TheRenaissance:AVeryShortIntroduction

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ANARCHISMColinWard

ANCIENT EGYPT IanShaw

ANCIENTPHILOSOPHYJuliaAnnas

ANCIENTWARFARE HarrySidebottom

THE ANGLO-SAXONAGEJohnBlair

ANIMAL RIGHTS DavidDeGrazia

ARCHAEOLOGY PaulBahn

ARCHITECTURE AndrewBallantyne

ARISTOTLE JonathanBarnes

ART HISTORY DanaArnold

ART THEORY CynthiaFreeland

THE HISTORY OFASTRONOMY MichaelHoskin

ATHEISMJulianBaggini

AUGUSTINE HenryChadwick

BARTHES JonathanCuller

THEBIBLEJohnRiches

THE BRAIN MichaelO’Shea

BRITISHPOLITICS AnthonyWright

BUDDHA MichaelCarrithers

BUDDHISM DamienKeown

BUDDHISTETHICSDamienKeown

CAPITALISM JamesFulcher

THE CELTS BarryCunliffe

CHOICETHEORY MichaelAllingham

CHRISTIAN ART Beth

Williamson

CHRISTIANITY LindaWoodhead

CLASSICS Mary BeardandJohnHenderson

CLAUSEWITZ MichaelHoward

THE COLDWAR RobertMcMahon

CONSCIOUSNESS SusanBlackmore

CONTEMPORARYARTJulianStallabrass

CONTINENTALPHILOSOPHY SimonCritchley

COSMOLOGYPeterColes

THECRUSADES Christopher

Tyerman

CRYPTOGRAPHY FredPiperandSeanMurphy

DADA ANDSURREALISM DavidHopkins

DARWIN JonathanHoward

THE DEAD SEASCROLLSTimothyLim

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DESCARTESTomSorell

DESIGNJohnHeskett

DINOSAURS DavidNorman

DREAMING J. AllanHobson

DRUGSLeslieIversen

THE EARTH MartinRedfern

EGYPTIANMYTHGeraldinePinch

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYBRITAINPaulLangford

THE ELEMENTS PhilipBall

EMOTIONDylanEvans

EMPIREStephenHowe

ENGELSTerrellCarver

ETHICSSimonBlackburn

THE EUROPEANUNIONJohnPinder

EVOLUTION Brian andDeborahCharlesworth

FASCISMKevinPassmore

FEMINISM MargaretWalters

FOSSILSKeithThomson

FOUCAULTGaryGutting

THE FRENCHREVOLUTION WilliamDoyle

FREEWILLThomasPink

FREUDAnthonyStorr

GALILEOStillmanDrake

GANDHIBhikhuParekh

GLOBALCATASTROPHES BillMcGuire

GLOBALIZATIONManfredSteger

GLOBALWARMINGMarkMaslin

HABERMAS JamesGordonFinlayson

HEGELPeterSinger

HEIDEGGER MichaelInwood

HIEROGLYPHS PenelopeWilson

HINDUISMKimKnott

HISTORYJohnH.Arnold

HOBBESRichardTuck

HUMANEVOLUTION BernardWood

HUMEA.J.Ayer

IDEOLOGY MichaelFreeden

INDIANPHILOSOPHY SueHamilton

INTELLIGENCE Ian J.Deary

ISLAMMaliseRuthven

JOURNALISM IanHargreaves

JUDAISM NormanSolomon

JUNGAnthonyStevens

KAFKARitchieRobertson

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KIERKEGAARD PatrickGardiner

THE KORAN MichaelCook

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MARXPeterSinger

MATHEMATICS TimothyGowers

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MEDIEVALBRITAINJohnGillinghamandRalphA.Griffiths

MODERN ART DavidCottington

MODERNIRELANDSenia

MOLECULESPhilipBall

MUSICNicholasCook

MYTHRobertA.Segal

NATIONALISM StevenGrosby

NIETZSCHE MichaelTanner

NINETEENTH-CENTURYBRITAIN ChristopherHarvie and H. C. G.Matthew

NORTHERNIRELAND MarcMulholland

PARTICLEPHYSICSFrankClose

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PHILOSOPHY EdwardCraig

PHILOSOPHY OFSCIENCESamirOkasha

PLATOJuliaAnnas

POLITICS KennethMinogue

POLITICALPHILOSOPHY DavidMiller

POSTCOLONIALISMRobertYoung

POSTMODERNISMChristopherButler

POSTSTRUCTURALISMCatherineBelsey

PREHISTORY ChrisGosden

PRESOCRATICPHILOSOPHY CatherineOsborne

PSYCHOLOGY GillianButlerandFredaMcManus

QUANTUM

THEORY JohnPolkinghorne

THERENAISSANCE JerryBrotton

RENAISSANCEARTGeraldineA.Johnson

ROMAN BRITAIN PeterSalway

ROUSSEAU Robert

Wokler

RUSSELLA.C.Grayling

RUSSIANLITERATURE CatrionaKelly

THE RUSSIANREVOLUTIONS.A.Smith

SCHIZOPHRENIA ChrisFrithandEveJohnstone

SCHOPENHAUERChristopherJanaway

SHAKESPEAREGermaineGreer

SIKHISMEleanorNesbitt

Availablesoon:

AFRICANHISTORYJohnParker and Richard

Rathbone

ANGLICANISM MarkChapman

CHAOSLeonardSmith

CITIZENSHIP RichardBellamy

DERRIDA SimonGlendinning

EXISTENTIALISMThomas

Flynn

THE FIRST WORLDWARMichaelHoward

FUNDAMENTALISMMaliseRuthven

SOCIAL AND CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY JohnMonaghanandPeterJust

SOCIALISM MichaelNewman

SOCIOLOGYSteveBruce

SOCRATES C. C. W.Taylor

THE SPANISH CIVILWARHelenGraham

SPINOZARogerScruton

STUART BRITAIN JohnMorrill

TERRORISM Charles

Townshend

THEOLOGY David F.Ford

THE HISTORY OFTIME Leofranc Holford-Strevens

TRAGEDYAdrianPoole

THETUDORSJohnGuy

TWENTIETH-CENTURY

BRITAIN Kenneth O.Morgan

THE VIKINGS Julian D.Richards

WITTGENSTEIN A. C.Grayling

WORLD MUSIC PhilipBohlman

THE WORLD TRADEORGANIZATION Amrita

Narlikar

HIV/AIDSAlanWhiteside

HUMANMIGRATION KhalidKoser

INTERNATIONALRELATIONS PaulWilkinson

NEWTONRobertIliffe

PHILOSOPHY OFLAWRaymondWacks

PHOTOGRAPHY SteveEdwards

PSYCHIATRYTomBurns

RACISMAliRattansi

ROMANEMPIRE ChristopherKelly

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JerryBrotton

THERENAISSANCEAVeryShortIntroduction

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Contents

Listofillustrations

Introduction

1AglobalRenaissance

2Thehumanistscript

3Churchandstate

4Bravenewworlds

5Scienceandphilosophy

6 Rewriting theRenaissance

Timeline

Furtherreading

Index

List ofillustrations

1 Hans Holbein, TheAmbassadors, 1533,oiloncanvasNational Gallery,

London

2 GentileandGiovanniBellini, Saint MarkPreaching inAlexandria, 1504–7,oiloncanvasPinacoteca di Brera,Milan/© Scala,Florence

3 Attr. Costanzo daMoysis, SeatedScribe, c.1470–80,penandgouacheIsabella StewartGardner Museum,Boston/BridgemanArtLibrary

4 Attr.Bihzâd,PortraitofaPainter, late15thcentury

Freer Gallery of Art,Smithsonian,WashingtonDC

5 Martin Behaim,terrestrialglobe,1492,vellumGermanischesNationalmuseum,Nuremberg/© akg-images

6 Anon., Bini-Portuguese salt cellar,c.1490–1530,ivory©TheTrusteesoftheBritish Museum,London

7 Albrecht Dürer,portrait of Erasmus,copperplateengraving,1526©TheTrusteesofthe

British Museum,London

8 Benozzo Gozzoli,Adoration of theMagi,1459,FrescoToc-Chap2el of thePalazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence/©Scala,Florence

9 Roger van derWeyden,Seven Sacraments,c.1440–50, oil onwoodKoninklijk MuseumvoorSchoneKunsten,Antwerp/BridgemanArtLibrary

10 Caradosso,foundation medal

ofStPeter’s,Rome,1506,lead©The Trustees ofthe BritishMuseum,London

11Raphael’sworkshop,Donation ofConstantine, 1523–4,fresco,northwallSaladiConstantino,Vatican

12 Claudius Ptolemy,world map fromGeography, Ulm,1482By permission oftheBritishLibrary

13 Anon., ‘Maghrebchart’, c.1330, ink

onpaperBibiliotecaAmbrosiana,Milan

14PiriReis,worldmap,1513,vellumTopkapi SarayMuseum,Istanbul

15DiogoRibeiro,world

map,1529,vellumVatican Library,Rome

16 NicolausCopernicus,heliocentricsystem,in On theRevolutions of theCelestial Spheres,1543New York Public

Library, RareBooks andManuscriptsDivision

17 Andreas Vesalius,title-page to thefirst edition of Onthe Structure of theHuman Body,woodcut, Basle,1543

Newberry Library,Chicago

18GeorgiusAmirutzes,Ptolemaic worldmap, c.1465,vellumAyasofya Library,Istanbul

19 Albrecht Dürer,draughtsmandrawing a nude, inACourseintheArtof Measurement,1525Kupferstichkabinett,Staatliche MuseenPreussischerKulturbesitz, Berlin©bpk,Berlin

20 Leonardo da Vinci,study for thecasting pit for theSforza monument,c.1498The Royal Library,Windsor.The RoyalCollection©2006,HerMajestyQueenElizabethII

The publisher and the author

apologize for any errors oromissionsintheabovelist.Ifcontactedtheywillbepleasedto rectify theseat theearliestopportunity.

Introduction AnOldMaster

National museums and artgalleriesarethemostobviousplaces to go to understandwhatwemeanwhenwe talkabout ‘The Renaissance’.

Most visitors to London’sNationalGalleryfail to leavewithout seeing one of themost famous works of art inits collection – HansHolbein’s The Ambassadors,dated1533.FormanypeopleHolbein’s painting is anabiding image of theEuropean Renaissance. Butwhat is it that makesHolbein’s painting such arecognizably ‘Renaissance’image?

The Ambassadors portraystwo elegantly dressed men,surrounded by theparaphernaliaof16th-centurylife. Holbein’s lovinglydetailed, precise depiction ofthe world of theseRenaissance men, who stareback at the viewer with aconfident, but alsoquestioningself-awareness,isan image that has arguablynot been seen before inpainting. Medieval art looks

much more alien, as it lacksthispowerfullyself-consciouscreation of individuality.Evenif it isdifficult tograspthe motivation for the rangeof emotions expressed inpaintings likeHolbein’s, it isstill possible to identify withthese emotions asrecognizably ‘modern’. Inotherwords,whenwelookatpaintings like TheAmbassadors, we are seeingthe emergence of modern

identityandindividuality.

Thisisausefulstartintryingto understand Holbein’spainting as an artisticmanifestation of theRenaissance. But alreadysome

1. Hans Holbein’s The

Ambassadors,aniconoftheRenaissance, yet onlydiscovered in the 19th

century. Its enigmaticsitters and objects offer awealth of insights into theperiod

rather vague terms arebeginning to accumulate thatneedsomeexplanation.Whatis the ‘modern world’? Isn’tthis as slippery a term as‘Renaissance’? Similarly,should medieval art bedefined (and effectivelydismissed) so simply? And

what of ‘Renaissance Man’?What about ‘RenaissanceWoman’? To start to answerthese questions, it isnecessary to look morecloselyatHolbein’spicture.

An educatedRenaissance

Whatcatchestheeyeasmuch

as the gaze of both sitters isthe table in themiddleof thecomposition and the objectsscatteredacrossitsupperandlower tiers. On the lowershelf are two books (a hymnbook and a merchant’sarithmetic book), a lute, aterrestrial globe, a case offlutes,asetsquare,andapairof dividers. The upper shelfcontainsacelestialglobe,andseveral extremely specializedscientific instruments:

quadrants, sundials, and atorquetum (a timepiece andnavigational aid). Theseobjects represent the sevenliberal arts that provided thebasis of a Renaissanceeducation. The three basicarts – grammar, logic, andrhetoric–wereknownas thetrivium. They can be relatedto the activities of the twositters.Theyareambassadors,trainedintheuseoftexts,butaboveall skilled in theartof

argumentandpersuasion.Thequadrivium referred toarithmetic, music, geometry,and astronomy, all of whichare clearly represented inHolbein’sprecisedepictionofthe arithmetic book, the lute,andthescientificinstruments.

