Unit- 3.

Renaissance
6 October, 2021

‣‣classical age of the Greeks and the Romans

rescuing its arts and literature to create a new culture—application of the knowledge.
arts, literature, social values and political life—transformation of all aspects of life
‣‣
Roman Empire destroyed by the invasion of Germanic tribes, the Goths and the Vandals
Freedom from medieval bondage—described as dark age, barbaric—constant fighting,
blind faith, economic stagnation—seen in sterile intellectual trends such as
scholasticism- an academic movement that flourished between 1250-1500—centred in
the. University Of. Paris—emphasis on the rational justification of faith—based On
Aristotelian presuppositions—scholastic writings were long, argumentative, based on.
Logic, philosophy, theology

❖ By contrast, the Renaissance seen as the period of rational thinking—a dichotomy That
was reinforced by Enlightenment theorists- e.g.,
Voltaire, Essay on Manners (1756)—the sixteenth century was the period when there was
an efflorescence of extraordinary men In Italy—-believed that the Renaissance promoted
the spirit of independence, brought about the rebirth of vernacular literature and fine arts
——-civil liberty a necessary pre-condition for creative arts
Sismondi—wealth and freedom of the Italian towns led to the development of the
Renaissance
view upheld by Karl Marx and Engels
—creation between the arts and the economy, the realms Of cultural production and
material production—economic base shaped the cultural superstructure, art--demand--
division of labour
20 October, 2021

‣ 16th century—formation of a new culture, a new religion, economic formations, the New
World, the new science

‣ ‘Progressive revolution’
‣ Russian Marxist Plekhanov—
‣ Ifwould
Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci had died in their infancy, Italian art
have been less perfect, but the general trend of its development in the period of
the Renaissance would have remained the same.

‣ did not create this trend; they were merely its best representatives.’ Alfred von Martin
‣ Bourgeois
Antal
revolution—the noble and the Cleric replaced By The capitalist Friedrich

‣ industry and international trade gave the Renaissance Gave Florence an unusually
developed bourgeoisie the artist And the Patron

‣criticism—
Sir Ernst Dobrich—
social history of art by Arnold Hauser—distinguished between two senses of the term
‘social history of art’—the first, he defined as art as an institution, or an account of the
changing material. Conditions under which art was commissioned and created—the
second sense, social history, as reflected in art
Robert Lopez—Renaissance in Genoa-his native city—made a much smaller
contribution to the Renaissance than Florence, Venice or Milanthe fourteenth and the
fifteenth centuries were a period of economic recession for Europe in general and Italy
inparticular—art (superstructure) thriving when economy (base) was lagginghard times
and investment in culture
Hans Baron—the Crisis of the early Italian Renaissance, 1955 political explanation
Republican--Weimar republic responding to the rise of political totalitarianism in his
times—idealised Florence’s republicanism

❖ 1400—ideas--Florence
Florence suddenly became aware of its unique identity, affinity with Athens and Rome, the
great republics of the ancient world—fought to emancipate itself from the empire of the
ruler of Milan—rise of Florentine self-consciousness and triumph of civic humanism over
feudal autocracy—
civic humanism ‘endeavoured to educate man as a member of his society and state
Leonardo Bruni, political Engagement and active life, developed in opposition to the ideas
of scholarly withdrawal
 Renaissance seen as the line dividing modern Europe from medieval Europe
French Historian Jules Michelet,a French nationalist deeply committed to the
principles of the French Revolution—7th volume of a. History of France, La
Renaissance, 1855

Scienti c discoveries of explorers And thinkers like Columbus, Copernicus and

Galileomore philosophical de nitions of individuality to be found in the works of Rabelais,
Montaigne and Shakespeare
progressive, democratic condition
reason, freedom truth, art and beauty—
went in search of a historical moment when the values of liberty and egalitarianism
triumphed and promised a
modern world free of tyranny
claim the Renaissance as a French phenomenon—rejected 14th century Italy’s admiration
for church And
political tyranny as Deeply undemocratic and not part of The spirit Of the Renaissance

