He was interested in all different kinds of things. He studied plants and animals. He collected insects and other kinds of animals. When Leonardo was fourteen, his father thought it was time for him to learn a trade. Leonardo loved to draw, so his father took some of his drawings to Verrocchio, a Florentine painter. Verrocchio accepted Leonardo as a student, based on the talent he saw in the drawings. Leonardo was so good he soon surpassed his teacher!
Leonardo, as an adult , was still different from most people. He was still interested in many different things, just as he'd been as a child. He continued to study art. To make sure that he painted accurately, he studied the anatomy of humans and animals. Leonardo was even known to go into the paupers' fields and get dead bodies to dissect. After he dissected the bodies, he'd study the bones and muscles. This way he could paint them more realistically.
Leonardo was also interested in machines; he studied gears and levers. He invented mew machines and improved some old ones. He made better cannon and designed forts. He also drew designs of a flying machine, a car, a machine gun, a parachute and a tank. He never made any of these, but 400 years later, people used his ideas in making them. He was good at mathematics. He could do sculpture and he could draw maps. He studied music and played the flute. He made some of the first drawings of a human baby before it is born. He also studied geology.
Leonardo da Vinci kept notebooks and we still have some of them. Leonardo da Vinci may have been dyslexic; we don't know whether the way he wrote was to keep people from copying him or whether he did not perceive that his writing was backwards! Anyway, to read what he wrote, a person must hold it up to a mirror.
Leonardo exemplifies a Renaissance man in the breadth of his interests and in the fact that he was good at all of them. What he did with his life became an expectation of people in the Renaissance; they were to learn about all subjects and be good at them. The Renaissance ideal in terms of learning has never really disappeared. Your school curriculum reflects that. However, today a person probably cannot learn all there is to know about every subject. We have learned too much for that to be possible. Hopefully, though, you will have a wide range of interests.
QUESTIONS