These academic subjectsformedthebasisofthestudiahumanitatis, the course ofstudy followed by most

young men of the period,more popularly known ashumanism. Humanismrepresented a significant newdevelopmentinlate14th-and15th-century Europe thatinvolved the study of theclassical texts of Greek andRoman language, culture,politics, and philosophy. Thehighly flexible nature of thestudia humanitatisencouraged the study of avarietyofnewdisciplinesthat

became central toRenaissance thought, such asclassical philology, literature,history, and moralphilosophy.

Holbein is showing that hissitters are themselves ‘NewMen’, scholarly but worldlyfigures, utilizing theirlearning in pursuit of fameand ambition. The figure ontherightisJeandeDinteville,

theFrenchambassadortotheEnglish court of Henry VIII.Ontheleft ishisclosefriendGeorges de Selve, bishop ofLavaur. The objects on thetable are chosen to suggestthat their positions in theworldsofpoliticsandreligionarecloselyconnectedtotheirunderstanding of humanistthinking. The paintingimpliesthatknowledgeofthedisciplines represented bythese objects is crucial to

worldly ambition andsuccess.

The darker side oftheRenaissance

Yet if we look even moreclosely at the objects inHolbein’s painting, they leadustoquiteanotherversionofthe Renaissance. On the

lowershelfoneof thestringson the lute is broken, asymbol of discord. Next tothe lute is an open hymnbook,identifiableastheworkof the religious reformerMartin Luther. On the right-handedgeofthepainting,thecurtainisslightlypulledbackto reveal a silver crucifix.These objects draw ourattention to religious debateand discord in theRenaissance. When Holbein

paintedit,Luther’sProtestantideaswere sweeping throughEurope, defying theestablished authority of theRomanCatholicChurch.Thebroken lute is a powerfulsymbol of the religiousconflict characterized byHolbein in his juxtapositionof Lutheran hymn book andCatholiccrucifix.

Holbein’s Lutheran hymn

bookisquiteclearlyaprintedbook. The invention ofprinting in the latter half ofthe 15th centuryrevolutionized the creation,distribution, andunderstanding of informationandknowledge.Compared tothe laborious and ofteninaccurate copying ofmanuscripts, printed bookswere circulated with a speedand accuracy and inquantities previously

unimaginable.But the spreadof new ideas in print,especially in religion, wouldalso provoke instability,uncertainty, and anxiety,leadingartistsandthinkerstofurther question who theywereandhowtheylivedinarapidly expanding world.This relationship betweenachievement and the anxietyit creates is one of thecharacteristic features of theRenaissance.

Next to Holbein’s Lutheranhymn book sits anotherprinted book, which at firstseems more mundane, butwhich offers another tellingdimension of theRenaissance. The book is aninstruction manual formerchantsinhowtocalculateprofit and loss. Its presencealongside themore ‘cultural’objects in thepainting showsthat in the Renaissancebusiness and finance were

inextricably connected toculture and art. While thebook alludes to thequadrivium of Renaissancehumanist learning, it alsopoints towards an awarenessthattheculturalachievementsoftheRenaissancewerebuilton the successof the spheresof trade and finance. As theworld grew in size andcomplexity,newmechanismsfor understanding theincreasingly invisible

circulation of money andgoods were required tomaximize profit andminimizeloss.Theresultwasa renewed interest indisciplines like mathematicsasawayofunderstandingtheeconomics of a progressivelyglobal Renaissance worldpicture.

The terrestrial globe behindthe merchant’s arithmetic

book confirms the expansionof trade and finance as adefining feature of theRenaissance.Theglobeisoneofthemostimportantobjectsin the painting. Travel,exploration, and discoverywere dynamic, controversialaspects of the Renaissance,and Holbein’s globe tells usthis in its remarkably up-to-date representation of theworld as it was perceived in1533. Europe is labelled

‘Europa’. This is itselfsignificant, as the 15th and16thcenturieswere thepointatwhichEurope began to bedefined as possessing acommonpoliticalandculturalidentity. Prior to this peoplerarely called themselves‘European’. Holbein alsoportrays the recentdiscoveries made throughvoyages in Africa and Asia,aswellasinthe‘NewWorld’voyages of Christopher

Columbus, begun in 1492,and Ferdinand Magellan’sfirst circumnavigation of theglobe in 1522. ThesediscoveriessituatedEuropeina rapidly expanding world,but also changed thecontinent’s relationship withthecultures andcommunitiesitencountered.

As with the impact of theprinting press, and the

upheavals in religion, thisglobal expansion bequeatheda double-edged legacy. Oneof the outcomes was thedestruction of indigenouscultures and communitiesthrough war and disease,becausetheywereunpreparedfor or uninterested inadopting European beliefsand ways of living. Alongwith the cultural, scientific,and technologicalachievements of the period

came religious intolerance,political ignorance, slavery,and massive inequalities inwealth and status –what hasbeencalled‘thedarkersideoftheRenaissance’.

Politicsandempire

This leads to other crucialdimensions of the

Renaissance addressed inHolbein’s painting, andwhich define both its sittersand the objects: power,politics, and empire. Tounderstand the importance ofthese issues and how theyemerge in the painting, weneed to know some moreabout its subjects. DintevilleandSelvewereinEnglandin1533 on the orders of theFrench King Francis I. KingHenry VIII had secretly

married Anne Boleyn andwas threatening to leave theCatholic Church if the poperefusedtogranthimadivorcefromhisfirstwife.Dintevilleand Selve were trying toprevent Henry’s split fromRome and act as Francis’sintermediaries in thenegotiations. So while thispainting, like much of thehistoryof theRenaissance, isabout relationsbetweenmen,it is noticeable that at the

heart of this image is adisputeoverawomanwhoisabsent,butwhosepresenceispowerfully felt in its objectsand surroundings. Theinsistent attempts by men tosilence women only drewmore attention to theircomplicated status within apatriarchal society: womenwere denied the benefits ofmany of the cultural andsocial developments of theRenaissance,butwerekey to

its functioning as the bearersofmaleheirstoperpetuateitsmale-dominatedculture.

Dinteville and Selve werealso in London to broker anew political alliancebetween Henry, Francis, andtheOttomanSultanSüleymanthe Magnificent, the othergreat power in Europeanpolitics of the time. The rugontheuppershelfofthetable

in Holbein’s painting is ofOttoman design andmanufacture, suggesting thatthe Ottomans and theirterritories to the east werealso part of the cultural,commercial, and politicallandscapeoftheRenaissance.Selve and Dinteville’sattempt to draw Henry VIIIinto an alliance with FrancisandSüleymanwasmotivatedby their fear of the growingstrength of that other great

Renaissance imperial power,the Habsburg empire ofCharles V. By comparison,England and France wereminor imperial players: theterrestrial globe in thepainting says as much. Itshows the European empiresbeginning to carve up thenewly discovered world.Holbein’s globe reproducesthe line of demarcationestablishedby theempiresofSpain and Portugal in 1494,

following Columbus’s‘discovery’ofAmerica.

This demarcation was madein response to a dispute overterritories in the Far East.BothSpainandPortugalwerestruggling for possession ofthe remote but highlylucrative spice-producingislands of the Indonesianarchipelago,theMoluccas.Inthe Renaissance, Europe

placed itself at the centre ofthe terrestrial globe, but itlooked towards thewealthoftheeast,fromthetextilesandsilks of the Ottoman Empireto the spices and pepper ofthe Indonesian archipelago.Many of the objects inHolbein’s painting have aneastern origin, from the silkand velvet worn by itssubjects to the textiles anddesigns that decorate theroom.

The objects in the bottomsection ofHolbein’s paintingreveal various facets of theRenaissance – humanism,religion, printing, trade,exploration, politics andempire, and the enduringpresence of the wealth andknowledge of the east. Theobjects on the upper shelfdealwithmuchmoreabstractandphilosophical issues.Thecelestial globe is anastronomical instrument used

to measure the stars and thenature of the universe. Nexttotheglobeisacollectionofdials, used to tell the timewiththeaidofthesun’srays.The two larger objects are aquadrant and a torquetum,navigationalinstrumentsusedtowork out a ship’s positioninboth timeandspace.Mostof these instruments wereinventedbyArabandJewishastronomers and camewestwards as European

travellers requirednavigational expertise forlong-distance voyages. Theyreflect an intensified interestwithin the Renaissance inunderstanding and masteringthe natural world. AsRenaissance philosophersdebated the nature of theirworld, navigators,instrument-makers, andscientists began to channelthese philosophical debatesinto practical solutions to

natural problems.The resultswereobjectssuchas those inHolbein’spainting.

Finally, consider the obliqueimage that slashes across thebottom of the painting.Viewed straight on, it isimpossible to make out themeaning of this distortedshape.However,iftheviewerstands at an angle to thepainting, the image

metamorphoses into aperfectly drawn skull. Thiswasafashionableperspectivetrick, known asanamorphosis, used byseveral Renaissance artists.Art historians have arguedthatthisisavanitas image,achilling reminder that in themidst of all this wealth,power, and learning, deathcomestousall.Buttheskullalso appears to representHolbein’s own artistic

initiative, regardless of therequirementsofhispatron. Itshows him breaking free ofhisidentityasaskilledartisanand asserting the growingpower and autonomy of thepainter as an artist toexperiment with newtechniques and theories suchas optics and geometry increating innovative paintedimages.

WhereandwhenwastheRenaissance?

The Renaissance is usuallyassociated with the Italiancity states like Florence, butItaly’s undoubted importancehas too often overshadowedthedevelopmentofnewideasin northern Europe, theIberianpeninsula,theIslamic

world, south-east Asia, andAfrica. In offering a moreglobal perspective on thenature of the Renaissance, itwould be more accurate torefer to a series of‘Renaissances’ throughouttheseregions,eachwith theirown highly specific andseparate characteristics.These other Renaissancesoften overlapped andexchanged influences withthe more classical and

traditionally understoodRenaissancecentredon Italy.The Renaissance was aremarkably international,fluid, and mobilephenomenon.

Today, there is a popularconsensus that the term‘Renaissance’ refers to aprofound and enduringupheaval and transformationin culture, politics, art, andsocietyinEuropebetweenthe

years 1400 and 1600. Theword describes both a periodinhistoryandamoregeneralidealofculturalrenewal.Theterm comes from the Frenchfor ‘rebirth’. Since the 19thcentury it has been used todescribe the period inEuropean history when therebirth of intellectual andartistic appreciation ofGraeco-Roman culture gaverise to themodern individualas well as the social and

cultural institutions thatdefine somanypeople in thewesternworldtoday.

Art historians often view theRenaissance as beginning asearly as the 13th century,with the art of Giotto andCimabue, and ending in thelate 16th century with thework of Michelangelo andVenetian painters likeTitian.Literary scholars in the

Anglo-Americanworldtakeavery different perspective,focusing on the rise ofvernacular English literatureinthe16thand17thcenturiesin the poetry and drama ofSpenser, Shakespeare, andMilton. Historians take adifferent approach again,labelling the period c.1500–1700 as ‘early modern’,rather than ‘Renaissance’.These differences in datingand even naming the

Renaissance have become sointensethatthevalidityofthetermisnowindoubt.Doesithaveanymeaninganymore?Is it possible to separate theRenaissance from theMiddleAgesthatprecededit,andthemodernworldthatcameafterit? Does it underpin a beliefin European culturalsuperiority? To answer thesequestions, we need tounderstand how the term‘Renaissance’itselfcameinto

being.