Jacob Burckhardt, the Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy, 1860

fresh attitudes towards natural phenomena, moral and religious questions, public a airs,
creative world Of arts and letters—birth of individualism that overlaid corporate forms of
identity
analysed society in terms of the reciprocal interaction of three parts—state, culture,
religion—economy missing
‘art has its own life and history’

critics
the Renaissance in Italy in the 14th and 15th centuries only one of several such episodes
in The cultural history of Europe—cannot be seen as separate and important, does not
deserve to be treated as a separate event —
Carolingian Renaissance
12th century Renaissance—t
did not appeal to a wider public or enjoy widespread Patronage
corporate forms of identity buttressed by corporate institutions such as the church and
guilds did not die out
turn towards Classical learning Began in the Medieval Ages itself—ST Thomas Aquinas
showed keen interest
in the works of Aristotle
fi
fi
ff
 revival of Latin classics entered around the most esteemed scholar of the Middle Ages,
Cicero
Johan Huizinga, The WANING OF THE Middle Ages, 1919—speaks of the Renaissance
as the autumn of the Middle Ages
northern European Culture and society
Analysed the work of Flemish Arias Jan van Eyck—realism, delity to natural details—
represents the end Of a
Medieval tradition not The north of a Renaissance spirit of heightened self-expression
Writing in the middle of the WW1—
supposed superiority of European individuality and ‘civilization’--shattered

Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance self-fashioning: from More to Shakespeare, 1980, all

of them Renaissance writers and much responsible for encapsulation of ideals
Aftermath of WW2, social and political upheavals of the 1960s—rise of feminism,
organisation of the feminist movement and the rise of the civil rights movement in the
1970s
Built on Burckhardt’s view of the Renaissance as the point at which modern man was
born, included women in the stage of the Renaissance movement
16th century witnessed ‘an increased self-consciousness about the fashioning of human
identity’
writers like Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare produced
Fictional characters like Faustus and Hamlet began to re ect on and manipulate their own
identities—- early modern period’ as the ensuing periodforward-looking attitude
Greenblatt and Natalie Zemon Davies, feminist scholar (society and culture in early
modern France,1975)
social roles of peasants, artisans, transvestites and unruly. Women, not responsive to
societal norms and restrictive regulations ,excluded groups and marginalised objects and
their role at the centre stage of the Renaissance ‘Witch: witch-hunt being a signi cant
practice in the period, Jew, Black – how they were socially treated
lost voices from the Renaissance to be recovered
post-structuralism and post-modernism— literary and intellectual movements that deeply
in uenced the changed views of authors
suspected ‘grand narratives ‘ or meta narratives or facets of historical change, from the
Renaissance to Enlightenment into modernity
Histories of everyday objects, meaningful to everyday life—instead of focusing on
painting, sculpture and architecture, scholars from various disciplines began toinvestigate
the material signi cance of furniture, food, clothing, ceramics and other apparently
mundane objects to shed light on the period
fl
fi
fl
fi
fi
 Social Basis with special reference to Italy Why Italy?
1.Urban environment
—northern and central Italy
—Social structure far from egalitarian
principal social groups, especially in Florence,
nobli, principali, grandi—the ‘ rst citizens’—monopolised political power, kept all the
principal o cial posts with themselves
Mezzani or populari—-men of moderate means—shopkeepers, bakers, wine sellers,
druggists, artists, lawyers, notaries, civil servants, teachers—functioned within their
respective Guilds—narrow intellectual interests—participation in government was limited
poveri—masses, poor people—-one third of this category in Florence belonged to the
category of cloth manufacturers——-domestic servants and manual workers
Concentration of wealth
active civil life
more worldly view of life upper section of society brought about the Renaissance
Italian aristocrats
landed classes
equal terms with leading commercial and industrial families
no di erentiation between the aristocracy and the upper bourgeoisie
integrated civil society
balance gradually drifted away from the knightly element and the tradition of chivalry

2.century of civic autonomy—

many Self-governing city states
culturally and politically compete With one another
Multiple sources of patronage—

