Wester Civilization: The Italian Renaissance - Research Paper Example

Running head: The Italian Renaissance Abstract In the year 1347, a merchant ship that was traveling from Crimea, central Asia docked in Sicily at a place called Messina with a crew of sailors who were desperately ailing. In the process of taking them ashore, rats, with fleas infected with bubonic plague bacterium, also left the ship. This marked the arrival of the Black Death in Europe. Eventually, this plague, in its several shapes, would slay up to at least one third of Europe’s population, instigating among the nobility a fierce disastrous power struggles, peasant revolts and economic depression. Nevertheless, a new spirit cropped up from this near total disaster –the deaths caused an immense deficiency of workers with the demand for workers leading to an increase in wages. Serfdom became outdated and due to higher wages, many peasants’ living standard increased. Consecutively, there was the rise of wealthy merchant families that provided the incentive, resources and money for the Renaissance. The medieval society’s exhaustion motivated northern Italy’s intellectuals to make a new start by creating a new civilization through pursuing rebirth and revival that would be referred to as the Renaissance. This drastic break with antiquity was just the start. (Brown, L. 2007). This paper provides a discussion on the Italian Renaissance. Understanding the Italian Renaissance aids in the appreciation of how its cultural traces that have survived emerged from its political, religious, economic and social fabric. The significance of this study is because Italy played a vital role in determining Western Europe’s culture and politics from the ancient times through the 17th century. Introduction The word Renaissance, a French word that Jules Michelet, a French historian coined and which Jacob Burckhardt, a Swiss historian expanded in the nineteenth century literally means rebirth. It refers to a period of the humanistic revival of architecture, classical art, literature and learning. We can also refer to it as a cultural progression that began in the fourteenth century in Italy later spreading all over Europe and that lasted through the sixteenth century marking the transition to modern from medieval times. According to Shannon, Renaissance is the transition era into the modern day. He further explains that Renaissance is a perfect way of describing the economic and intellectual changes that took place in Europe. He asserts that during this time, Europe experienced financial growth emerging from the middle ages’ economic stagnation. It is generally believed that the Renaissance commenced in northern Italy especially Florence city, Tuscany due to her near perfect location between the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Western Europe. Later, it spread to other parts of Europe. Italians refer to it as Rinascimento. During the Italian Renaissance, there was the growth and prosperity of cities, which became important commercial and trade centers and this wealth helped in the sustenance of the social and political changes that were taking place at the time (Findlen, 2002). Findlen further explains how rulers as well learned to tax the citizens. Trade in goods between states and cities as well as other countries grew. There was also the growth in trade in ideas. Partly, the cultural contact was a result of the 11th century crusades. In a little while, trade and commerce shifted inland along the major trade routes. Towns along the banks of such rivers as Rhine, Rhone and the Danube became important trade centers, as rivers were the simplest way of moving goods. As trade grew in other areas, the significance of the political and economic affiliation between tenants and landowners lessened. Many highly developed and competitive urban areas distinguished the Italian Renaissance culture. Renaissance cities that emerged in Italy include Rome, Florence and Venice. Italy was different from France and England in that she had no dominating capital city. Instead, the country developed several regional states’ centers. These were Siena and Florence for Tuscany, Venice for northeastern Italy, Rome for the Papal States and Milan for Lombardy. Around the brilliant court life at Urbino, Ferrara and Mantua developed smaller Renaissance culture centers. The merchant classes of Venice and Florence who were wealthy citizens donated their funds for specific art commissions, for both secular and religious ventures. In other words, they were chief patrons of Renaissance literature and art. In the Renaissance palace, they created their own distinct home and workplace, which they fitted for both rearing and business and for nurturing the urban rulers for the next generation. The Medici family was the greatest art patrons. They beautified their town with sculptures from Rome and Greece, commissioned architects and artists to create and who financed the first universities (Urton 2009). There was another family in Rimini, northeastern Italy known as Malatesta family, which took over the Guelph or papal party leadership and governed the area for three hundred years. Malatesta da Verucchio became Rimini’s chief magistrate and in an enduring struggle with the Ghibellines, he