European Society in the Age of the Renaissance

European Society in the Age of the Renaissance

The Evolution of the Italian Renaissance

Early Growth

The Renaissance period consisted of commercial, financial, political, and cultural developments from 1050 to 1300 and from 1300 to 1600.

Venice, Genoa, and Milan (northern Italian cities) led the great commercial revival.

Venice supported a huge merchant marine

Venice and Genoa made advancements in shipbuilding which increased trade

These Italian cities became crossroads for mercantile exchange between the East and the West.

The first artistic and literary manifestations of the Renaissance occurred in Florence.

The Florentine mercantile families took over European banking on both sides of the Alps.

The Florentine wool industry helped the financial and population expansion in the city.

Communes and Republics

The northern Italian cities were communes or sworn associations of free men seeking complete political and economic independence from local nobles.

The urban nobility class was formed as the nobles were attracted by the opportunities in the cities and got married to commercial families.

The popolo disliked being excluded from power, but their movements to a republican government failed.

The signori (despots) or oligarchies came into control.

The princely courts of despots and oligarchs asserted their wealth and power during the fifteenth century.

The Balance of Power Among the Italian City- States

Italy disunited and was divided into five dominant powers: Venice, Milan, Florence, the Papal States, and the kingdom of Naples.

The city states competed between one another for territory.

The pattern of shifting alliances between the city states made the resident ambassador (machinery of modern diplomacy) possible.

Italy became the focus of international ambitions and the battleground armies in 1494.

Italy’s failure to form a federal system led invaders to dominate the peninsula.

Intellectual Hallmarks of the Renaissance

The poet and humanist Francesco Petrarch believed that he was living at the start of the new age, a golden age.

Individualism

Writers wrote literature about each person’s individuality.

Alberti remarked that ‘“Men can do all thing if they will.”

Individualism was believed to be an individual’s personality, uniqueness, and geniusness.

Humanism

Italians found manuscripts, statues, and monuments. Italians copied the lifestyle of ancient Rome.

Humanism emphasized human begins from the interest and study of Latin classics.

Pagan, classical authors, and Christian perspective helped humanists understand the human nature.

The classic Latin was considered to be superior to the corrupt medieval Latin.

Secular Spirit

Secularism is a basic concern with the material world instead of with the eternal world of spirit.

People concentrated on their present life and the thing they want rather what they need.

Money was very important to the Renaissance people that they would think of ways to make it.

In On Pleasure, Valla defended the pleasures of the senses as the highest goods.

In Decameron, Boccaccio portrayed a greedy, sensual, and worldly society.

The church did not fight against the secular spirit.

Art and the Artist

The artistic developments in Florence and Rome were during the 1400s of quattrocento and cinquecento in 1500s.

Art and Power

Powerful urban groups gave order to build works of art which stayed religious to Renaissance people through the early fifteenth century.

In the later fifteenth century individuals and oligarchs sponsored and supported works of art. A lot of money was spent on works of art as a means to glorify one’s self and their families.

During the fifteenth century art became less and less connected to religion as people wanted their individuality immortalized.

The content and style of the Renaissance art differed from the art of the Middle Ages.

Giotto led the way in the use of realism whereas