Why was there more of an emphasis on early Christian sources in the northern Renaissance?
What was up with the Renaissance popes?
Why did they think artists needed to burn their paintings of things that weren’t Christian?
Why is the Renaissance important?
The Praise of Folly was written by Erasmus. It points out some of the corrupt ways people conduct themselves. He points out the shady business practices of merchants and how the friars flatter them to get a cut of the money they make. He talks about how philosophers think of themselves as being above everyone else despite all of them disagreeing with one another. He discusses how theologians see others as beneath them and will call those they disagree with heretics. Then he covers the monks and other religious people, saying that they see themselves so righteously despite worshipping the rituals rather than doing things that actually please their God.
Three Key Artists in the High Renaissance
There are three main artists we might think about when the subject of the High Renaissance is brought up. Those artists would be Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Raphael (1483-1520). The last thing he painted was the Transfiguration in 1520. This painting portrays Christ floating above the ground while people below him are trying to exorcise a demon out of a young boy.
Leonardo di Vinci (1451-1519) had a wide range of interests. He painted the Virgin of the Rocks in 1483, which was the central part of a church altarpiece.
Michelangelo (1475-1564) thought of himself mainly as a marble carver rather than a painter. He was an ambitious person which may be the cause of him having so many works that went unfinished. At just seventeen years old he sculpted his first marble relief (a relief is a statue carved into a wall), The Battle of the Centaurs, though, this too went unfinished.
Why did Brunelleschi turn away from being a sculptor and instead turned towards architecture?
Why is there a game called Botticelli?
Why were people portrayed more realistically in the renaissance then before it?
Why did the painting of the last supper age so quickly?
Fra Angelico (1387-1455) is sometimes described as having been the final cry of the medieval spirit in art. He decorated the chapel of Pope Nicholas V with depictions of the lives of Saint Stephen and Saint Lawrence.
Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378-1455) won a competition to make designs for the door of a Baptistery. He won, not only because his work was very good, but also because he was reliable. The Florentine guild was sure he would be able to see a project like this through to the end.
(Picture is of the Duomo)
Brunelleschi (1377-1446) competed in the same competition as Lorenzo Ghiberti but Brunelleschi didn’t win. He was trained as a sculptor but eventually turned away from this career path and started to focus on architecture. He is considered to be the first great architect of this time period. He completed the Duomo (the Duomo is a Florentine Cathedral). He designed the dome on the top of the building. He accomplished this feet by designing two internal shells that weren’t very heavy and that would go under the outer one and used hoisting machines to raise up the things he would need. He also created a way to scientifically determine the size of things in drawings.
Why did people think of the Greek language as being breath taking? (petrarch and renaissance)
How did Lorenzo tell if something was forged?
Why was Nicholas interest in collecting ancient manuscripts?
Why do many humanists believe that the works of the ancient world and the values of Christianity are compatible?
Renaissance means rebirth. An ideas people had during the Renaissance was that Greek was something wonderful to study. Some people saw the ancient world as better because people weren’t so focused on sin and heaven and hell. People started signing their works more often as people started to want to be known for the works they created. There was more focus on this world and what it had to offer. There was an emphasis on man and what men are capable of without strictly being viewed through a Christian lens.
Uniqueness of Humans
Giovanni Pico della Miranola (1463-1494) thought that humans are a wonderful thing and are different from all other forms of life because we can decide for ourselves what kind of creature we wanted to be. He thought that it is good to have diverse sources of wisdom and not to gather all of your knowledge from the Bible or the church. He thought that liberal arts are valuable because they help us to become educated people able to live a virtuous life and allow us to find harmony between ourselves and God as they help us to reflect on the nature of God and the universe.
What was the Jacuery in France?
Why were there three popes at one time and why was this a problem? (Great western schism)
Why were the soldiers attacking Byzantium so brutal?
Why didn’t people always sign the things they wrote? (took away from the message, usually religious)
John Wyclif (1320-1384) was a priest and a professor at Oxford University. He believed in predestination, which is the belief that whether you end up in heaven or hell after you die is predetermined. You have no real effect over where you end up after you die because you don’t have free will and therefor can’t really choose whether to do good or bad. He also believed that if someone was in a state of sin, they lost the right to all of their property because everything belongs to God and if you disobey God, then you lose the right to use the things God has gifted you with. He also wanted the supremacy of the state and wanted the state to be able to take all the property from the clergy.
The Great Western Schism
The Great Western Schism happened entirely in Western culture. After Gregory XI’s death, while the next Pope was being elected, a Roman mob formed outside, demanding a Roman pope, or at the very least not a French pope. The cardinals elected Pope Urban IV, an Italian, to be the new pope. Urban IV began to act erratically sometime after his election as pope, denouncing church officials and even physically attacking one. People started to think he may have gone insane. The cardinals claimed that the election of Urban IV as pope was illegitimate because the decision was made under duress. They choose a new pope, Clement VII, but Urban IV declined to step down. Clement went to Avignone, where he began acting as pope.
Now there were two people acting as the pope, each with their own cardinals. Countries became divided on who they wanted to follow as the true pope. The church decided to have a council on what to do about this problem. They declared that neither of the two popes were the true pope and elected a new pope, making the problem even worse. Now there were three people acting as pope.
The three acting popes eventually said they would step down if the council came up with a solution. The council decided that they will have Martin V become the true pope, thus the Great Western Schism was resolved.
Why did people think that Jews were responsible for the Black Death?
Why did the Peasants’ Revolt happen? (Also known as the Great Rising)
Why did people do good deeds according to John Wycliff? (God’s grace, they’re going to heaven)
Why was a war fought for Gascony by Philip IV and Edward?
In 1296 Philip IV (also known as Philip the Fair) was at war with England. He taxed the clergy without asking the Pope, Boniface VII. This was against the customs since he needed the Pope’s approval to tax what belonged to the Church. The Church was lenient and would usually just agree to requests, but the fact that Philip didn’t even bother to ask the Pope first was disrespectful.
Boniface went on to write Clericis Laicos. He wrote that anyone who gave Philip the taxes he requested would automatically be excommunicated.
The Black Death
In Europe, in the 14th century, there was a terrible disease going around called the black death. It killed somewhere between a quarter and a half of the population in Europe. It was especially devastating in more populated urban areas. All this death and chaos caused people to grow uneasy and want answers. Some people thought that since death was almost certain, they should indulge themselves and do whatever they wanted to. Some people went to the other extreme and physically punished themselves for their sins. Some would even beat themselves in public. The black death went on from 1347 to 1350. After 1350, the number of births and marriages substantially rose.
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