Italian Renaissance

1. Italian Renaissance • 1375 - 1527

2. Why Italy? • Geography • Urbanization • Social Factors - nobles in conflict: Guelf (pro-papal) vs. Ghibelline (pro-imperial) leads to the rise of merchants - an oligarchy • Princes, commercial elites and popes become patrons of the arts • Political Variety - city states develop different forms of government

3. The politics of Italian city-statesduring the Renaissance Era: • Florence - oligarchic republic - Medici family ruled • Milan - hereditary despotism of Visconti family was overthrown by the Francesco Sforza - a condottieri and Sforza family ruled as a military dictatorship • Papal States - despotism by pope • Venice - a republic, ruled by a doge • Naples - feudal monarchy

4. Popes to know: Pope Alexander VI The Borgia Pope 1492 - 1503 Pope Julius II “The Warrior Pope” 1503 - 1513 Michelangelo’s Creation Scene of the Sistine Chapel Pope Leo X 1513 - 1521 Medici family vs. Martin Luther 4

5. Political ideas and events: • diplomacy is born in Italy - ambassadors, and concept of balance of power • Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople in1453 - hurts Italian merchants • Peace of Lodi signed in1454 by Florence, Milan and Venice = 40 years of peace among city-states • Habsburg-Valois Wars • 1494 French army invades Italy - ends Peace of Lodi • Girolamo Savonarola (1452 - 1498) welcomes the French forces of King Charles VIII to Florence - Savonarola rules Florence 4 years - theocracy • 1527 Charles V’s mercenary army sacks Rome = end of Italian Renaissance

6. Economy of Italy: • Florence = textile - wool • banking - financed trade and elections; usury frowned upon by the church • Venice and Genoa = trade, banking, shipbuilding

7. Characteristics of Italian Renaissance • Secularism - worldliness, patrons and their families included in art • Return to the Classics: Ancient Greece and Rome, architecture, symmetry and balance - geometric perspective, depth • Individualism - glorify the goodness of man, depicted as heroic, divine, rational • Civic Humanism - civic virtue through education - be good citizens, a secular model for individual and political behavior • rationalism • vernacular literature - especially in Germany promotes a national culture - Luther’s writings contribute to development of German language • “Tuscan Triumvirate” Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio - Florentine writers

8. Art and Architecture: • Perspective - the illusion of three-dimensional space • Subject Matter - more secular - portraits • Order, balance and symmetry • Return of classical Greco-Roman culture including the use of ancient models like Roman goddesses • Platonism - flattering view of humans; ideal, perfect state of humans • In architecture the graceful spikes and soaring arches of Gothic cathedrals were replaced with round-arches from Roman times and Greek columns • Public spaces known such as the piazza were constructed in Italian city-states to replicate the open public spaces of the past Greek agora or the Roman forum - OR - work is commissioned by patron families for their courtyards - prince and popes enhance their prestige by commissioning paintings and architectural works based on classical styles

9. Italian writers: • Francesco Petrarch - father of humanism • Alighieri Dante’s Divine Comedy 1321 • Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron • Lorenzo Valla - Donation of Constantine • Pico della Mirandola - Oration on the Dignity of Man • Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier • Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince • Petrarch - Father of Humanism • Baldassar Castiglione’s - Book of the Courtier

10. Late Medieval and Early Renaissance view of women: • Misogynist critiques of women from both secular and clerical writers • Women seen as devious, domineering and demanding • The Church saw women as the sinful daughters of Eve - temptress • Cases of female infanticide existed among the poor - perhaps tied to dowry • Among the nobles - daughters were sent to convents - opportunity for education and leadership among women • The Renaissance did not bring any significant change to the status of women. The only change is that elite women now presided over social gatherings but merely as decorative figures. The few exceptions of women writers and painters were those who were able to break through with the help of their fathers or husbands. Renaissance society remained patriarchal.

11. Renaissance Writers: • Baldassare Castiglione’s The Courtier - women were to make themselves pleasing to the man • Christine de Pizan - compiles list of famous women and praises them for their loyalty, bravery and morality • 1500‘s - Debate on women rulers or acting as advisers to child kings - Example: Catherine de Medici of France • In villages, gender differences were controlled and defended. Women who were thought to be more powerful than men were ridiculed. Bands of neighbors shouted insults, banged sticks and pans in disapproval. In carnival plays, woodcuts and stories domineering wives were portrayed wearing pants and henpecked husbands were washing diapers alongside professors in dunce caps and peasants riding princes.

12. Christine de Pizan Italian female Renaissance writer: The Treasure of the City of Ladies 1404 Tells of accomplishments of great women in history. Gives advice to princesses, court ladies, but also wives of merchants, artisans, peasants and even prostitutes.

13. Status of Jews • Throughout Europe many were moneylenders and merchants. • They did not live apart from the Christian population until 1400’s when they were forced to do so by civil and ecclesiastical authorities. • The popes forced Jews in Rome to wear distinctive badges. • Venice established the first “ghetto” in 1516

14. Status of Jews in Spain conversos - Jews in Spain that converted to Christianity for new opportunities in education and to avoid attacks. 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella in their goal for religious uniformity decreed all Jews had to convert or leave Spain.