expanded his power through much of the Marche and Romagna regions. Malatestino, his eldest son, succeeded him in 1317 and acquired more land. The Malatesta family was among the most powerful families during the Italian Renaissance. As mercenary soldiers, they led their armies in the service of other lords; after the death of the ruling Visconti, Carlo Malatesta ruled Milan. He had fought for the Milanese. Often considered as the prototype of the Italian Renaissance prince is Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta who was a student of antiquity, soldier, generous patron of the arts and a poet. Sigismondo rebuilt the Malatesta Temple and the last Malatesta to rule Rimini was Pandolfo, his grandson. Later, Rimini became one of the Papal States (Gundersheimer, 2002) It was crucial that the promotion of great art and ideas would start in a center of immense riches. This is because funding the construction of great cathedrals that the best artists in the region ornately decorated required such prosperity. Consequently, Florence, a prosperous merchant city was best suited for the Renaissance. Humanism was one characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. This was a philosophical, artistic and literary ideal, which unlike the scholastic mode of the medieval times whose focus was on the resolution of contradictions among authors, focused on studying original ancient texts and appraising them by means of a combination of reasoning and empirical evidence. Findlen refers to it as a cultural and intellectual movement that had its roots in the love of antiquity as well as the desire for its revival. Humanist education was footed the study of five humanities including rhetoric, moral philosophy, history, grammar and poetry. Humanism stressed on man’s potential and dignity and inspired secular studies as well as art creation that reflected the classical world’s ideas and forms (Kreis, 2000). In the year 1337, Francesco Petrarch, the son of a merchant from Florence who had lived in Avignon, the papal city in Southern France and a major advocate of the idea of humanism during the Italian Renaissance, went to Rome for the first time. Staring at the city that was once the heart of Christendom until the papacy shifted to Avignon as well as the center of the Roman Empire he was grievous over the wretched state of the ‘remains of a broken city’. In his writing, he already had the anticipation of a time when there would be the emergence of future generations from allegedly, ‘this slumber of forgetfulness into the pure radiance of the past. His deep sense of dislodgment from his own times as well as his deep desire of reinstating the glories of a neglected past lay at the heart of the cultural movement we call the Renaissance. Petrarch was among the earliest advocates of humanism. He had also started the re-examination of the early past in the study of literature and law (Findlen, 2002). Gouwens asserts that Petrarch is often referred to as one of the three crowns of Florence who was a major advocate of the Italian Renaissance especially the idea of humanism and that it is believed that Petrarch opened the way to the Renaissance revival of classical learning. As part of humanism, Petrarch came to the conclusion that the Roman Empire had reached the height of human accomplishment and that the ages since had been Dark Ages, which according to him was a period of social rot. He saw history not as a series of laid-down religious proceedings but as literary, art and social expansion. Petrarch surrounded himself with the relics that appealed to the world he wished to live in including: modern authors’ books such as Boccaccio and Alighieri, manuscripts that ancient Romans such as Cicero had written, Greek manuscripts, a most favorite painting by Giotto and ancient medals and coins. Petrarch, a Tuscan who during most of his life was away from Italy, displayed fervor for the most outstanding things –modern and ancient that his society could proffer to him. Having severally visited Italy and meeting followers like Boccaccio, Petrarch went back to his own country at last (Findlen, 2002). Apart from Petrarch, another humanist was Matteo Palmieri, famous for his influence in improving the Tuscan language to the same rank as Latin. He is also most famous for his work "On Civic Life" that advocated civic humanism. Palmieri drew most of his written works from on theorists Roman and philosophers such as Cicero and Quintilian. He was strongly committed to a broad and deep education, which he believed would enhance the capacity of humans to contribute to the community and do good deeds as well as dispose people to public involvement. In his work, Palmieri expounds on the traits of the ideal citizen. There was also Thomas More and Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosophers who revitalized the Roman and Greek thinkers’ ideas applying them in contemporary government’s critiques. In addition, there was Pico della Mirandola who wrote Oration on the Dignity of Man which people often consider to be a vibrant defence of thinking and the Renaissance’s manifesto (Kreis, 2000). Art is the second characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. In the Italian sculptures and paintings is seen the most blatant