3. Economic growth/ decline

Expanding business and manufacturing—commercial and nancial developments,
population growth—pre-capitalist features in some sectors—Italian merchants Especially
in Florence, possessed a large reservoir of Liquid capital for investment, which was
utilised in real estate, trading, cloth manufacturing, arms and industrial goods, mineral
resources, funding military campaigns, art projects.
13th century, Italian economy most prosperous
ff
ffi
fi
fi
 Florentine merchants and bankers acquired control of papal banking and became its tax
collectors—
Three centuries of international trading, banking and industry fostered ‘mercantile’ or
‘bourgeois’
mentality
Medici
Scholars like Robert Lopez and Carlo M Cupola question the link between economic
prosperity and cultural progress—diminution in the value of land, demographic decline
caused by the Black Death 1348, reduction in pro t margins of the feudal lords and
lowering of interest rates—in-economic depression, the political elite and businessmen
competed with each other for patronage, power and prestige, thus turning culture into an
economic venture
Death, disease and warfare
concentration of urban life, accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small but Rich elite
Black Death 1348; Muslim Christian con ict in Spain. And North Africa (1291-1341), the
Genoese
Venetian wars (1291-9, 1350-5, 1378-81) and the Hundred Years War across Europe
(1336-1453)disrupted trade and agriculture creating a recurrent pattern of in ation and
de ation

4. East-west exchange of culture and ideas

Jerry Brotton—Analysis of Venice as entrepôt derived from a pairing by Gentile and
Giovanni Bellini titled ‘Saint Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504-7) as a commercial
intermediary; receive commodities from eastern bazaars—transport them. to the markets
of northern Europe— throughout the Mediterranean for centuries, volume increased after
the Crusades from the 14th. Century, Venice, Florence, Genoa Competed with one
another to establish dominance of trade from the Red Sea and The Indian Ocean that
terminated at Alexandria—Venetian and. Genoese Trading centres and consuls &
Alexandria, Damascus, Aleppo, even farther a eld, A ected every sphere of life, from
eating to painting
addition of pigments like lapis lazuli, vermilion, cinnabar, all of which. Were imported from
the east via Venice, brilliant Blues and reds
Bellini painting of St Mark reproduces silk, velvet, muslin, cotton, tiling, carpets, livestock
—Architecture of Renaissance Venice shaped by the eastern bazaars of Cairo, Aleppo,
and Damascus— Venetian art historian Giuseppe Fiocco described Venice as a ‘colossal
suq’———Syrian trading capital of Aleppo—decorative facades of Doge’s Palace and the
Palazzo Ducale all draw their inspiration from the mosques, bazaars, and palaces of
cities. Like Cairo, Acre and Tabriz, where Venetian merchants had. Traded for
centuriesolder galleys, narrow oared ships were gradually Replaced by the heavy, round-
bottomed masted ships or cogs used to transport Bulky goods such as timber, grain, salt,
sh and iron between Northern European ports
three-masted ‘caravel’
volume of trade increased---change in sensibilities--re ected in art
fi
fl
fl
fi
fi
ff
fl
fl
5. Ways of transacting business changed
complexity of balancing the Import and export of both essential and luxury international
goods and calculating credit, pro t and rates of interest
birthplace of modern capitalism—
Ability to quantify
mathematical knowledge
Incorporated Arabic and Islamic Ways of doing business.
exposure to the bazaars and trading centres throughout North. Africa, the Middle East
and Persia
13th century Pisan merchant Leonardo Pisan, known as Fibonacci, introduced the Hindu
Arabic numerals into European commerce—from 0 to 9, use Of the Decimal point, and
their application to practical commercial problems involving addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division—signs for +, _, * were unknown in Europe before the 15th c
century
New methods of gauging weights and measures, bartering, charging of interest and
exchanging currency
the basic Principles of algebra were adopted From the Arabic term for restoration al-jabru
—around 825 AD the Persian astronomer Abu Jafar Mohammed ibn Must al-Khwarizmi
wrote a book which included the. Rules of arithmetic. And the decimal positional
rotational system called Kitab al jar w’al muqabala (Rules of. Restoration and Reduction)
—Latinized name foundation for. Mathematical tool. Of algorithm
Fibonacci’s new methods were adopted in the trading centres of Venice, Florence, Genoa.
payment of goods often made in gold and silver, but as sales Increased and more than
two people became involved in any one business deal, new ways of trading were required
—one of the most signi cant Innovations was the bill of exchange, the earliest.
earliest Example of Paper money
ancestor of the modern cheque, Arabic Term sakk—drawing on your creditworthiness; the
word from which the nomenclature and Idea of cheque was derived
Medieval church still forbade usury, as did Islam—-but in practice both cultures found
loopholes to maximise nancial pro t—disguised the charging of interest by nominally
lending money in one currency and then collecting it in a di erent currency—favourable
rate of exchange-another solution was to employ Jewish merchants to handle credit
transactions and act as cultural mediators between the two religions, since they were free
of religious injunction against usury—-anti- Semitic stereotype of Jews
Accumulating wealth and status of merchant bankers—Medici family of Florence—in
1397 Giovanni di Bicci de ’Medici established the Medici Bank in Florence—soon
perfected the art of double-entry book keeping and accounting, deposit and transfer
banking, maritime insurance and the bills of exchange—the Medici bank also became
God’s banker by transferring the papacy funds throughout Europe
fi
fi
fi
fi
ff
6. Pol-eco-socio devepots
1453—HYW between Britain and France ended——intensi cation of trade between
northern and southern Europe—-Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II—
Link between the world of classical Rome and 15th century Italy—Sultan Mehmed II
employed Italian humanists, acquired classical learning
Topkapi Saray in Istanbul—Compared himself to Alexander the Great, saw himself as a
new Caesar with the potential to conquer Rome and unify the three great religions of the
book—Christianity, Islam, Judaism
Magnify his claims to political authority—Ambitious building programme
Repopulating the city with Jewish and Christian merchants and craftsmen, founding the
Great Bazaar, established the city’s pre-eminence as an international trading centre,
renamed Istanbul—Italian architects were hired by him, New imperial palace, the Topkapi
Saray—Classical, Islamic and contemporary Italian styles
International competition between eastern and western states and empires
Italian artist Constanzo da Moyssi went to Istanbul to work for Mehmed—A fteenth
century Persian artist Bihzad copied Constanzo’s drawing and called it Portrait of a
Painter in Turkish Costume
1520—accession of Sultan the Magni cent
Commissioned grand tapestries from Flemish weavers, jewellery and an imperial crown
from Venetian goldsmiths, Commissioned Ottoman architect Mimar Koca Sinan to build a
series of palaces, mosques and bridges to rival those of his Italian counterparts
Turko-Islamic architectural traditions as well as the Byzantine heritage
The great church of Hagia Sophia to produce a series of mosques in Istanbul with domed
central plans in the early 16th century, When Pope Julius II employed Donato Bramante
and later Michelangelo to rebuild St Peter’s in Rome, their designs drew on Hagia Sophia,
with its half domes and minaret towers, as well as Sinan’s mosques and palaces
Renaissance, thus, was not exclusively a European production

