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Chapter 14 Beginnings of Revolutionary European Civilization, 1300-1650 |
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Section 2 The Italian Renaissance Between the 1300s and the 1500s,[xvii][xvii]
a new movement swept through Italy that would eventually transform the
nature of European civilization. At the heart of this movement was a
"rediscovery" by Europeans of the literature and philosophy of
classical Greece and Rome. As
they rediscovered the works of the ancients, and were exposed to the
learning of Islamic civilization, a new curiosity moved many Italians to
investigate the world around them. Soon, a whole new conception of the
nature of humankind emerged, which placed human beings at the center of
the universe. The
Commercial Revolution By the middle of the 1400s, European civilization had begun to bounce back
from the challenges of the Black Death, starvation, and warfare that had
overtaken it around 1300.[xviii][xviii] Ironically, perhaps, the
enormous loss of population Europe experienced during this period may
actually have stimulated the recovery, at least in economic terms.
New farming techniques introduced during the Middle Ages had led
to such a rapid growth of population that eventually, even with the new
techniques, farmers could not produce enough to feed everyone. As large
numbers of Europeans died, however, farmers could once again produce
more food than was needed. Prices, which had risen during the worst
years of the Black Death, began to go down. Basic commodities like grain
became cheaper. The standard of
living rose as people had more money with which to buy goods.
As the demand for such items rose, the various regions of Europe
began to produce only those products for which their terrains or
climates were specially suited. In France, for example, farmers in many
regions devoted their lands to growing grapes for wine. In England,
farmers raised more and more sheep for wool. Parts of Germany
specialized in grain. As European farmers produced the goods they knew
best, they also had to trade for the products they did not produce.
Through trade in basic commodities, a more integrated economy emerged.
Urban areas also began to specialize, particularly in Italy.
Venice, for example, became a center of glass manufacturing. Milan was
known throughout Europe for its production of armaments. Many northern
Italian cities specialized in producing finished silk and other
textiles. Port cities like Venice and Genoa[xix][xix] became the primary importers
of spices and other luxury items from the East. In northern Europe, the
Hanseatic League, a confederation first of merchants and then of towns
largely dominated by merchants (all Germans), controlled and expanded
trade in the Baltic and North Seas. All this economic development led to
improvements in business methods and practices, sparking what many
scholars call the Commercial Revolution.
At the heart of the Commercial Revolution were new attitudes
toward property and money. In earlier days Europeans had thought of
property as something solid and concrete—land, gold, jewels, or other
valuable items. With more and more surplus wealth available, European
merchants and landowners began to think of property in more general and
abstract terms—as a source of income, a means to produce money with
which to buy other things—what we call capital.[xx][xx]
As merchants began to accumulate large amounts of money, they
needed a way to keep track of it efficiently. They also needed a safe
way to transfer the money from place to place in order to pay for goods
and services. Drawing on their experiences with similar practices in the
Muslim world, Italian merchants established banking facilities.
By 1400[xxi][xxi] the great Italian banking
families, like the Medici in Florence, were creating business methods
that made possible international transactions on a scale never possible
before. For example, bankers began to use a double-entry bookkeeping
system that allowed them to keep better track of their profits and
losses throughout Europe. Banking expanded and became more stable.
Credit transfers between banks became common, which lessened the need to
move money around. Anxious to minimize their risk of losses, merchants
also began to develop methods of insuring their goods and expeditions.
These new methods soon spread north, where banking families like the
Fuggers[xxii][xxii] in Germany financed not only
the Hanseatic merchants but also princes and emperors.
The growth of banking had a profound effect on European economic
development. Merchants began to devise new ways to raise capital through
partnerships. Eventually, they developed joint-stock
companies, in which people bought shares of an enterprise in
exchange for an equal share of the profits. Such arrangements helped
spread the risk involved in investment.
With growing prosperity, Europeans’ expectations rose. After
the gloom and depression of the Black Death, by the early 1400s[xxiii][xxiii] many Europeans had begun to
concentrate less on the inevitability of death and more on the promise
of living. The Commercial Revolution laid the foundations on which
Europeans would soon transform their civilization into the first modern
society in the world. Rediscovering the Past By the middle of the 1300s,[xxiv][xxiv] Italy had become the gateway
for European trade with the peoples of the Mediterranean and Asia.