No 16th-century audiencewould have recognized theterm ‘Renaissance’. TheItalian word rinascita(‘rebirth’) was used in the16th century to refer to therevival of classical culture.But the specificFrenchword‘Renaissance’ was not usedas a descriptive historicalphraseuntilthemiddleofthe

19thcentury.Thefirstpersonto use the term was theFrench historian JulesMichelet,aFrenchnationalistdeeply committed to theegalitarian principles of theFrench Revolution. Between1833 and 1862 Micheletworked on his greatestproject, the multi–volumeHistory of France. Hewas aprogressive republican,vociferous in hiscondemnation of both the

aristocracyandthechurch.In1855hepublishedhisseventhvolume of the History,entitled La Renaissance. ForhimtheRenaissancemeant:

. . . thediscoveryof theworld and the discoveryof man. The sixteenthcentury . . . went fromColumbus toCopernicus, fromCopernicus to Galileo,from the discovery of

the earth to that of theheavens. Man refoundhimself.

The scientific discoveries ofexplorers and thinkers likeColumbus, Copernicus, andGalileo went hand in handwith more philosophicaldefinitions of individualitythatMicheletidentifiedinthewritings of Rabelais,

Montaigne, and Shakespeare.This new spirit wascontrasted with whatMichelet viewed as the‘bizarre and monstrous’quality of the Middle Ages.To him the Renaissancerepresented a progressive,democratic condition thatcelebratedthegreatvirtueshevalued – Reason, Truth, Art,and Beauty. According toMichelet, the Renaissance‘recognized itself as identical

atheartwiththemodernage’.

MicheletwasthefirstthinkertodefinetheRenaissanceasadecisive historical period inEuropean culture thatrepresented a crucial breakwith the Middle Ages, andwhich created a modernunderstanding of humanityanditsplaceintheworld.Healso promoted theRenaissanceasrepresentinga

certain spirit or attitude, asmuch as referring to aspecific historical period.Michelet’s Renaissance doesnothappeninItalyinthe14thand 15th centuries, as wehavecometoexpect.Instead,hisRenaissancetakesplaceinthe16thcentury.AsaFrenchnationalist, Michelet waseager to claim theRenaissance as a Frenchphenomenon.Asarepublicanhe also rejectedwhat he saw

as 14th-century Italy’sadmiration for church andpolitical tyranny as deeplyundemocratic, and hence notpart of the spirit of theRenaissance.

Michelet’s story of theRenaissance was shapeddecisively by his own 19th-century circumstances. Infact, thevaluesofMichelet’sRenaissance sound strikinglyclosetothoseofhischerished

FrenchRevolution:espousingthevaluesoffreedom,reason,and democracy, rejectingpolitical and religioustyranny, and enshrining thespirit of freedom and thedignity of ‘man’.Disappointedinthefailureofthesevalues inhisown time,Micheletwent in search of ahistorical moment where thevalues of liberty andegalitarianism triumphed andpromised a modern world

freeoftyranny.

SwissRenaissance

Michelet inventedtheideaofthe Renaissance; but theSwiss academic JacobBurckhardt defined it as anItalian 15th-centuryphenomenon. In 1860Burckhardt published The

Civilisation of theRenaissance in Italy. Heargued that the peculiaritiesof political life in late 15th-century Italy led to thecreation of a recognizablymodern individuality. Therevival of classical antiquity,the discovery of the widerworld, and the growingunease with organizedreligion meant ‘man becamea spiritual individual’.Burckhardt deliberately

contrasted this newdevelopmentwith the lackofindividual awareness that forhimdefinedtheMiddleAges.Here, ‘Manwasconsciousofhimself only as amember ofa race, people, party, familyor corporation.’ In otherwords, prior to the 15thcentury, people lacked apowerful sense of theirindividual identity. ForBurckhardt, 15th-centuryItaly gave birth to

‘Renaissance Man’, what hecalled ‘the first-born amongthe sons of modern Europe’.The result was what hasbecome the now familiaraccount of the Renaissance:the birthplace of the modernworld, created by Petrarch,Alberti, and Leonardo,characterized by the revivalof classical culture, and overby the middle of the 16thcentury.

Burckhardt says very littleabout Renaissance art oreconomic changes, andoverestimateswhatheseesasthe sceptical, even ‘pagan’approach to religion of theday.His focus is exclusivelyonItaly;hemakesnoattemptto see the Renaissance inrelation toothercultures.Hisunderstanding of the terms‘individuality’ and ‘modern’alsoremainextremelyvague.Like Michelet, Burckhardt’s

vision of the Renaissancereads like a version of hisown personal circumstances.Burckhardt was anintellectual aristocrat, proudof his Protestant andrepublican Swissindividualism. He feared thegrowth of industrialdemocracy and what he sawas its destruction of artisticbeauty.HissubsequentvisionoftheRenaissanceasaperiodwhere art and life were

united, republicanism wascelebrated but limited, andreligionwas temperedby thestatesounds likean idealizedvision of his beloved Basle.Nevertheless, in arguing thatthe Renaissance is thefoundation of modern life,Burckhardt’s book hasremained at the heart ofRenaissance studies eversince; often criticized, butnevercompletelydismissed.

Michelet and Burckhardt’scelebrations of art andindividuality as definingfeatures of the Renaissancefoundtheirlogicalconclusionin England inWalter Pater’sstudy The Renaissance, firstpublished in 1873. Paterwasan Oxford-educated don andaesthete, who used his studyof the Renaissance as avehicle for his belief in ‘thelove of art for its own sake’.Pater rejected the political,

scientific, and economicaspectsoftheRenaissanceasirrelevant,andsaw‘aspiritofrebellion and revolt againstthemoral and religious ideasofthetime’intheartof15th-century painters likeBotticelli, Leonardo, andGiorgione. This was anaesthetic, hedonistic, evenpagan celebration of whatPater called ‘the pleasures ofthe senses and theimagination’.Hefoundtraces

of this ‘love of the things ofthe intellect and theimagination for their ownsake’asearlyasthe12thandas late as the 17th century.Many were scandalized bywhat they saw as Pater’sdecadent and irreligiousbook, but his views shapedthe English-speaking world’sview of the Renaissance fordecades.

Michelet, Burckhardt, andPater created a 19th-centuryidea of the Renaissance asmore of a spirit than ahistorical period. Theachievements of art andculture revealed a newattitude towards individualityand what it meant to be‘civilized’.Theproblemwiththis way of defining theRenaissance was that, ratherthan offering an accuratehistorical account of what

took place from the 15thcentury onwards, it lookedmore like an ideal of 19th-century European society.These critics celebratedlimited democracy,scepticism towards thechurch, the power of art andliterature, and the triumph ofEuropeancivilizationoverallothers. These valuesunderpinned 19th-centuryEuropean imperialism. At apoint in history that Europe

wasaggressivelyasserting itsauthority over most of theAmericas, Africa, and Asia,people like Pater werecreating a vision of theRenaissance that seemed tooffer both an origin and ajustification for Europeandominance over the rest oftheglobe.

20th-centuryRenaissance

A far more ambivalent viewof the Renaissance emergedintheearly20th-century.Oneof the earliest challenges toBurckhardt came in 1919,with thepublicationofJohanHuizinga’sTheWaningoftheMiddle Ages. Huizingalooked at how northernEuropean culture and societyhad been neglected inprevious definitions of the

Renaissance. He challengedBurckhardt’s period divisionbetween ‘Middle Ages’ and‘Renaissance’, arguing thatthe style and attitude thatBurckhardt identified as‘Renaissance’was in fact thewaning or declining spirit ofthe Middle Ages. Huizingaoffered as an example the15th-century Flemish art ofJanvanEyck:

Bothinformandinidea

it is a product of thewaningMiddle Ages. Ifcertain historians of arthave discoveredRenaissance elements init,itisbecausetheyhaveconfounded, verywrongly, realism andRenaissance. Now thisscrupulous realism, thisaspiration to renderexactly all naturaldetails, is thecharacteristic feature of

thespiritof theexpiringMiddleAges.

Thedetailedvisualrealismofvan Eyck’s paintingrepresents for Huizinga theend of a medieval tradition,notthebirthofaRenaissancespirit of heightened artisticexpression. While Huizingadid not reject the use of theterm ‘Renaissance’, there

remainedlittleleftoftheideathathedidnotseeemanatingfrom the Middle Ages.Huizinga’s book offered avery pessimistic view of theideal of the Renaissancecelebrated by his 19th-centurypredecessors.Writtenin the midst of the FirstWorld War, it is hardlysurprising that it couldsummon little enthusiasm fortheideaoftheRenaissanceasthe flowering of the

superiority of Europeanindividuality and‘civilization’.

The mid-20th centurywitnessed a profoundreappraisal of theRenaissance by a group ofCentral European intellectualémigrés writing at a timewhen the rise oftotalitarianism threatened toundermine the humane

philosophical values ofRenaissance humanism.German scholars, includingPaul Oscar Kristeller, HansBaron, and Erwin Panofsky,fledtheriseoffascisminthe1930s andwent into exile inthe United States. Theirsubsequent work on theRenaissance was deeplyaffected by these events, andcontinues to influencecontemporary studies of theperiod.

Hans Baron’s The Crisis oftheEarlyItalianRenaissance(1955)arguedthatoneof thedefining moments inRenaissance humanismemerged in Florence as aresultofthesecondMilanesewar(1397–1402).ForBaron,the moment when theMilaneseDukeGiangaleazzoVisconti prepared to attackFlorence in 1402, resembled‘events in modern historywhen unifying conquest

loomed over Europe’.Comparing Giangaleazzo toNapoleon and Hitler, Baronconcluded that such modernanalogies helped tounderstand ‘the crisis of thesummerof1402andgraspitsmaterial and psychologicalsignificance for the politicalhistory of the Renaissance,and in particular for thegrowthoftheFlorentinecivicspirit’. Giangaleazzo wasstruckdownby theplague in

September 1402, andFlorence was saved. ForBaron,thegreatheroofwhathe characterized as thetriumph of civicrepublicanism over feudalautocracywasthescholarandstatesman Leonardo Bruni.According to Baron, in hisPanegyric to the City ofFlorence and History of theFlorentine People, Bruniexpressed a ‘new philosophyof political engagement and

active life, developed inopposition to ideals ofscholarly withdrawal’. Thisrepresented Baron’sdefinitionofcivichumanism,which ‘endeavoured toeducate a man as a memberof his society and state’, andembraced the republicanvirtues which Baron sawrepresented by MediciFlorence.

Baron’s thesis was anattractiveresponsetotheroleof the humane thinker at atime when Europe wasthreatened with the rise ofpoliticaltotalitarianism,anditdecisively placed FlorenceandtheMediciattheheartofthe origins of theRenaissance. But it alsoidealized Bruni’s humanismandFlorence’srepublicanism.Paul Oscar Kristeller took adifferent approach to Baron.

For Kristeller, it was thespeculativephilosophyof theFlorentine humanist MarsilioFicino, and in particular hisPlatonic Theology (writtenbetween1469and1473),thatdefined a new fusion of theclassical world andChristianity. For Kristeller,Ficino’s innovation was thebeliefthat

philosophy now standsfree and equal beside

religion, but it neithercan nor may conflictwith religion, becausetheir agreement isguaranteedbyacommonorigin and content. Thisisnodoubtoneof thoseconcepts with whichFicino pointed the waytothefuture.

Ficino’s Platonism carefully

negotiated the tense relationsbetween philosophy, religionand the state – relations thatwerealsoparticularly fraughtin Europe in the 1930s and40s when Kristeller wasworkingonFicino.

In the aftermath of theSecond World War and thesocialandpoliticalupheavalsof the 1960s, particularly thepoliticization of the

humanities and the rise offeminism, the Renaissancewas subjected to a profoundreappraisal. One particularlyinfluential response camefrom the United States. In1980 the literary scholarStephenGreenblatt publishedhis book Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More toShakespeare. The book builton Burckhardt’s view of theRenaissance as the point atwhichmodernmanwasborn.

Drawing on psychoanalysis,anthropology, and socialhistory, Greenblatt arguedthat the 16th centurywitnessed ‘an increased self-consciousness about thefashioning of humanidentity’. Men (and onoccasion women) learnt tomanipulate or ‘fashion’ theiridentities according to theircircumstances. LikeBurckhardt, Greenblatt sawthis as the beginnings of a

peculiarly modernphenomenon. ForGreenblatt,the literature of the greatwriters of 16th-centuryEngland – Edmund Spenser,Christopher Marlowe, andWilliam Shakespeare –produced fictional characterslikeFaustusandHamletwhobegan self-consciously toreflect on and manipulatetheir own identities. In thisrespect they started to lookand sound like modern men.

The painting that Greenblattused to introduce his theoryof self-fashioning was noneother than Hans Holbein’sTheAmbassadors.