7. Intellectual currents
—-reaction against the chivalrous poetry as well as the scholastic learning of the Middle
Ages—revival of antiquity
Cicero—humanitas—-watchword for an education that claimed to free man from social
conventions and the narrow-mindedness brought by professions
Ruins of the Roman Empire that existed around the city-states,
Brunelleschi, the greatest architect of the Renaissance , frequently travelled to Rome to
measure the ruins of temples and palaces
To get idea on the architecture of cities he was to design Byzantine design evident in
Renaissance cities---Venetia, GENOA
fi
fi
fi
 8. Printing
literacy and books were the preserve of a tiny, international elite focused on urban centres
such as Constantinople, Baghdad, Rome and Venice—
By the end of the 16th century, humanism and the printing press had created a revolution
in both elite and popular apprehensions of reading, writing and the status of knowledge,
transmitted via the printed book, which became focused more exclusively on northern
Europe
Movable type in Germany around 1450
Mass reproduction of books—revolutionary e ect of print
Mainz in the 1450s between Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust and Peter Scho er—
Gutenberg was a goldsmith, who adapted his expertise to cast the moveable type for
press—Scho er was a copyist nD CALLIGRAPHER, WHO USED HIS SKILLS IN
COPYING MANUSCRIPTS to design, compose and set the printed text—Fust provided
the nance printing a commercial venture, done for pro t
Drawing on much of the earlier eastern inventions of the woodcut and paper, Gutenberg
and his team printed a Latin Bible in 1455 and in 1457 issued an edition of the Psalms
New medium did not grasp its own signi cance—many early printed books used scribes
trained in manuscript illumination to imitate the unique appearance of manuscripts—half
painted, half printed books regarded as precious commodities in their own right, valued
as much for their appearance as for their content-
Isabella de’Este and Mehmed the Conqueror---important personalities of the
Renaissance---involved themselves in printing works
By 1480, printing presses in all the major cities of Germany, France, the Netherlands,
England, Spain, Hungary and Poland
Brotton suggests that by 1500 these presses had printed between 6 and 15 million books
in 40000 di erent editions, more books than had been produced since the fall of the
Roman EMpire
In 16 c, England alone 10000 editions were printed and at least 150 million books were
published for a European population of fewer than 80 million people
Speed and quantity
New communities of readers
Accessibility, low cost—
European vernacular languages—German, French, Italian, Spanish and English
The printing presses increasingly published in these languages rather than Latin and
Greek, which appealed to a smaller audience
Vernacular languages were gradually standardised—Legal, political and literary
communication in most European states, Image of a national community amongst those
who shared a common vernacular Led individuals to de ne themselves in relation to a
nation rather than a religion or ruler—coupled with the erosion of the absolute authority of
the Catholic Church and the rise of a more secular form of Protestantism. This was a
secular form of nationalism
fi
ff
ff
fi
ff
fi
fi
ff
Public and private life
Religious books such as Bibles, breviaries, sermons and catechisms
Secular books were introduced, like romances, travel narratives, pamphlets, broadsheets
and conduct books advising people on everything from medicine to wifely duties—These
secular books were cheaper than religious books
Brotton estimates that by the 1530s, printed pamphlets sold for the same price as a loaf
of bread, while a copy of the New Testament cost the same as a labourer’s wage
People not just read but also listened to the contents of the books
A culture based on communication through listening, looking and speaking gradually
changed into a culture that interacted through reading and writing
Rather than being focused on courts or churches, a literary culture began to emerge
around the semi- autonomous printing press—its agenda set by demand and pro t rather
than religious orthodoxy and political ideology
International community of printers, nanciers and writers
New markets
Print transformed how knowledge itself was understood and transmitted—Mass
reproduction—introduction of consistent pagination (the process of giving page numbers),
indexes, alphabetic ordering and bibliographies, knowledge itself was slowly repackaged
Textual scholarship became a cumulative science Scholars could now gather copies of
Aristotle’s Politics and print a standard authoritative edition based on a comparison of all
available copies—new and revised editions—Possibilities of incorporating discoveries
and corrections into the collected works of an author Commercially very pro table—
Reference books and encyclopaedias on subjects like language and law claimed to
reclassify knowledge according to methodologies of alphabetical and chronological order
William Ivins—creation of the ‘exactly repeatable pictorial statement’—woodcuts,
copperplate engraving made possible the mass di usion of standardised images of
maps, scienti c tables and diagrams, architectural, plans, medical drawings, cartoons
and religious images—had an impact on the illiterate—revolutionised the study of
subjects like geography, astronomy, botany, anatomy and mathematics
Peter Burke argues that in the long run, the invention of printing led to the decline of the
literary patron, the rise of the publisher and the anonymous reading public—rise of
successful printer- businessmen such as the Guinti and the Giolito families—the printed
book, originally viewed as a manuscript printed by a machine, came to be seen as a
commodity standardised in size and price