Italian merchants traveled along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean
and North Africa bringing back to Europe silk and spices from Byzantium,[xxv][xxv] China, and India.
Italy's growing wealth, combined with its location between the
rest of Europe and the Islamic world, set the stage for a great burst of
cultural development. In the 1400s, as the Ottomans advanced against the
last remnants of Byzantium, the ships of Venice[xxvi][xxvi] began to carry a new cargo:
scholars seeking refuge in Italy from the advancing Turkish warriors.
These Greek scholars brought works by Plato,[xxvii][xxvii] Aeschylus,[xxviii][xxviii] Herodotus,[xxix][xxix] Thucydides,[xxx][xxx] and many other ancient
authors—literature that their Italian colleagues had thought to be
lost.
Suddenly the gates to a whole new world opened for Italians who
could read. Inspired, scholars began to scour old libraries in Europe,
locating many forgotten manuscripts. In the pages of these texts,
scholars rediscovered the splendors of ancient Greece and Rome. They
sought the rebirth, or Renaissance,
as we call it, of a civilization more spectacular than any they had
known. Humanism It was no accident that the
Renaissance began first in Italy. Surrounded by the relics of a glorious
past—the broken remnants of marble statues, the empty, overgrown
forums, where cattle grazed—no one could forget that Italy had been
the heartland of imperial Rome. Even after Rome's decline, the imperial
past remained alive, a fact symbolized by the pope's almost continuous
residence in Rome itself.
As they rediscovered the literature of the classical world,
Italian scholars became intrigued by the worldly nature of Greek and
Roman knowledge and by the beauty of the classical Latin and Greek
languages. In the mid-1300s,[xxxi][xxxi] contrasting the ancient
achievement with that of his own age, Francesco Petrarch (PEE-trahrk)[xxxii][xxxii] lamented: “O inglorious age! that scorns
antiquity, its mother, to whom it owes every noble art—that dares to
declare itself not only equal but superior to the glorious past . . .
What can be said in defense of men of education who ought not to be
ignorant of antiquity and yet are plunged in . . . darkness and
delusion?” Petrarch was inspired by the classical commitment to leading a virtuous
life, not only in private matters, but also in public affairs. The
ancient writers seemed to provide a guide to morality he could not see
in the church of his own day.
Petrarch inspired a generation of scholars. Under their
influence, the church’s scholastic education began to give way to one
based on the classics: rhetoric, grammar, poetry, history, and above
all, Latin and Greek. Consequently, the new approach became known as classical
education. Those who studied these subjects, known as humanities,
were called humanists. Style was as important as knowledge.
“Information . . . which lacks all grace of expression,” wrote one
scholar, Leonardo Bruni (BROO-nee),[xxxiii][xxxiii] “would seem to be put
under a bushel or partly thrown away.” The new movement came to be
called humanism.
Humanism introduced a whole new conception of the nature of human
beings and their role in the world. In his Oration
on the Dignity of Man, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (PEE-koh
DAYL-lah mee-RAHN-doh-lah)[xxxiv][xxxiv] of Florence best expressed
this new view of human nature and the worth of every individual. Quoting
a Muslim scholar, he wrote, “‘There is nothing to be seen more
wonderful than man.’” Pico went on: “On Man . . .
the Father conferred the seeds of . . .
every way of life. Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow
to maturity and bear in him their own fruit. If they be vegetative, he
will be like a plant. If sensitive, he will become brutish. If rational,
he will grow into a heavenly being. If intellectual, he will be an angel
and the son of God.” This was a very different idea from the church's teaching that human
beings were by nature sinful. Renaissance Politics Italy had remained the most urbanized and culturally sophisticated part of
Europe throughout the Middle Ages. City life never really died out even
under the pressure of constant invasion. While in the rest of Europe,
knights, barons, dukes, and kings lived in great castles surrounded by
fields and countryside, Italian nobles and aristocrats lived in great
villas and palaces in the towns and cities. There they mingled with
bankers, merchants, and other professionals. Soon, intermarriage between
aristocratic, merchant, and banking families blurred such class
distinctions. The result was a growing, wealthy, literate urban
population ripe for cultural development.