Greenblatt concluded that inthe Renaissance ‘the humansubject itself began to seemremarkably unfree, theideological product of therelations of power in aparticularsociety’.Writingas

an American, Greenblatt hassubsequently explored bothhis admiration for theachievements of theRenaissance and his anxietywith its darker side, mostspecifically for him thecolonization of the NewWorld and the anti-Semitismfound throughout the 16thcentury.

Despite the title of

Greenblatt’s book, he andothers began to use theexpression ‘the earlymodernperiod’ to define theRenaissance. The term camefrom social history andproposed a more scepticalrelationship between theRenaissance and the modernworld than the idealisticaccounts of Michelet andBurckhardt. It also stressedtheideaoftheRenaissanceasa period of history, rather

than the cultural ‘spirit’proposed by 19th-centurywriters. The term ‘earlymodern’ still suggested thatwhat took place between1400 and 1600 deeplyinfluenced and affected themodern world. Instead offocusing on how theRenaissance itself lookedback to the classical world,‘early modern’ suggests thatthe period involved aforward-looking attitude that

prefigured our own modernworld.

The concept of the earlymodern period also enabledan exploration of topics andsubjects not previouslythought fit for considerationinrelationtotheRenaissance.Scholars like Greenblatt andNatalie Zemon Davis in herbook Society and Culture inEarlyModernFrance (1975)explored the social roles of

peasants, artisans,transvestites, and ‘unruly’women. As intellectualdisciplines such asanthropology, literature, andhistory learnt from eachother’s theoretical insights,thefocusonexcludedgroupsand marginalized objectsincreased.Categories suchas‘witch’, ‘Jew’, and ‘black’were subjected to renewedscrutiny, as critics sought torecover neglected or lost

voicesfromtheRenaissance.

Critics like Greenblatt andZemon Davis were alsoinfluenced by late 20th-century philosophical andtheoretical thinking, mostdecisively that of post-structuralism andpostmodernism. Theseapproaches were sceptical ofthe ‘grand narratives’ ofhistorical change, from

Renaissance toEnlightenment and intoModernity. Thinkers asdiverse as Theodor Adornoand Michel Foucault arguedthat the humane, civilizedvalues they identified asoriginatingintheRenaissancehad little response toorwereeven possibly complicit withthe catastrophes of thepolitical experiments ofNazismandStalinismandthehorrors of the Holocaust and

the Soviet Gulags. As aresult, few late 20th-centurythinkers had any appetite forcelebrating thegrandculturaland philosophicalachievements of theRenaissance. Instead, manyhistorians began to analysethings and objects at amuchmorelocallevel.

Similarly, everyday objects,meaningful to everyday life,

but subsequently lost ordestroyed,wereinvestedwithrenewed importance. Insteadof focusing on painting,sculpture, and architecture,scholars from variousdisciplines began toinvestigate how the materialsignificance of furniture,food, clothing, ceramics, andother apparently mundaneobjects shaped theRenaissanceworld.Insteadofseeing similarities, these

approachessuggestedthegulfbetween theRenaissance andthe modern world. Objectsand personal identities werenot fixed and unchangeable,asBurckhardthad implied inhis celebration of ‘modern’man: they were fluid andcontingent.

The legacy of theRenaissance in the 21stcentury remains as contested

as ever. Since the attacks ontheUSA in September 2001,the rhetoric of the clash ofcivilizationsbetweeneastandwest has taken its lead fromthe assumption that theRenaissance represented theglobaltriumphofthesuperiorvalues of western humanity.However, as we will see inthe next chapter, the originsof the Renaissance were farmore culturally mixed thanthese claims would suggest,

and its impact spread farbeyondtheshoresofEurope.

Chapter1A globalRenaissance

Oneoftheproblemswiththeclassic definitions of theRenaissance proposed is that

they celebrate theachievements of Europeancivilization to the exclusionof all others. It is nocoincidence that the periodthat witnessed the inventionof the term was also themomentatwhichEuropewasmost aggressively assertingitsimperialdominanceacrossthe globe. In recent years,alternative approaches to theRenaissance from history,economics, and anthropology

havecomplicatedthispicture,andofferedalternativefactorscrucial to understanding theRenaissance, butwhichweredismissed by 19th-centurythinkers like Michelet andBurckhardtasirrelevant.Thischapter situates theRenaissancewithin thewiderinternationalworld. It arguesthat trade, finance,commodities, patronage,imperial conflict, and theexchange with different

cultures were all keyelements of the Renaissance.Focusing on these issuesoffers a differentunderstandingofwhatshapedtheRenaissance. Italso leadsustothinkofthecreativityofthe Renaissance as notconfined to painting,writing,sculpture, and architecture.Other artefacts such asceramics,textiles,metalwork,and furniture also shapedpeople’sbeliefsandattitudes,

even though many of theseobjects have since beenneglected,destroyed,orlost.

Another famous Renaissancepainting that raises many ofthese issues is Gentile andGiovanni Bellini’s paintingSaintMark

2.Gentile andGiovanni

Bellini’s Saint MarkPreaching in Alexandria(1504–7) captures Europe’sfascinationwiththeculture,architecture, andcommunitiesoftheeast

Preaching in Alexandria, the

centrepiece of thePinacotecadi Brera Renaissancecollection in Milan. TheBellini painting depicts StMark, the founder of theChristian Church inAlexandria, where he wasmartyred around ad 75, andpatronsaintofVenice.Inthepainting Mark stands in apulpit, preaching to a groupoforientalwomenswathedinwhite mantles. Behind Markstands a group of Venetian

noblemen, while in front ofthe saint is an extraordinaryarray of oriental figures thatmingle easily with moreEuropeans. They includeEgyptian Mamluks, NorthAfrican ‘Moors’, Ottomans,Persians, Ethiopians, andTartars.

Thedramaoftheactiontakesplace in the bottom third ofthe painting; the rest of the

canvas is dominated by thedramatic landscape ofAlexandria. A domedByzantine basilica, animaginative recreation of StMark’s Alexandrian church,dominates the backdrop. Inthe piazza Oriental figuresconverse,someonhorseback,others leading camels and agiraffe. The houses that faceonto the square are adornedwith Egyptian grilles andtiles.Islamiccarpetsandrugs

hang from thewindows.Theminarets,columns,andpillarsthatmakeuptheskylineareamixture of Alexandrianlandmarks and the Bellinis’owninvention.Thebasilicaisan eclectic mixture ofelements of the Church ofSan Marco in Venice andHagia Sophia inConstantinople, while thetowers and columns in thedistance correspond to someofAlexandria’smost famous

landmarks, many of whichhadalreadybeenemulatedinthe architecture of Veniceitself.

At first the painting appearsto be a pious image of theChristianmartyrpreaching toa group of ‘unbelievers’,drawing on the classicalworld so precious toRenaissance thinkers andartists. However, this only

tells one side of the story.AlthoughMark is dressed asanancientRoman,inkeepingwith his life in 1st-centuryAlexandria, the garments oftheaudiencearerecognizablylate 15th century, as are thesurrounding buildings. TheBellinis depict theinterminglingofcommunitiesand cultures in a scene thatevokes both the westernchurch and the easternmarketplace.Thepaintingisa

combination of two worlds:the contemporary and theclassical.Atthesametimeasevoking the world of 1st-century Alexandria and thelifeofStMark,theartistsarealsokeentoportrayVenice’srelationship withcontemporary, late 15th-century Alexandria.Commissioned to paint astory of the history ofVenice’s patron saint, theydepict St Mark in a

contemporary setting thatwould have beenrecognizabletomanywealthyand influential Venetians.This is a familiar feature ofRenaissanceartandliterature:dressing the contemporaryworldupintheclothesofthepast as a way ofunderstandingthepresent.

Westmeetseast

The Bellinis were fascinatedby both the myths and therealityoftheworldtotheeastof what is today seen asRenaissance Europe. Theirpaintingisconcernedwiththespecific nature of the easternworld, and in particular thecustoms, architecture, andcultureofArabicAlexandria,oneofVenice’slong-standingtradingpartners.TheBellinis

didnot dismiss theMamluksof Egypt, the Ottomans, orthe Persians as barbaric.Instead, they were acutelyaware that these culturespossessed many things thatthe city states of Europedesired. These includedprecious commodities,technical, scientific, andartistic knowledge, andwaysof doing business that camefromtheeast.ThepaintingofStMarkinAlexandriashows

how the EuropeanRenaissance began to defineitselfnot inopposition to theeast,butthroughanextensiveand complex exchange ofideasandmaterials.

The Bellinis’ Venetiancontemporaries were explicitabouttheirrelianceuponsuchtransactions. Venice wasperfectly situated as acommercial intermediary,

able to receive commoditiesfrom these eastern bazaars,andthentransportthemtothemarkets of northern Europe.Writing at the same time asthe Bellinis worked on theirpainting of St Mark, CanonPietro Casola reported withamazement the impact thatthis flow of goods from theeasthaduponVeniceitself:

Indeed it seems as if allthe world flocks here,

and that human beingshave concentrated therealltheirforcefortrading...whocouldcountthemany shops so wellfurnished that theyalmost seemwarehouses, with somany cloths of everymake – tapestry,brocades and hangingsof every design, carpetsof every sort, camlets[sheets] of every colour

and texture, silks ofeverykind;andsomanywarehouses full ofspices, groceries anddrugs, and so muchbeautiful wax! Thesethings stupefy thebeholder.

East–west trade in thesegoods had been taking placethroughouttheMediterranean

for centuries, but its volumeincreased following the endof the Crusades. From the14th century Venice foughtcompetitors like Genoa andFlorence to establish itsdominance of the trade fromthe Red Sea and the IndianOcean that terminated atAlexandria. Venetian andGenoese trading centres andconsuls were established inAlexandria, Damascus, andAleppo, and even further

afield. While Europepredominantly exported bulkgoodssuchastextiles,timber,glassware, soap, paper,copper, salt, silver, and gold,ittendedtoimportluxuryandhigh-value goods. Theseranged from spices (blackpepper, nutmeg, cloves, andcinnamon),cotton,silk,satin,velvet, and carpets to opium,tulips,sandalwood,porcelain,horses, rhubarb, andpreciousstones, as well as vivid dyes

used in textile manufactureandpainting.

Theirimpactuponthecultureand consumption ofcommunities from Venice toLondon was gradual butprofound.Everysphereoflifewas affected, from eating topainting. As the domesticeconomy changed with thisinfluxofexoticgoods,sodidartandculture.Thepaletteof

painters like theBelliniswasalsoexpandedbytheadditionof pigments like lapis lazuli,vermilion, and cinnabar, allofwhichwereimportedfromthe east via Venice, andprovided Renaissancepaintings with theircharacteristic brilliant bluesand reds. The loving detailwith which the Bellinipainting of St Markreproduces silk, velvet,muslin,cotton,tiling,carpets,

even livestock, reflected theBellinis’ awareness of howtheseexchangeswiththeeastwere transforming the sights,smells, and tastes of theworld, and the ability of theartisttoreproducethem.

TheeasternbazaarsofCairo,Aleppo, and Damascus werealso responsible for shapingthe architecture ofRenaissance Venice. The

Venetian art historianGiuseppe Fiocco describedVenice as a ‘colossal suq ’,and more recentlyarchitectural historians havenoticed how manycharacteristics of the citywere based on directemulation of eastern designanddecor.TheRialtomarket,with its linear buildingsarranged in parallel to themain arteries is strikinglysimilar to the layout of the

Syrian trading capital ofAleppo. The windows,arches, and decorativefaçades of theDoge’s Palaceand the Palazzo Ducale alldraw their inspiration fromthe mosques, bazaars, andpalaces of cities like Cairo,Acre, and Tabriz, whereVenetian merchants hadtraded for centuries. Venicewas a quintessentialRenaissance city, not just forits combination of commerce

andaesthetic luxury,butalsofor its admiration andemulationofeasterncultures.