changes during Renaissance times. Although the medieval tradition of using religious subjects and using the Bible to illustrate stories persisted, they pervaded this interest with humanism. In the arts, Renaissance encompassed great new techniques for embodying the visible world and the human figure as well as new attitudes about the artist’s role in society. Kreis explains that in the Renaissance art, there developed a highly realistic linear perspective. Gradually, the artist rose from a modest level as artisan to a status similar to that of philosophers and poets (Gundersheimer, 2002). Secular works were popular and were mostly inspired from Roman and Greek mythology. For the first time, artists started experimenting with oil-based paints, blending linseed oil with powdered pigments, which progressively led to the abandonment of the egg tempera used during the medieval techniques. The paints dried out slowly and were workable only for a few months. The fresco method was employed on plaster walls. Instead of conceiving Sculpture as relief decorations on cathedrals, they started conceiving it ‘in the round’. Also introduced into art was perspective and light and they perfected the sense of three-dimensional reality. The Renaissance artists brought about a dramatic effect in their notion of form and space in such a way that they have changed our world outlook (Urton 2009). At the same time, in Florentine arts, there occurred a similar avant-garde, classicizing movement. They applied this powerful classicism to both the arts and literature. Very small elite produced a small clique with rivalry and amity in most city republics. No one could explain why this happened. There was also the revival of sculpture with the emergence of an apparent naturalism concerning contemporary sculpture and the sculpturing of highly realistic figures. In most cases, paintings and sculpture with biblical themes comprised of identifiable Florentines. Renaissance artists’ main desire was to unravel the aesthetics’ axioms in addition to to portraying nature’s beauty. Among the most famous and influential artists of the Renaissance was Masaccio whose most famous work is found in the Brancacci Santa Maria del Carmine’s chapel in Florence. He, along with other artists like Donatello who is famous of David’s youthful sculpture in Florence and Brunelleschi who was a Florentine architect who made the Florence cathedral’s cupola, inspired the style of art that typifies the Renaissance period’s art. Masaccio’s style used perspective in a way that created a three-dimension illusion. This was an important change from medieval art’s flat style of painting (Urton, 2009). Next, there was Leonardo da Vinci, a scientist and an artist whose most renowned works are the Last Supper as well as Mona Lisa. These are works in oil. He had a precise and careful nature in such a way that he was never in a hurry to finish a work. He developed excellent technical, manual skills such that in history, few artists have equaled his aptitude. He had an outstanding fascination and intellect with the world around him. In addition to his paintings, Leonardo da Vinci left a legacy of meticulous drawings of the anatomy of a human being, ideas on road systems and multi-level canal construction, plans for a helicopter and a tank. Da Vinci has come to typify the ultimate Renaissance man (Urton, 2009). There was also Michelangelo Buonarroti, a skilled painter and sculptor who created several of the works of art that come to our minds when we reflect on the Renaissance. After many years, Buonarroti completed the Sistine Chapel’s frescoes. He also created the emotional Pieta and the enormous David, which are two of the greatest statues of the world. Others include Sandro Botticelli who was working for the Medici in Florence, Boccaccio and Dante Alighieri, believed to be the greatest poet in the Italian language, Titian and Tintoretto his pupil, Raphael, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Giotto, Raphael, Ghiberti among others (Urton 2009). The third characteristic of the Italian Renaissance was science. A general agreement is that during the Renaissance, there were significant transformations in the way people viewed the universe as well as philosophers’ methods of explaining natural phenomena. Leonardo was a great scientist and inventor. He was innovative in conducting actual science practice and in science theory. He set up controlled experiments in medical dissection, water flow as well as systematic study of aerodynamics and movement. He also he invented research method principles that for Capra categorize him as father of modern science. The most significant development of the Renaissance was perhaps not a particular discovery, but the scientific method, a discovery process that centered on the importance of mathematics, empirical evidence and removal the Aristotelian Final Cause in support of a mechanical philosophy. Galileo and Copernicus were the proponents of these ideas. The scientific method resulted in great involvements in the fields of anatomy, biology, physics and astronomy. The fourth characteristic of the Italian Renaissance was religion. Although humanism ideals were more secular in some ways, they grew against a Christian background. This