Italy’s political situation contributed to the emergence of a
new urban elite. Ongoing warfare between the papacy and the Holy Roman
Empire had split Italy into two great factions: the Guelphs
supporting the church and the Ghibellines
supporting the empire. Families and even whole cities were forced to
choose sides. Though fierce and bloody, the struggle allowed the cities
to remain relatively independent by playing off popes and emperors
against each other. Like the ancient Greek poleis, the Italian
city-states became the center of most people's sense of identity and
security.
By 1300[xxxv][xxxv] most city-states had
achieved the status of independent republics. As a consequence of the
struggle between popes and emperors, however, factions and rival
families often competed for power within the cities.
Plagued by constant riots, family feuds, and bloodshed, city
politics descended into near chaos. Eventually strong rulers, such as
the Medici in Florence, the
Este in Ferrara, and the Visconti in Milan, began to emerge in an effort
to restore stability.
Many of the new rulers did not come from an aristocratic
background. In Florence, for example, the Medici, originally a family of
doctors, made a vast fortune in banking. By 1434[xxxvi][xxxvi]
Cosimo de Medici[xxxvii][xxxvii] had emerged as the
strongman of Florence. Medici control of the city was almost
uninterrupted until the early 1700s. Although Florence theoretically
remained a republic, the Medici ruled the city much like the tyrants of
ancient Greece.
Only Venice remained free of dictatorship. Venice was situated at
the head of the Adriatic Sea[xxxviii][xxxviii] and built upon a series
of islands protected from the mainland by lagoons. Looking mainly to the
sea, where Venetian merchant vessels came to dominate the trade of the
Mediterranean world, Venice carved out an empire of mainland ports and
islands that stretched as far east as Crete. By the 1400s it was not
simply an Italian power but a major international power. Even in Venice,
however, government remained in the hands of a few—the Council of Ten
drawn from leading merchant families.
By the 1400s,[xxxix][xxxix] the ongoing struggle
between popes and emperors had resulted in a rough division of the
Italian peninsula into three major areas: Sicily and the Kingdom of
Naples in the south;[xl][xl] the Papal States in central
Italy;[xli][xli] and independent city-states
in the north.[xlii][xlii] Between 1395 and about 1453,[xliii][xliii] the largest and most
prosperous of the northern city-states began to gobble up their
neighbors. Florence, Milan, and Venice emerged from this struggle as the
dominant powers.[xliv][xliv] Genoa remained independent,
but without expanding its influence. Thus, by mid-century, Italy was
divided among five major powers: Florence, Milan, Venice, Naples, and
the Papal States.
In the struggle for power, many of the rising Italian families
and city-states hired professional soldiers, known as condottieri,
to fight for them. Even the popes used condottieri in their constant
struggle to maintain control of the Papal States. Waging war with
mercenaries, however, proved very expensive. Moreover, the mercenaries
were not always trustworthy. They might easily change sides for more
money, or go into business for themselves. In 1450,[xlv][xlv] for example, Francesco Sforza,
one of the most successful of the condottieri, conquered Milan and made
himself duke.
As Italians became increasingly sick of war, rival city-states
began to use new diplomatic methods to achieve their goals. Instead of
the church, once the main institution regulating peace among all
Christian countries, rulers began to use professional diplomats and
resident ambassadors to settle disputes. In 1454,[xlvi][xlvi] the leading states signed a
general peace treaty. For the next 50 years they did their best to keep
the peace. If any state threatened its neighbors, others would join
together to oppose it. This system became known as a balance
of power. Civic Humanism and Politics In 1494,[xlvii][xlvii] the fitful peace of Italy
was shattered when Charles VIII of France, drawn by Italy's wealth,
began the first of a series of invasions designed to take control of the
entire Italian peninsula. After more than 30 years of fighting, the
French were finally driven out of Italy by the forces of Charles V, king
of Spain and Holy Roman emperor. Although ultimately a failure, the
French invasions had ravaged the peninsula. They had also stimulated
once again the rivalry between the pope and the Holy Roman emperor, as
each side sought to play the French off against the other. In 1527,[xlviii][xlviii] for example, troops of
Charles V sacked and pillaged Rome, forcing the pope to flee for his
life.