Creditsanddebits

One characteristic of theRenaissance was a newexpressionofwealth,and therelatedconsumptionofluxurygoods. Economic and

political historians havefiercely debated the reasonsfor the changes in demandand consumption from the14th century onwards. Thebelief in the floweringof thespirit of the Renaissance isalso strangely at odds withthe general belief that the14th and 15th centuriesexperienced a profoundperiod of economicdepression. Prices fell andwages slumped. The impact

of the outbreak of BlackDeath in 1348 onlyintensified these problems.However, one of theconsequences of widespreaddisease and death, just likewarfare,isoftenradicalsocialchange and upheaval. SuchwasthecaseinEuropeintheaftermath of the plague. Aswell as disease, warfareravaged the region. TheMuslim–Christian conflict inSpain and North Africa

(1291–1341), the Genoese–Venetian wars (1291–9,1350–5, 1378–81), and theHundred Years War acrossnorthernEurope(1336–1453)disrupted trade andagriculture, creating arecurrent pattern of inflationand deflation. Oneconsequenceofallthisdeath,disease, and warfare was aconcentration on urban life,and an accumulation ofwealthinthehandsofasmall

butrichelite.

Asinmostperiodsofhistory,where some peopleexperience depression anddecline, others seeopportunity and fortune.States likeVenicecapitalizedon the growing demand forluxury goods, and developednew ways of moving largerquantities of merchandise.Their older galleys, narrow

oared ships, were graduallyreplacedbytheheavy,round-bottomed masted ships, or‘cogs’, used to transportbulky goods such as timber,grain, salt, fish, and ironbetween northern Europeanports. These cogs were abletotransportover300‘barrels’of merchandise (one ‘barrel’equalled 900 litres), morethan three times the amountpossible aboard the oldergalley.Bytheendofthe15th

century the three-masted‘caravel’ was developed.Based on Arabic designs, ittook up to 400 barrels ofmerchandise and was alsoconsiderably faster than thecog.

As the amount and speed ofdistribution of merchandiseincreased, so ways oftransacting business alsochanged. The complexity of

balancing the import andexport of both essential andluxury international goodsand calculating credit, profit,andratesofinterestsoundssofamiliar to us today that it iseasy to see why theRenaissance is often referredtoasthebirthplaceofmoderncapitalism. Just as ChristianEuropean merchantstraffickedintheexoticgoodsof the east, so theyincorporated Arabic and

Islamic ways of doingbusiness through theirexposure to the bazaars andtrading centres throughoutNorth Africa, the MiddleEast,andPersia.

In the13th century thePisanmerchant Leonardo Pisan,knownasFibonacci,usedhiscommercial exposure toArabic ways of reckoningprofit and loss to introduce

Hindu–Arabic numerals intoEuropean commerce.Fibonacci explained thenature of the Hindu–Arabicnumerals from ‘0’ to ‘9’, theuseof thedecimalpoint, andtheir application to practicalcommercial problemsinvolving addition,subtraction, multiplication,division, and the gauging ofweightsandmeasures,aswellas bartering, charging ofinterest, and exchanging

currency. While this mayseemstraightforwardtoday,itis worth remembering thatsigns for addition (+),subtraction (–), andmultiplication (×) wereunknown in Europe beforethe15thcentury.

The kind of Arabiccommercial practice thatFibonacci borrowed fromdrew on earlier Arabic

developments inmathematicsand geometry. For instance,thebasicprinciplesofalgebrawereadoptedfromtheArabictermfor restoration,al-jabru.Around ad 825 the Persianastronomer Abu Ja’farMohammed ibn Mûsâ alKhowârizmî wrote a bookwhich included the rules ofarithmetic for the decimalpositional number system,called(‘Rules of Restoration and

Reduction’). His Latinizedname provided the basis forthefurtherstudyofoneofthecornerstones of modernmathematics:thealgorithm.

Fibonacci’s new methodswere adopted in the tradingcentres of Venice, Florence,andGenoa.Theyrealizedthatnewwaysofkeepingtrackofincreasingly complex andinternational commercial

transactions were needed.Payment on goodswas oftenprovided in silver or goldbullion,butassalesincreasedand more than two peoplebecame involved in any onebusiness deal, new ways oftradingwererequired.Oneofthe most significantinnovations was the bill ofexchange, the earliestexample of paper money. Abill of exchange was theancestor of the modern

cheque, which originatedfrom the medieval Arabictermsakk.Whenyouwrite acheque, you are drawing onyour creditworthiness at abank.Yourbankwill honourthe cheque when the holderpresents it for payment. A14th-century trader wouldsimilarly pay for aconsignment of merchandisewithapaperbillofexchangedrawn from a powerfulmerchant family, who would

honour the bill when it waspresentedeitheronaspecificlaterdate,orupondeliveryofthe goods.Merchant familiesthat guaranteed suchtransactions on pieces ofpaper soon transformedthemselves into bankers aswell as merchants. Themerchantturnedbankermademoney on these transactionsbycharginginterestbasedontheamountoftimeittookforthe bill to be repaid and

throughmanipulatingtherateof exchange betweendifferent internationalcurrencies.

The medieval church stillforbadeusury, defined as thechargingofinterestonaloan.The religious tenets of bothChristianity and Islamofficially forbade usury, butin practice both culturesfound loopholes tomaximize

financial profit. Merchantbankers could disguise thecharging of interest bynominally lending money inone currency and thencollecting it in a differentcurrency. Built into thisprocesswasafavourablerateof exchange that allowed themerchant banker to profit bya percentage of the originalamount.Thebankerthereforeheld money on ‘deposit’ forothermerchantsandinreturn

established sufficient ‘credit’forothermerchants toaccepttheir bills of exchange as aform of money in its ownright.Anothersolutionwastoemploy Jewish merchants tohandlecredittransactionsandact as commercial mediatorsbetweenthetworeligions,forthe simple reason that Jewswere free of any officialreligious prohibition againstusury. From this historicalaccident emerged the anti-

Semitic stereotype of Jewsand their supposedpredisposition towardsinternational finance, adirectproduct of Christian andMuslimhypocrisy.

Theaccumulatingwealthandstatus of merchant bankerslaid the foundations for thepolitical power and artisticinnovation characteristic ofthe European Renaissance.

The Medici family whodominated Florentine politicsand culture throughout the15th century started out lifeasmerchantbankers.In1397GiovannidiBiccide’Mediciestablished the Medici Bankin Florence, which soonperfected the art of double-entry bookkeeping andaccounting, deposit andtransfer banking, maritimeinsurance,and thecirculationof bills of exchange. The

Medici Bank also became‘God’s banker’ bytransferring the papacy’sfunds throughoutEurope.By1429 the humanist scholarand Florentine chancellorPoggio Bracciolini arguedthat ‘money is necessary asthe sinews that maintain thestate’, and that it was ‘veryadvantageous, both for thecommonwelfareandforciviclife’.Examiningtheimpactoftradeandcommerceoncities,

hecouldrightlycelebrate the‘many magnificent houses,distinguishedvillas,churches,colonnades, and hospitals[that] have been constructedin our own time’ with themoney generated by theMedici.

Eastmeetswest

International trade and newfinancial practices shapedwhat people made and whatthey consumed throughoutthe 14th and 15th centuries.In 1453, the Hundred YearsWar between England andFrance ended. Oneconsequenceofthepeacewasan intensification of tradebetween northern andsouthernEurope.Attheotherend of Europe 1453witnessed another equally

momentous event. This wasthe year that the IslamicOttoman Empire finallyconqueredConstantinople.Itsfall to the Ottoman forcessignalled a decisive shift ininternational political power.Itconfirmed theOttomansasone of the most powerfulempires in Europe and aplayer in shaping thesubsequent art and culture oftheRenaissance.

In the spring of 1453 over100,000 troops laid siege toConstantinople, and in MaySultan Mehmed II capturedthecity.Asthecapitalof theByzantine Empire,Constantinople was one ofthe last connections betweenthe world of classical Romeand 15th-century Italy. Itacted as a conduit for therecovery of much of thelearning of classical culture,thanks initially to the

patronageofSultanMehmed.Hisaffinitywith thepoliticalambitions and cultural tastesofhisItaliancounterparts ledhim to employ Italianhumanists who ‘read to theSultan daily from ancienthistorians such as Laertius,Herodotus,Livy andQuintusCurtius and from chroniclesofthepopesandtheLombardkings’. If the Renaissanceinvolved the rebirth ofclassicalideals,thenMehmed

wasoneof its adherents.Hislibrary, much of whichremainsintheTopkapiSarayinIstanbul,surpassedthoseofthe Medici and Sforza inItaly, and included copies ofPtolemy’s Geography,Homer’sIliad,andothertextsin Greek, Hebrew, andArabic. He explicitlycompared his imperialachievements to those ofAlexandertheGreat,andsawhimselfasanewCaesar,with

the potential to conquerRome and unify the threegreat religions of the book –Christianity, Islam, andJudaism.

LikemanyotherRenaissanceleaders with aspirations toimperial power, Mehmedused learning, art, andarchitecture to magnify hisclaims to absolute politicalauthority.Heembarkedupon

an ambitious buildingprogramme that involvedrepopulating the city withJewish and Christianmerchants and craftsmen,founding the Great Bazaarthatestablishedthecity’spre-eminence as an internationaltrading centre, and renamingit Istanbul. He renovated thechurch of Hagia Sophia,transformingit intothecity’sfirst sultanic mosque, whilstatthesametimehiringItalian

architects to assist in thebuilding of his new imperialpalace, the Topkapi Saray.The new internationalarchitectural idiom, drawingon classical, Islamic, andcontemporary Italian styles,aimed to produce what oneOttoman commentator called‘apalacethatwouldoutshineall and be more marvellousthan all preceding palaces inlooks, size, cost andgracefulness’. This

international Renaissancestyle would also berecognizabletobothMuslimsand Christians alike, asconfirmed by the Venetianambassador, who praised theTopkapi as ‘the mostbeautiful, the mostconvenient, and mostmiraculous [palace] in theworld’. Like so manyRenaissance buildings andartefacts, the Topkapi wasboth an original creative act

and a highly political object.The two impulses wereinseparable – a definingfeatureoftheRenaissance.

Such internationalcompetition between easternand western states andempires stimulated a wholenew generation ofRenaissancethinkers,writers,and artists. Many offeredtheir services to Mehmed,

including the Venetianpainter Gentile Bellini whopaintedaportraitofMehmedthatstillhangsintheNationalGallery in London. Bellinireturned toVenicewith giftsfrom Mehmed, and ‘a chainwrought in the Turkishmanner, equal in weight to250 gold crowns’. In thepainting of Saint MarkPreaching in Alexandria, atthefootofMark’spulpit,isaself-portraitofGentile;round

his neck hangs the chainpresentedtohimbyMehmed.Bellini proudly displayed thefruits of Mehmed’spatronage, and used hisexperiencesinIstanbultoaddexotic detail to his depictionofAlexandria.

These exchanges quicklyaffected the styleofwhatwenow call Renaissance art.When the Italian artist

Costanzo da Moysis alsowent to Istanbul to work forMehmed, his paintings anddrawingsdrewon theartisticconventions of Persian andOttoman art. The pen andgouachedrawingattributedtoCostanzo, entitled SeatedScribe,isanintimatestudyofan Ottoman scribe, completewithPersianinscriptioninthetop right-hand corner. Theuseofbright,flatcoloursandpainstaking attention to the

detail of dress, posture, anddesign, shows Costanzo’sabsorption of variousprinciples of Chinese,Persian, andOttoman artisticstyles. The two-wayexchangeofinfluencescanbeseen ina remarkablecopyofCostanzo’sdrawingattributedto the 15th-century PersianartistBihzâd,entitledPortraitof a Painter in TurkishCostume, executed someyears after Costanzo’s

drawing. learns fromhisItalian contemporary, whilesubtly changing the scribeintoapainter,shownworkingon precisely the kind ofIslamic portrait originallycopied by Costanzo. Eachartist draws on the aestheticinnovations of the other,making it impossible to saywhich painting is definably‘western’or‘eastern’.

The accession of SultanSüleyman theMagnificent in1520 intensified artistic anddiplomatic exchanges.Süleyman commissionedgrandtapestriesfromFlemishweavers, jewellery and animperial crown fromVenetian goldsmiths that hewore whilst laying siege toVienna in 1532, andcommissionedthegreat

3.CostanzodaMoysis’s

exquisiteSeatedScribe

Ottoman architect MimarKoca Sinan to build a seriesof palaces, mosques, andbridges to rival those of hisItalian counterparts. Sinandrew on Turko-Islamicarchitecturaltraditionsaswellas the Byzantine heritageprovided by the great churchofHagiaSophiatoproduceaseriesofmosques in Istanbulwith domed central plans in

theearly16thcentury.WhenPope Julius II employed thearchitects

4. The Persian masterBihzâd’s Portrait of aPainter

Donato Bramante and laterMichelangelo to rebuild StPeter’sinRome,theirdesignsdrew on Hagia Sophia, withits half-domes and minarettowers, as well as Sinan’smosques and palaces. BothOttomanandItalianarchitectswere competing to rebuildtheir imperial cities by

drawing on a sharedintellectual and aesthetictradition.

