RENAISSANCE

• Made possible by recovery of trade and commerce after the chaos of Late Middle Ages

• Began roughly around 1400 AD, first in northern Italy and then gradually throughout the rest of Western Europe

• Means “rebirth”• Revival of wisdom and achievements of ancient Rome• Saw Middle Ages as a bleak period of ignorance and

superstition, presided over by a Church which stifled creativity and freedom of expression – “Dark Ages”

• Looked to Ancient World for inspiration• Humanism – emphasis in art and philosophy on man

and his aspirations, thoughts, desires, and achievements

HUMANISM• Niccolo Machiavelli• Fused knowledge of ancient Rome

with his practical experience as diplomat from Florence

• Wrote The Prince –advice book for rulers

• Moral and religious considerations of “right” and “wrong” had no place in politics

• All that counted was whether an action benefited a ruler and his state

• Ends justified the means• Brutally realistic but good example

of humanistic emphasis on man

RENAISSANCE ART• Derivative in some ways

(architects merely copied Roman styles)

• Truly original in painting.• Why?• Desire to be realistic, to recreate

on canvas what the eye actually saw

• Developed new techniques to accomplish this– Preliminary sketches– Attention to shadow and light– Attention to pose, costume,

and setting– Perspective– Anatomically accurate figure

drawing

LEONARDO DA VINCITHE LAST SUPPER

LEONARDO DA VINCIMONA LISA

MICHELANGELOCEILING OF THE SISTINE

CHAPEL

MICHELANGELODAVID and THE PIETA

OTHER RENAISSANCE PAINTERS

Raphael

Peter PaulRubens

Titian

El Greco

RENAISSANCE WRITERS• Vernacular literature (writing in a

spoken language instead of Latin)– New literary forms– New stylistic devices– Growth of national literatures

• William Shakespeare– Greatest national writer– Author of sonnets– Author of numerous plays

• Midsummer’s Night Dream• Hamlet• Romeo and Juliet• MacBeth

RENAISSANCE RULERS

• Continued process of creating strong centralized states

• Effective because of their ruthlessness

• Provided Machiavelli with his model

• FRANCE– Louis XI– Francis I

RENAISSANCE RULERSENGLAND

• War of the Roses

• Henry VII founds Tudor Dynasty

• Henry VII – destroys power of the Catholic Church

• Elizabeth I – destroys power of the nobility

RENAISSANCE RULERSSPAIN

• Ferdinand of Aragon marries Isabella of Castille

• Together they drive out the Moslems to create unified Christian kingdom of Spain

• Grandson Charles V• Great grandson Philip II• Spain becomes greatest

power in Europe (thanks mainly to treasure from New World)

REFORMATION

• Upheaval in Christian Church– Produced powerful new

religious ideas– Created a number of

new Christian denominations (Protestants)

– Sparked Catholic Counter-Reformation

– Unleashed wave of terrible religious wars

– Europe’s last great age of faith

PROBLEMS WITH THE CHURCH

– Had become corrupt, distracted from original mission and influenced by humanistic ideas

– Popes more concerned with art, literature, politics, and luxury than religion

– Alexander VI – Borgia pope with illegitimate children, mistresses. Engaged in military campaigns and murders.

ABUSES

– Simony (selling church offices)

– Pluralism (holding more than one church office at a time)

– Clerical immorality

– Clerical ignorance

RELIGIOUS DISSENT

– Abuses strongly contrasted with traditional image of the Church

– Jan Hus of Bohemia and John Wycliffe of England both protested abuses within the Church and paid for their dissent with their lives

MARTIN LUTHER I• 1483-1546 Born into middle-

class family• Supposed to go to law school

but defied father and went to seminary to become monk

• Suffered from intense personal religious crisis– Personal salvation– Church taught that faith in

Jesus plus good works earned salvation

– Luther performed good works but did not feel he was saved

MARTIN LUTHER II• Became professor of theology at

University of Wittenburg• Bothered by sale of indulgences

– Permission not to do penance for forgiveness of sins

– Pieces of paper sold by Church

– People believed they could buy their way into Heaven

• Hit on new doctrine of salvation while preparing a lecture on epistles of St. Paul– A person is saved by faith in

Jesus alone

LUTHER GOES PUBLIC• Posted “95 Theses” on door of

local cathedral to start debate on issue of indulgences

• Church won’t debate and forces Luther to take increasingly extreme positions– Pope had no power over

Christians– He was a fraud

• Excommunicated in 1520• Condemned by Diet of Worms

– Held by Charles V– “Here I stand. I cannot do

otherwise”– Declared “outlaw of the Empire”

ATTRACTIONS OF LUTHERANISM

• Ordinary people found comfort in his religious message

• Rulers often had political and economic motives– Opportunity to seize wealth of

Catholic Church– Way to oppose centralizing

policies of Charles V

• Spread throughout northern Germany and Scandinavia

HENRY VIII AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

• Motivated by personal and political reasons– Wanted to divorce Catherine of

Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn– Pope refused

• Pulled England out of Catholic Church in 1534 and created Church of England

• Kept most traditional Catholic practices and doctrines– Only difference was that Church

answered to king, not pope– Opened way for gradual

“Protestantization” of England

JOHN CALVIN• French • Controlled Swiss city of Geneva• Doctrine

– Stressed overwhelming power of God and insignificance of man

– Predestination• God is all-knowing• He therefore knows everything we will do in

our life before we do it• Knew from the beginning of time whether an

individual would be saved or not• No human being deserves salvation• God, for unknown reasons, has decided ti

save some. They will be notified.• People must behave in certain way to show

gratitude for salvation

CALVINISTS

• Followers– Puritans in

England– Presbyterians in

Scotland– Huguenots in

France– Dutch Reformed

Church

COUNTER-REFORMATION

• Organized by Pope Paul III

• Established new missionary and teaching orders– Society of Jesus

(Jesuits)– Ignatius Loyola– Improve

educational and spiritual care of lay people

COUNCIL OF TRENT– 1545-1563– Ended simony and pluralism– Ended sale of indulgences– Established severe

punishments for immorality and corruption

– Established new seminaries– Reaffirmed traditional

Catholic views on theological points challenged by Protestants

• set stage for Age of Religious Wars

AGE OF RELIGIOUS WARS• Revolt of the Netherlands• Wars of Religion in France• Anglo-Spanish Naval War• Thirty Years War• All characterized by individual and

mob violence– Vandalizing, looting, and burning

churches– Ambushing people as they left

church– Street attacks– Attacks on homes and businesses– Mutilation of victims and corpses– All in the name of Christianity