was especially so in the Northern Renaissance. In fact, much of the new art was in dedication to or commissioned by the Church. The Renaissance however had an intense outcome on modern theology, principally concerning people’s perception of the relationship between God and man. Several of the Renaissance’s leading theologians were the humanist method followers such as Martin Luther, Zwingli, Erasmus, John Calvin and Thomas More. Self-awareness was the fifth characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. By the fifteenth century, Italian architects, artists and writers were conscious of the changes that were happening and were using such phrases as ‘in the manner of the ancients and the Romans’ or ‘in the antique manner’ when describing their work. There was also an increasing consciousness of classical antiquity as well as the increasing desire to study as well as imitate nature (Gundersheimer, 2002). Larger regional states creation, an increase in the authority of the state in areas of taxation and a growth of bureaucracy characterized the later Renaissance. Under the Medici, culture blossomed greatly, especially in Tuscany and Florence during the relative peace interval beginning the mid-fifteenth century until the 1494 invasions by the armies of King Charles VIII from France. With these invasions, France followed by Spain also attempted to invade Italy. The fight continued until 1559 when finally, Spain gained control of almost the whole peninsula marking the end the Italian people’s independence. The over sixty years of war took its toll on Italy’s daily life and wealth. Lack of an independent atmosphere, which was vital for the growth of the new Renaissance culture led to its floundering. For some scholars, this marked the end of the Italian Renaissance (renaissance-faires.com, n.d). Renaissance-faires.com adds that although the Italian Renaissance culture was vanishing, the war had the outcome of revealing the attitudes and accomplishments of the early Italian Renaissance to northern Europeans. The contributions of Italy were important in expanding and developing the Renaissance all over Europe Conclusion The Italian Renaissance was an era of great impact on our modern world. Although the movement ended, its effects on modern society were and still are far from ending. The growth of global interconnectedness, knowledge, technological innovation among others during the Renaissance instigated the changes that still resonate to date. It is unbelievable to look back on the time of the Italian Renaissance, a time so long ago, and realize that so much of the things that are of importance to the modern society have their roots in this period. Altogether, the Renaissance lasted until the late sixteenth century. It is impossible to discuss any later Western art without reference to the Renaissance period particularly as it developed and thrived in Italian cities. References All-about-renaissance-faires.com, (n.d): Social and Economic Changes During the Renaissance. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from http://www.all-about-renaissance-faires.com/renaissance_info/economic_social_and_religious_change_in_the_renaissance.htm Brown, L. (2007): Beginning of the Renaissance: A Time of Great Social and Cultural Change in Europe. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://weuropeanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/beginning_of_the_renaissance Findlen, P. (2002): The Italian Renaissance: the essential readings. Retrieved February 9, 2010, from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=ZSdtcmnTBpoC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=the+Italian+renaissance&source=bl&ots=nSMZXQIDhc&sig=N5RW3ppb2m9kwc7GyRwGHVd0wDo&hl=en&ei=iKR4S5_RJ5z0nQO2s7ClCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=&f=true Gouwens, K. (2004): The Italian Renaissance: the essential sources. Retrieved February 12, 2010, from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=nuDsuqQAC1MC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+Italian+renaissance&source=bl&ots=SfYj5TJZZW&sig=tiK7qloIKsOms0iSX8IOLyIlKwo&hl=en&ei=oqR4S5CjGobqnAPi5pHNCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBkQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=&f=true Gundersheimer, W.L. (2002): The Italian Renaissance. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=xtJoDXWcL3kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+Italian+renaissance&source=bl&ots=EpRVReGfQx&sig=MdZ3IHGHF_hA2Sz3sbDc-IRPT9c&hl=en&ei=oqR4S5CjGobqnAPi5pHNCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=&f=true Kreis, S. (2000): Renaissance Humanism. Retrieved February 11, 2010, from http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/humanism.html Pioch, N. (2002): The Early Renaissance. Retrieved February 12, 2010, from http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/tl/it-ren/early.html Shannon, (2008): Social, Cultural and Political Impacts of the Renaissance in the U.S. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/671143/social_cultural_and_political_impacts.html?cat=37 Urton, R. (2009): Key Innovations and Artists of the Italian Renaissance. Retrieved February 11, 2010, from http://www.robinurton.com/history/Renaissance/early_ren.htm Read More