The ravages of war made life in Italy extremely insecure. The
church no longer served as a source of stability and peace. To seek
comfort and guidance amidst the destruction of Italian independence by
foreign armies, many turned to a form of humanism developed from
Petrarch’s ideas.
Where Petrarch emphasized the importance of individual
achievement and worth, later humanists increasingly emphasized aspects
of his message that came to be known as civic
humanism. The civic humanists argued that individual achievement and
education could be fully expressed only if people used their talents and
abilities in the service of their cities. Under their influence, the
ideal Renaissance man came to be the “gentleman,” or “universal
man,” well versed in the classics, but also a man of action—one who
could respond to all situations.
In his Book of the Courtier,
the Italian diplomat Baldassare Castiglione[xlix][xlix] described how the perfect
Renaissance gentleman—and gentlewoman—should act:: “I would have him speak not always of
serious subjects but also of amusing things, such as games and jests and
jokes. . . . He should always, of course, speak out fully and frankly,
and avoid talking nonsense. . . .
He should have a knowledge of Greek as well as Latin [and] he
should be very well acquainted with the poets, and no less with the
orators and historians, and also skilled at writing both verse and
prose, especially in our own language. . . .
[The lady must have] those virtues of the mind . . . in common
with the courtier, such as prudence, magnanimity . . . , and also the
qualities that are common to all kinds of women, such as goodness and
discretion, the ability to take good care . . . of her husband's
belongings and house and children, and the virtues belonging to a good
mother. . . . Her serene and modest behavior . . . should be accompanied
by a quick and vivacious spirit.” As nobles lost their military role, Castiglione gave them a new idea of
refined and “courteous” behavior.
Perhaps the most famous and influential of the civic humanists
was Niccolò Machiavelli,[l][l] a citizen of Florence and an
official in its government until 1512.[li][li] Serving his city as a
diplomat, Machiavelli was acutely interested in the actual workings of
government, and the nature of relations between states. Like many
humanists, Machiavelli insisted that people should not try to live up to
impossibly high ideals of human behavior, but instead should face life
as it was and deal with it accordingly. In 1513[lii][lii] he wrote The
Prince, an essay to serve as a sort of handbook for rulers.
Observing the realities of Italian power politics in his own day, he
argued that power and ruthlessness were more important to a leader than
idealism. “If you have to make a choice,” he wrote, “to be feared
is much safer than to be loved.” His advice to princes was purely
practical; the only important thing was to succeed, and the means by
which success was accomplished mattered little.
Under the influence of men like Machiavelli, many European rulers
began to practice politics and diplomacy with less emphasis on the ideal
of preserving Christian unity and peace, and more emphasis on enhancing
their own power and prestige. With this new approach to affairs of
state, first Italy and then the rest of Europe finally gave up any
remaining hope that Christendom should become a single political as well
as spiritual entity. The Arts Even more than politics, the arts reflected the new humanist spirit.
Giotto,[liii][liii] one of the earliest
Renaissance painters, revived the Roman belief that observation was the
key to artistic creativity. Whereas medieval artists had used idealized
and symbolic representation to try and achieve closeness with God,
Giotto believed that artists should depict the things they observed in
nature. Above all, the human form took primary importance in Giotto's
paintings. He tried to show human figures as if they were sculptures,
just as he observed them. Because of his departure from earlier medieval
traditions, many scholars consider him the founder of Western pictorial
art.
The humanist revival of ancient Roman culture took these
developments further, particularly in the city of Florence in the 1400s.[liv][liv] Under the Medici family, the
city was the scene of an intensive artistic awakening. Great
competitions were often held to find the most talented artists to paint
and sculpt decorations for public buildings.