What such exchanges andrivalries suggest is that therewerenocleargeographicalorpoliticalbarriersbetweeneastandwest in theRenaissance.It is a much later, 19th-centurybelief in theabsolutecultural and politicalseparationof theIslamiceast

and Christian west that hasobscured the easy exchangeof trade and ideas betweenthese two cultures. The twosides were often in religiousand military conflict witheach other. However, thepoint is that material andcommercial exchangesbetween them carried on inspite of these conflicts, andproduced a fertileenvironment for culturalachievements on both sides.

Theirsharedculturalheritageof a contested classical pastled tonewachievements thatwe now recognize astypicallyRenaissance.

Thewindsofchange

Rather than shutting offcultural contact between eastand west, once it was in

control ofConstantinople theOttoman Empire simplyplaced a levy on suchexchanges. The Ottomanauthoritiestaxedtheoverlandtrade routes into Persia,Central Asia, and China, butthis justcreatednewwaysofdoing business. The end ofthe Hundred Years Warstimulated a greatercirculation of trade betweennorthern and southernEurope, intensifying the

demand for exotic goodsfrom the east. Thisaccelerated the scale ofcommercial exchange, andledChristianEuropean statesto seek ways ofcircumventing heavy tariffs.Most eastern merchandisewaspaidforinEuropeangoldandsilverbullion.Astheoremines in Central Europebegan to run dry and tariffsescalated, new sources ofrevenuewereneeded:thisled

directly to an increase inexplorationanddiscovery.

For centuries gold hadtrickledintoEuropeviaNorthAfrica and the trans-Saharancaravanroutes.Goldfromthemines of Sudan was movedalong these routes to Tunis,Cairo,andAlexandria,whereItalian merchants exchangedit for European goods. Fromthe beginning of the 15th

centurythePortuguesecrownand merchants realized thatseaborne travel along theAfrican coastline could tapinto these gold and spicemarkets at source,circumventing taxes imposedon overland trade routesthrough Ottoman territories.Such an ambitious projectinvolved organization andcapital. By the mid-15thcentury German, Florentine,Genoese, and Venetian

merchants were sponsoringPortuguesevoyagesdownthecoast of West Africa andoffering the Portuguese kingapercentageofanyprofits.

However, it was not onlygold that flowed back intoEuropethroughtheseAfricantrade routes.While travellingthrough the kingdom of achieftaincalled ‘Budomel’ insouthern Senegal, the

Venetian merchant AlviseCadamosto traded sevenhorses ‘which together hadcostmeoriginallyaboutthreehundred ducats’ for 100slaves. For the Venetian thiswas a profitable deal, basedonanacceptedexchangerateofnine to fourteenslaves foronehorse(itisestimatedthatat this time Venice had apopulation of over 3,000slaves). Writing in 1446,Cadamosto estimated that

1,000 slaves were shippedfrom the region of Arguimevery year. They were takentoLisbonandsoldthroughoutEurope.This trade representsoneofthedarkestsidesoftheEuropean Renaissance, andmarked the beginnings of atrans-Atlanticslave trade thatwas to bring misery andsuffering to millions ofAfricans over subsequentcenturies. It is sobering tonote how the economies

funding the great culturalachievements of theRenaissance were profitingby this unscrupulous trade inhumanlives.

The African gold, pepper,cloth, and slaves that flowedback into mainland Europe,alongside the merchandiseimported from the east alsosowed the seeds of a globalunderstanding of the early

modern world. In 1492, onthe eve of Columbus’s firstvoyagetotheNewWorld,theGerman cloth merchantMartin Behaim created anobject that encompassed thefusion of global economicsand artistic innovation thatwas becoming increasinglycharacteristic of the time.This was the first knownterrestrialglobeof theworld.Illustrated with over 1,100place names and 48

miniatures of kings andrulers, Behaim’s globe alsocontained legends describingmerchandise, commercialpractices, and trade routes.The globewas a commercialmap of the Renaissanceworld, created by someonewhowasbothamerchantanda geographer. Behaimrecordedhisowncommercialexperiences in West Africabetween

5. The first modern

terrestrial globe, made inNuremberg in 1492 by the

German merchant MartinBehaimfollowinghisreturnfromWestAfrica

6.Anearly16th-century

Bini-Portuguese salt cellar,designed by Portuguesetravellers, carved byAfrican craftsmen: theresult is a completely newRenaissanceartobject

1482and1484,andtheygivesome indication of whatmotivated his voyages. Hesailed ‘with various goodsandmerchandise forsaleand

barter’, including horses ‘tobe presented to Moorishkings’, as well as ‘variousexamples of spices to beshown to theMoors in orderthat they might understandwhat we sought in theircountry’. Spices, gold, andslaves: these commoditiesunderpinned the creation ofthefirsttrulyglobalimageoftheRenaissanceworld.

Suchculturalandcommercial

influences were not all one-way. One Portuguesechronicler noted that, ‘inSierra Leone, men are veryclever and make extremelybeautiful objects such asspoons, salt cellars, anddagger hilts’.This is a directreference to the ‘Afro-Portuguese ivories’. CarvedbyAfricanartistsfromSierraLeone and Nigeria, thesebeautiful artworks fuseAfrican style with European

motifs to create a hybridobject that is unique to bothcultures. Salt cellars andoliphants (hunting horns)were particularly commonexamples of such carvings,and were owned by figureslike Albrecht Dürer and theMedici family. Oneparticularly striking saltcellar,datedtotheearly16thcentury, depicts fourPortuguesefiguressupportinga basket upon which sails a

Portuguese ship. With anadded touch of humour asailor peeps out from thecrow’snest.Thedetailsoftheclothing, weapons, andrigging are obviously drawnfrom detailed observation ofand encounters withPortuguese seafarers.Scholars believe that thesecarvings were designed forexport to Europe. Thedelicate beaded, braided, andtwisted features of these

carvings heavily influencedthe architecture of 16th-century Portugal as it beganto raise monumentscelebrating its commercialpower in Africa and the FarEast.

Chapter2The humanistscript

InNovember1466GeorgeofTrebizond, one of the mostcelebrated humanist scholars

of the 15th century, foundhimself languishing in aRoman jail on the orders ofPopePaulII.Sincehisarrivalin Venice as a Greek-speaking scholar 50 yearsearlier, George hadestablished himself as abrilliant practitioner of thenew intellectual andeducational arts of the day,inspired by the classicalauthorsofGreeceandRome.Utilizing his skills in Greek

and Latin, he rapidly rose toprominence with thepublication of textbooks onrhetoric and logic, andcommentaries andtranslations of Aristotle andPlato.

By 1450 George was papalsecretaryand leading lecturerin the new humanitiescurriculum, the so-calledstudia humanitatis, at the

Studio Romano, under thepatronage of Pope NicholasV. However, youngerhumanist scholars began tocriticize George’stranslations. In 1465 Georgeheaded for Mehmed theConqueror’s new capital ofIstanbul, formerlyConstantinople. KnowingMehmed’sscholarlyinterests,Georgewroteaprefacetotheclassical Greek geographerPtolemy that he dedicated to

thesultan,‘thinkingthatthereis nothing better in thepresent life than to serve awise king and one whophilosophizes about thegreatestmatters’.Georgealsodedicated his comparison ofAristotle and Plato to thesultan, and returned toRometocomposeaseriesof lettersto Mehmed, claiming that‘there has never been a mannorwill there ever be one towhom God has granted a

greater opportunity for soledominionoftheworld’.Inhisrhetorically powerful lettersand dedications Georgeapparently sawMehmedasasuitable patron of hisacademic skills. Uponlearning of his intellectualflirtation with the sultan, thepope wasn’t impressed andimprisoned George. Hisincarceration was brief and,after a stint in Budapest, hereturned to Rome to witness

his books on rhetoric anddialectic receive a new leaseof life as a result of theirdistribution via a newinvention:theprintingpress.

This chapter examines therise of one of the mostcomplex and controversial ofall philosophical terms,Renaissance humanism, anditscloserelationshiptooneofthe most important

technological developmentsof the pre-modernworld, theinvention of the printingpress.What united these twodevelopments was the book.At the beginning of the 15thcentury, literacy and bookswere the preserve of a tiny,international elite focused onurban centres likeConstantinople, Baghdad,Rome, and Venice. By theend of the 16th centuryhumanism and the printing

presshadcreatedarevolutionin both elite and popularapprehensions of reading,writing, and the status ofknowledge, transmitted viathe printed book, whichbecame focused much moreexclusively on northernEurope.

GeorgeofTrebizond’scareerspans a definingmoment forboth intellectual thought and

the history of the book. Thiswas a time when a wholegeneration of intellectualsdeveloped a new method oflearning derived fromclassical Greek and Romanauthors, called studiahumanitatis. These scholarsfashioned themselves‘humanists’ and engaged inan immense undertaking tounderstand,translate,publish,andteachthetextsofthepastas a means of understanding

and transforming their ownpresent. Renaissancehumanismgradually replacedthe medieval scholastictradition from which itemerged. It systematicallypromoted the study ofclassicalworks as the key tothecreationofthesuccessful,cultivated, civilizedindividual who used theseskills to succeed within theeveryday world of politics,trade,andreligion.

Humanism’ssuccesslayinitsclaim to offer two things toitsfollowers.First,itfostereda belief that the mastery ofthe classics made you abetter,more‘humane’person,able to reflect on the moraland ethical problems that theindividualfacedinrelationtohis/her social world.Secondly, it convincedstudents and employers thatthe study of classical textsprovided the practical skills

necessary for a future careeras an ambassador, lawyer,priest,orsecretarywithin thelayers of bureaucraticadministration that began toemerge throughout 15th-century Europe. Humanisttraining in translation, letter-writing, and public speakingwas viewed as a highlymarketable education forthosewhowantedtoentertheranksofthesocialelite.

Thissoundsalongwayfromthe romantic, idealizedpictureofhumanists rescuingthe great books of classicalculture and absorbing theirwisdomincreatingacivilizedsociety. It is. Renaissancehumanism had a pragmaticaim to supply a frameworkforprofessionaladvancement,in particular to prepare menfor government. A modernhumanities education isconstructed on the same

model (the term is itselfdrawn from the Latin studiahumanitatis). It promises thesame benefits, and arguablyretains the same flaws. Itrelies on the assumption thatanon-vocationalstudyof theliberalartsmakesyouamorecivilized person, and givesyou the linguistic andrhetorical skills required tosucceed in the workplace.However, there are abidingtensions built into this

assumption, tensions that canbetracedbacktoRenaissancehumanism.

Many of these conflicts canbe traced in the career ofGeorge of Trebizond. Itreveals that the developmentof Renaissance humanismwasanintellectuallygruellingpractical business thatinvolved painstakingdetection,translation,editing,

publication, and teaching ofclassical texts. George’scombination of writing,translating, and teachingsuggests that the success ofhumanism was mainlyachieved within theclassroom as a practicalpreparation for employment.New curricula and methodsof teaching the demandingskills required of a humanisteducation were introduced.Humanism relied upon the

creation of an academiccommunity to teach anddisseminate its ideas, but itsmembersalsoquarrelledoverthe nature and direction ofhumanism’s development,leadingtothekindofviciousdisputes and bitter rivalriesthatGeorgeexperienced, andwhich compromised hiscareer. Humanism marketedits skills to a governing elitethat was persuaded to valuethe linguistic, rhetorical, and

administrativeexpertisethatahumanisteducationprovided.

However, this promotion ofhumanism could often runinto problems, as Georgediscovered in his attempt totransfer his intellectualallegiance and humanisticskills from one powerfulpatron (Pope Paul II) toanother (Mehmed theConqueror). As a result,

humanism concentrated itsefforts on disseminating itsmethod through theclassroom and therevolutionary medium of theprinting press. Humanism’salliance with print allowedscholars to distributestandardized copies of theirpublications in vast numbersway beyond the reproductivepossibilities of scribalmanuscript production. Theimpactofthisassociationwas

a subsequent rise in bothliteracy and schools, creatingan unprecedented emphasison education as a tool ofsocialization.