9. patronage
Urbanisation introduced new sources of patronage—concentration of wealth in the cities
and dominance of republican ideas—corporate bodies and the church, individual
bankers, merchant princes, and various groups
Peter Burke— ve types of patronage:
—Rich individual takes artist into his household—gives him broad, loving, presents—
expects artistic output
fi
fi
fi
ff
fi
fi
— Made-to -measure system—personal patron-client relationship till such time as a
painting or a poem is delivered
—Market system—artist or writer produces something readymade and then tries to sell it,
either directly to the public or through a dealer
—4.Academy system—government control through means of an organisation sta ed by
reliable artists and writers
—Subvention system—a foundation supports creative individuals but makes no claims on
what they produce
First two dominants in Italy, latter two and not yet emerged

Simple divisions between lay and ecclesiastical do not hold—religious paintings could be
commissioned by laymen—Pall-a Strozzi asked Gentile da Fabriano to paint his Adoration
of the Magi to hang in the Strozzi chapel in the church of Santa Trinita in Florence
Lay people could commission religious paintings to hang in their homes—inventory from
Medici palaces
Clergy could commission paintings on secular subjects—-Parnassus which Raphael
painted for Julius II in the Vatican

Chief hallmarks of Italian humanism: Individualism and the dignity of man Secularism
Revival of Latin and Greek Promotion of vernacular literature Study of history and a new
approach to philosophy ff