Out of the frenzy of artistic creativity came one of the greatest
sculptors of the Italian Renaissance, Donatello.[lv][lv] Unlike many artists, who
specialized in one type of person, Donatello was able to sculpt young
children, warriors, church fathers, women, and many others with equal
detail and convincing realism. Donatello also was greatly concerned with
showing the human body in motion, just as ancient Greek and Roman
artists had done. He wanted to convey the idea that the human body was
not stiff, but rather designed for flowing movements. Donatello
challenged later sculptors to depict the human form as it appeared in
nature, clearly showing its beauty and grace.
Like the Medici of Florence, many noble Italian families and
wealthy merchants supported the efforts of Renaissance artists. Artists
depended on wealthy patrons for their living. Ruling families became the
greatest patrons, using the arts to proclaim their own fame and as
political statements of their power and wealth. Isabella d'Este,[lvi][lvi] for example, who ruled the
northern city-state of Mantua as regent for her husband and son, filled
her palace with works by the best contemporary artists.
BIOGRAPHY Isabella was born in 1474[lvii][lvii] to the powerful and
well-educated Este family, the rulers of the Italian city-state of
Ferrara.[lviii][lviii] At age 16 she was married
to Francesco Gonzaga,[lix][lix] the ruler of Mantua.[lx][lx] Isabella was not to be merely
a figurehead for the court. As she grew older, she exercised her keen
intellect by engaging in the intricacies of politics among the
city-states of Italy. She was well respected by many European rulers.
Through careful negotiations she increased the wealth and power of her
possessions. One of Isabella’s subjects once said of her: “She
trusts no one and will know the motive of everyone.”
Long a patron of humanist scholars and artists, in later life
Isabella concentrated on filling her palace with the greatest works of
art and literature of her time. Her court was home to writers,
sculptors, and painters, and she had various rooms in the palace
designed by leading architects of the day. Even after her death in 1539,[lxi][lxi] her legacy as a great patron
lived on in the portraits she had done by two of the greatest
Renaissance artists, Titian[lxii][lxii] and Leonardo da Vinci.[lxiii][lxiii]
Da Vinci himself
embodied the ideal of the Renaissance man. In addition to being a
painter, he also was a sculptor, an architect, and an engineer. He was
fascinated by nature and technology. He made sketches of plants and
animals, as well as detailed drawings of a flying machine and a
submarine. To make his paintings more realistic, he studied anatomy,
dissecting human and animal corpses to find out how they worked. Yet his
paintings were not simply anatomically correct. They also tried to
capture the complexity of the human spirit, as his famous portrait the Mona
Lisa[lxiv][lxiv] illustrates with its
mysterious smile.
Even the art commissioned by the church displayed the humanist
influence. Pope Julius II,[lxv][lxv] for example, patronized
perhaps the greatest and most famous artist of the Renaissance,
Michelangelo Buonarroti.[lxvi][lxvi] Although Michelangelo
preferred sculpting, one of his most famous works is the painting he
completed between 1508 and 1512 on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel in the Vatican, the pope's residence in Rome.[lxvii][lxvii] The central feature of the
painting depicts God transmitting the spark of life to Adam, who is
portrayed with a sense of both serenity and power. Nothing better
captures the spirit of the Renaissance and its vision of the nature and
possibilities of humankind. Section 2 Review IDENTIFY and explain the
significance of the following: standard of living Commercial Revolution capital joint-stock companies Renaissance Francesco Petrarch classical education humanism Guelphs Ghibellines condottieri balance of power civic humanism Niccolò Machiavelli Isabella d'Este Leonardo da Vinci Michelangelo LOCATE
and explain the importance of the following: Florence Venice Milan Kingdom of Naples Papal States 1.
Main Idea. How did the growth of trade influence life in Italy? 2.
Main Idea. What was the focus of Renaissance art and literature? 3.
Geography: Location How
did geography make Italy a logical place for the Renaissance to begin in
Europe? 4.
Writing to Explain. Explain
why, by the 1400s, many Italians felt that they could no longer rely on
the church as a means of security and stability. 5.
Synthesizing. What did humanism and politics have to do with one
another in Renaissance Italy? |
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