Thepersuaders

The story of Renaissancehumanism begins with the14th-century Italian writer

andscholarPetrarch.Hewasclosely associated with thepapalresidencyinAvignoninFrance,where his fatherwasemployed as a notary – ascholar skilled in the art ofadministering the mass ofdocuments created by papalbusiness. Petrarch drew onthese scholarly traditions inhis interest in the rhetoricaland stylistic qualities of arange of neglected classicalRoman writers, particularly

Cicero, Livy, and Virgil. Hebegan piecing together textslike Livy’sHistory of Rome,collatingdifferentmanuscriptfragments, correctingcorruptions in the language,and imitating its style inwriting a more linguisticallyfluent and rhetoricallypersuasiveformofLatin.

Petrarchalsoscouredlibrariesand monasteries for classical

texts,and in1333discovereda manuscript of a speech bythe Roman statesman andoratorCicero,theOrationforArchias (Pro Archia) thatdiscussed the virtues ‘destudiis humanitatis’. Petrarchdescribed the speech as ‘fullofwonderful compliments topoets’. Cicero was crucial toPetrarch and the subsequentdevelopment of humanismbecauseheofferedanewwayof thinking about how the

cultured individualunited thephilosophical andcontemplative side of lifewith its more active andpublic dimension. In hisfamous text On the Orator(De Oratore), Cicero posedthis problem by contrastingrhetoric and oratory withphilosophy. For Cicero, ‘thewholeartoforatoryliesopentotheview,andisconcernedin some measure with thecommon practice, custom,

and speech of mankind’.Philosophy, on the otherhand, involved privatecontemplation away ‘frompublic interests’, in factdivorced ‘from any kind ofbusiness’. Petrarch took upCicero’s distinction in histreatiseTheSolitaryLife (DeVita Solitaria) in hisdiscussion of the role of thephilosopher and the role oftheorator:

Both the diversity oftheirwaysoflifeandthewhollyopposedendsforwhich theyhaveworkedmake me believe thatphilosophers havealways thoughtdifferently from orators.For the latter’s effortsare directed towardgaining the applause ofthe crowd, while theformer strive – if theirdeclarationsarenotfalse

–toknowthemselves,toreturn the soul to itself,and to despise emptyglory.

This was the blueprint forPetrarch’s humanism: theunification of thephilosophical quest forindividual truth, and thepractical ability to functioneffectively in society through

the use of rhetoric andpersuasion. To obtain theperfect balance the civilizedindividual needed rigoroustraining in the disciplines ofthe studia humanitatis,namely grammar, rhetoric,poetry, history, and moralphilosophy.

Thiswasabrilliantargumentforgivingtheearlyhumanistsgreater power and prestige

than their scholasticpredecessors had everenjoyed. Medievalscholasticism had trainedstudents in Latin, letter-writing, and philosophy, butitsteachersandthinkersweregenerally subservient to theauthorities (usually thechurch) for which theyworked. Cicero’s definitionofthecivilizedhumanist,ableto philosophize on humanitywhilealsotrainingtheelitein

the skills of public oratoryand persuasion, gavehumanism and itspractitioners greaterautonomyto‘sell’ their ideasto social and politicalinstitutions. However,humanism was never anexplicitlypoliticalmovement,although some of itspractitioners were quitehappytoallowitsapproachtobe appropriated by politicalideologies as and where this

proved beneficial. Humanistsstyled themselves as oratorsand rhetoricians, gurus ofstyleratherthanpolitics.Itisoften a mistake to take thesubject matter of humanistwriting at face value. Suchwritings were highly formalexercises in style andrhetoric, often delighting indialectically arguing for andagainst a particular topic.Humanism’s triumph lay inits ability to utilize its skills

in rhetoric, oratory, anddialectic to convince a rangeof potential politicalpaymasters of the usefulnessof its services, be theyrepublicanormonarchical.

Back to the drawingboard

By the mid-15th century the

practice of humanism wasspreadingthroughoutschools,universities, and courts. Itsemphasis on rhetoric andlanguage elevated the statusof thebookasamaterialandintellectual object.Humanism’srevisionsofhowto speak, translate, read, andeven write Latin all focusedon the book as the perfectportableobjectthroughwhichto disseminate these ideas.But how did these humanist

ideals work in practice? Oneparticularly vivid example ofthegulfbetweenthetheoryofhumanism and its practice inthe classroom emerges fromthecareerofoneof themostrespected of all humanistteachers, Guarino Guarini ofVerona (1374–1460).GuarinowasemployedbytheEste dynasty in Ferrara,where he lectured asProfessor of Rhetoric from1436.

Guarino’s success as ateacherrestedonhisabilitytosell to both his students andhis patrons a vision ofhumanist education thatcombined civilized humanevalues with practical socialskills crucial to socialadvancement. In oneintroductory lecture onCicero,Guarinoasked:

What better goal cantherebeforourthoughts

andefforts than thearts,precepts, and studies bywhichwecometoguide,order, and governourselves, ourhouseholds, and ourpolitical offices [?] . . .Therefore continue asyou have begun,excellent youths andgentlemen, and work atthese Ciceronian studieswhich fill our city withwell-founded hope in

you, and which bringhonour and pleasure toyou.

This was a visiondisseminated by a group ofteachers and scholars trainedin the art of rhetoric andpersuasion;nowonder itwasacceptedsoreadilyinitsday,and continues to influencehumanitiesstudentstoday.

However, Guarino’sclassroomdidnotnecessarilyproduce the humane, elitecitizens he promised. Hiseducation involved agruelling immersion ingrammar and rhetoric, basedon diligent note-taking, rotelearning of texts, oralrepetition, and rhetoricalimitation in a seeminglyendless round of basicexercises. There was littletime for more philosophical

reflectiononthenatureofthetexts under analysis, andstudents’ lecture notes revealonlyaverybasicgraspofthenew ways of speaking andwriting that humanists likeGuarino believed were thebasis of humanist education.These elementary lessons inlanguage and rhetoric didprepare students for basicemployment in legal,political, and religiouspositions,althoughthiswasa

long way from the exaltedheights promised byGuarinoinhisintroductorylectures.

Guarino’s methods delightedhis political patrons. Therepetitiousdrillingofstudentsinthefinepointsofgrammarcultivated passivity,obedience, and docility.When this failed, disciplineandcorrectionwereroutinelyimplemented. Guarino also

encouraged subserviencetowards the politics of theruling elite, be theyrepublican or (as in the caseof his ownpatrons, theEste)monarchical:

Whatever the ruler maydecreemustbe acceptedwith a calm mind andthe appearance ofpleasure. For men whocan do this are dear torulers, make themselves

and their relativesprosperous, and winhighpromotion.

For most humanist students,the rhetorical claims ofhumanism towards a newconception of the individualledinpracticetoemploymentin the foundations of theemerging bureaucratic state.Guarinoensuredthatpolitical

acquiescence matched thepractical skills required forsuch positions. Thisguaranteed ongoing elitesponsorship of schools anduniversities that disseminatedtheidealsofhumanism.

Awoman’splaceisinthehumanist’shome

From humanism’s rhetoric itmight be expected that itwouldaffordnewintellectualand social opportunities forwomen. Humanism’srelationship to women wasfar more ambivalent. In histreatiseOntheFamily(1444),LeonBattistaAlberti defineda humanist vision of thedomestic household, ownedbymenbutrunbywomen:

the smaller household

affairs, I leave to mywife’scare . . . itwouldhardly win us respect ifour wife busied herselfamong the men in themarketplace, out in thepubliceye.Italsoseemssomewhat demeaning tome to remain shutup inthehouseamongwomenwhen I have manlythingstodoamongmen,fellow citizens, andworthy and

distinguishedforeigners.

The eloquent public man iscontrasted with his silent,domestic wife, who remains‘lockedupathome’.Heronlytraining is in the running ofthe household. To ensure itssuccessful maintenance, thehusband reveals all itscontentstohiswife,withjustone exception. Only ‘my

books and records’ are keptlocked away, and ‘these mywifenotonlycouldnot read,she could not lay hands onthem’. Alberti is anxious atthe thought ‘of bold andforward females who try toohard to know about thingsoutside the house and abouttheconcernsoftheirhusbandandofmeningeneral’.

Alberti’s attitude influenced

humanist responses to elitewomen who challenged theirassigned role and pursued avocation in humanistlearning. They did notcompletely reject women’spursuit of learning, but wereadamant that it should onlygo so far. In an addresswritten around 1405LeonardoBruni,accordingtoHansBaron thegreatheroofcivic humanism, cautionedthat for women to study

geometry, arithmetic, andrhetoric was dangerousbecause ‘if a woman throwsher arms around whilespeaking, or if she increasesthevolumeofherspeechwithgreater forcefulness, she willappear threateningly insaneandrequirerestraint’.Womencould learn cultivation,decorum, and householdskills,but formalexpertise inapplied subjects that couldlead to public and

professional visibility werefrownedupon.

In spite of such hostility,some learned women didattempt to carve outintellectual careers. In TheBook of the City of Ladies(1404–5) the French writerChristinedePizanarguedthat‘thosewhoblamewomenoutof jealousy are those wickedmen who have seen and

perceived many women ofgreater intelligence andnobler conduct than theythemselves possess’. In the1430s Isotta Nogarola ofVerona responded to attackson women’s loquaciousnessby suggesting that, ‘ratherthan women exceeding menin talkativeness, in fact theyexceedthemineloquenceandvirtue’.

However, such forays into

publishing and publicspeaking were regarded asnovel events rather thanprofessional activities. In1438 an anonymouspamphleteer slandered Isottaforattempting to ‘speakout’.He conflated her learningwith sexual promiscuity,declaiming with a heavy-handed double entendre that‘the woman of fluent tongueis never chaste’. Once awomancrossed the line from

accomplished student toorator in the public sphere,thehumanistresponsewastoeither castigate her for beingsexually aggressive, ormystify and trivializewomen’sintellectualdialogueas amorous exchangesbetweenlovers.

Renaissance humanism didnot necessarily create newopportunities for women. It

encouraged women’seducation as a socialadornment and an end initself, not as ameans to stepoutofthehouseholdandintothe public sphere. Strugglingmale humanist teachers andstudentswere having enoughdifficulty carving out theirown public and professionalpositions. The possibility ofwomen achieving such apublic profile was clearlythreatening, potentially

embarrassing,andintolerable.However, the rhetoric ofRenaissance humanismextolled the virtues ofeducationandeloquence,andwherever possible womenattempted to take advantageof the opportunities affordedby these developments. Ifwomen did have aRenaissance, it was often inspite of their male humanistcounterparts.

Theprintingpress:arevolution incommunication

In the mid-1460s Albertiwrote that he ‘approved verywarmly of the Germaninventor who has recentlymade it possible, by makingcertainimprintsofletters,forthreementomakemorethan

twohundredcopiesofagivenoriginal text in one hundreddays, since each pressingyieldsapageinlargeformat’.The invention of movabletypeinGermanyaround1450was the most importanttechnological and culturalinnovation of theRenaissance. Humanism wasquick to see the practicalpossibilities of utilizing amedium of massreproduction, as Alberti

suggests, but therevolutionary effect of printwas most pronounced innorthernEurope.

The invention of printingemerged from a commercialand technologicalcollaboration inMainz in the1450s between JohannGutenberg, Johann Fust, andPeter Schöffer. Gutenbergwasagoldsmith,whoadapted

his expertise to castmovablemetal type for the press.Schöffer was a copyist andcalligrapher, who used hisskills in copyingmanuscriptsto design, compose, and settheprintedtext.Fustprovidedthe finance. Printing was acollaborative process, andprimarily a commercialbusinessrunbyentrepreneursfor profit. Drawing on themuch earlier easterninventions of the woodcut

andpaper,GutenbergandhisteamprintedaLatinBible in1455 and in 1457 issued aneditionofthePsalms.

According to Schöfferprinting was simply ‘the artofwriting artificiallywithoutreedorpen’.Atfirst,thenewmedium didn’t grasp its ownsignificance. Many earlyprinted books used scribestrained in manuscript

illumination to imitate theunique appearance ofmanuscripts. The opulentdecoration of these half-painted, half-printed bookssuggests that they wereregarded as preciouscommodities in their ownright, valued as much fortheir appearance as theircontent.Wealthypatrons likeIsabella d’Este and MehmedtheConquerorinvestedinthistype of printed book that sat

alongside their moretraditionalmanuscripts.

By 1480 printing presseswere successfully establishedin all the major cities ofGermany, France, theNetherlands, England, Spain,Hungary, and Poland. It hasbeen estimated that by 1500these presses had printedbetween 6 and 15 millionbooks in 40,000 different

editions,morebooksthanhadbeen produced since the fallof the Roman Empire. Thefigures for the 16th centuryare even more startling. InEngland alone 10,000editions were printed and atleast 150million bookswerepublished for a Europeanpopulation of fewer than 80millionpeople.

The consequence of thismassive dissemination of

print was a revolution inknowledge andcommunication that affectedsociety from top to bottom.The speed and quantity withwhichbooksweredistributedsuggests that print cultivatednew communities of readerseager toconsume thediversematerial that rolled off thepresses.Theaccessibilityandrelatively low cost of printedbooks also meant that morepeople than ever before had

accesstobooks.Printingwasa profitable business. Asmorepeoplespokeandwrotein the European vernacularlanguages–German,French,Italian, Spanish, and English– the printing pressesincreasingly published theselanguages rather than LatinandGreek,whichappealedtoa smaller audience.Vernacular languages weregradually standardized. Theybecametheprimarymeansof

legal, political, and literarycommunication in mostEuropeanstates.Themassofprinted books in everydaylanguages contributed to theimage of a nationalcommunity amongst thosewho shared a commonvernacular. This ultimatelyled individuals to definethemselves in relation to anation rather than a religionorruler,asituationwhichhadprofound consequences for

religious authority, with theerosion of the absoluteauthority of the CatholicChurchandtheriseofamoresecularformofProtestantism.

Printingpermeatedeveryareaof public and private life.Initially presses issuedreligious books – Bibles,breviaries, sermons, andcatechisms – but graduallymore secular books were

introduced, like romances,travel narratives, pamphlets,broadsheets, and conductbooks advising people oneverything from medicine towifely duties. By the 1530s,printedpamphletssoldforthesamepriceasaloafofbread,while a copy of the NewTestamentcost thesameasalabourer’s daily wage. Aculture based oncommunication throughlistening, looking, and

speaking gradually changedinto a culture that interactedthrough reading and writing.Ratherthanbeingfocusedoncourts or churches, a literaryculture began to emergearound the semi-autonomousprintingpress.Itsagendawasset by demand and profitrather than religiousorthodoxy or politicalideology. Printing housesturned intellectual andcultural creativity into a

collaborative venture, asprinters, merchants, teachers,scribes, translators, artists,and writers all pooled theirskills and resources increating the finishedproduct.One print historian hascompared the late 15th-century Venetian printingpressofAldusManutius toasweatshop, boarding house,and research institute all inone. Presses like Manutius’created an international

community of printers,financiers, and writers, asopportunities for expansionintonewmarketsemerged.

Print also transformed howknowledge itself wasunderstood and transmitted.Amanuscriptisauniqueandunreproducible object. Print,however, with its standardformat and type, introducedexactmassreproduction.This

meant that two readersseparated by distance coulddiscussandcompareidenticalbooks, right down to aspecific word on a particularpage.Withtheintroductionofconsistent pagination,indexes, alphabetic ordering,and bibliographies (allunthinkable in manuscripts),knowledge itself was slowlyrepackaged. Textualscholarship became acumulative science, as

scholars could now gathermanuscripts of, say,Aristotle’sPoliticsandprintastandard authoritative editionbasedon a comparisonof allavailablecopies.Thisalsoledto the phenomenon of newand revised editions.Publishers realized thepossibility of incorporatingdiscoveries and correctionsintothecollectedworksofanauthor. As well as beingintellectually rigorous, this

was also commercially veryprofitable, as individualscouldbeencouragedtobuyanew version of a book theyalreadypossessed.Pioneeringreference books andencyclopedias on subjectslike language and lawclaimed to reclassifyknowledge according to newmethodologiesofalphabeticalandchronologicalorder.

Theprintingpressdidnotjustpublish written texts. Part ofthe revolutionary impact ofprintwasthecreationofwhatWilliam Ivins has called ‘theexactly repeatable pictorialstatement’. Using woodcutsand then the moresophisticated technique ofcopperplate engraving,printing made possible themass diffusion ofstandardizedimagesofmaps,scientific tables and

diagrams, architectural plans,medical drawings, cartoons,and religious images.At oneend of the social scalevisually arresting printedimages had a huge impactupon the illiterate, especiallywhen they were used forreligious purposes. At theother end, exactlyreproducible imagesrevolutionized the study ofsubjects like geography,astronomy, botany, anatomy,

and mathematics. Theinvention of printing sparkeda communications revolutionwhose impact would be feltfor centuries, and whichwouldonlybematchedbythedevelopment of the internetand the revolution ininformationtechnology.

Thehumanistpress

Humanists quickly realizedthe power of the printingpress forspreading theirownmessage. The most famousnorthern European humanist,Desiderius Erasmus ofRotterdam(1466–1536),usedtheprintingpressasawayofdistributinghisownparticularbrand of humanism, and inthe process self-consciouslystylinghimselfas the‘Princeof Humanism’. Respondingto claims that the early

humanists were moreinterested in classical paganwriters than Christianity,Erasmus embarked on acareer of biblical translationand commentary thatculminated in his edition ofthe Greek New TestamentwithafacingLatintranslation(1516). In ‘ The Ciceronian’(1528) Erasmus counteredthose Italian humanists thatregarded his own brand ofnorthernEuropeanhumanism

as ‘barbaric’. He lampoonedthe purity of the Latinaterhetoric of Ciceronianhumanists, arguing that ‘thefirst concern of theCiceroniansshouldhavebeentounderstandthemysteriesoftheChristian religion, and toturn the pages of the sacredbooks with as muchenthusiasmasCicerodevotedto the writings ofphilosophers’.

Erasmusendeavoured to fusehis version of classicallyinspiredmoraleducationwitha philosophia Christia – aphilosophy focusedonChristthat stressed personal faith.His enormously prolificoutput embraced translationsand commentaries on theclassics (including Senecaand Plutarch), collections ofLatin proverbs, treatises onlanguage and education, andcopious letters to friends,

printers, scholars, and rulersacross Europe. His mostwidelyreadbooktodayishissardonic Praise of Folly(1511). It is a ‘biting satire’,particularly scathing in itsattack upon the corruptionand complacency of thechurch, which ischaracterized as believingthat ‘teaching the people ishard work, prayer is boring,tearsareweakandwomanish,poverty is degrading, and

meeknessisdisgraceful’.

Most of Erasmus’sformidableintellectualenergywent into constructing anenduring scholarlycommunity and educationalmethod, at the centre ofwhich stood his own printedwritings and status as theultimate‘manofletters’.Theprinting press was central toErasmus’s manipulation of

his intellectual career, rightdowntothecirculationofhisown image. In 1526, Düreragreed to execute anengraving of him. Erasmusand Dürer used this newprinting technique todistribute a powerful,commemorative imageof thehumanistscholarinhisstudy,writinglettersandsurroundedby his printed books, whichas Dürer’s Greek inscriptionsuggests,representErasmus’s

lastingfame: ‘Hisworkswillgiveabetterimageofhim’.

In 1512 Erasmus publishedone of his most influentialworks,DeCopia, a textbookof exercises in the eloquentexpression of Latin. Mostfamously it contains 200waystoexpressthesentiment‘As long as I live, I shallpreservethememoryofyou.’DeCopiawaswrittenforhis

friend JohnColet, deanofStPaul’s School in London. Inhis dedication to Colet,Erasmus claimed that hewanted ‘to make a smallliterary contribution to theequipment of your school’,choosing ‘these two newcommentaries De Copia,inasmuch as the work inquestion is suitable for boysto read’. Subsequent editionsofDe Copia were dedicatedto influential European

scholars and patrons, toensurethatthebookwasusednotjustinLondonbutalsoinclassrooms across Europe.Erasmus needed to build onthescholarlyachievementsof15th-century humanism byusing themediumof print tomarket a whole new way oflearningandliving.

7. Dürer’s portrait of

Erasmus,engravedin1526,established Erasmus’sreputation as the greathumanistintellectual

Erasmus also appreciatedthat, as well as reformingeducation and religion,humanism needed toingratiate itself with politicalauthority. In 1516 hecomposedhisEducationof aChristianPrincanddedicatedittotheHabsburgprince,the

future Emperor Charles V.This was an advice manualfor the young prince in howtoexercise‘absoluteruleoverfreeandwillingsubjects’,andthe need for education andadvice from those skilled inphilosophy and rhetoric. Inother words, Erasmus wasmakingabidforpublicofficeas the young prince’spersonal adviser and publicrelations guru. AlthoughCharles graciously accepted

the manual, no position wasforthcoming.

Erasmus’s response was tosend another copy ofEducation of a ChristianPrince to Charles’s politicalrival,KingHenryVIII.Inhisdedication written in 1517Erasmus praised Henry as akingwhomanagedto‘devotesomeportionofyour time toreading books’, which

Erasmus arguedmade Henry‘a better man and a betterking’. Erasmus tried toconvince Henry that thepursuit of humanismwas thebestwaytorunhiskingdom,suggestingthatitwouldmakehim a better person, andprovidetheskillsnecessarytoachieve his political ends. Itis significant that Erasmusfelt it appropriate to dedicatethesametext tobothCharlesV and Henry VIII. He

presumed that bothsovereigns would get thepoint that he could use hisrhetorical skills to constructwhatever political argumenttheyrequired.

The politics ofhumanism

Erasmus’sgenerationsawthe

creation of two of the mostinfluential books in thehistoryofpoliticaltheoryandhumanism: NiccolòMachiavelli’s The Prince(1513) and Thomas More’sUtopia (1516). Today bothbooks are read as timelessclassics of how to maintainpolitical power and createideal societies. They are alsohighly specific products ofboth writers’ experience ofthe relationship between

humanism and politics in thefirsthalfofthe16thcentury.

Machiavelli’s book waswritten in the wake of thecollapse of the Florentinerepublic in 1512 and thereturntopoweroftheMedicifamily. Machiavelli hadserved the republic for 14years before being dismissedandbrieflyimprisonedbythereturning Medici. The

intention of The Prince wasto draw on his politicalexperiences ‘to discussprincely government, and tolay down rules about it’.What followed was adevastating account of howrulers should obtain andmaintain power. Machiavelliconcluded that if hissuggestions were ‘put intopractice skilfully, they willmake a new ruler seem verywell established, and will

quicklymakehispowermoresecure’. Machiavelli’sbackground of humanisttraining and direct politicalexperience produced a seriesof infamous pronouncementsthatdrewonclassicalauthorsas well as contemporarypoliticalevents.A‘rulerwhowishes tomaintainhispowermust be prepared to actimmorally’; he should ‘be agreatfeigneranddissembler’,ready to ‘act treacherously,

ruthlessly, or inhumanely,and disregard the precepts ofreligion’ in the interest ofretainingpoliticalpower.

Machiavelli’sbookwasabidfor political employment (orin Machiavelli’s case, re-employment).ThePrincewasdedicated to Giuliano de’Medici, the new autocraticruler of Florence, and wasreferred to by its author as a

‘token of my readiness toserve you’. Machiavelliadmitted in his letters ‘mydesirethattheseMedicirulersshouldbegin touseme’.ThePrince was Machiavelli’sattempt toofferadvice to theMedicionhow toholdon toabsolute political power.Machiavelli was takingRenaissance humanism to itslogicalpoliticalconclusioninproviding his new ruler withthe most persuasive and

realistic account available ofhow to retain power.Machiavelli’s humanism wasprepared to market whateverpolitical ideology was incontrol, be it autocratic ordemocratic. The tragedy forMachiavelli was that theMediciwere unconvinced byhis protestations of loyalty.He never attained highpoliticalofficeagain,andThePrince remained unprinted atthetimeofhisdeathin1527.

Thomas More’s Utopia:Concerning the Best State ofa Commonwealth and theNew Island of Utopia wasalso closely connected to itsauthor’s public career. Aclose friend of Erasmus andgifted student of law andGreek, More translatedLucianandwroteEnglishandLatin poetry. In 1517 heenteredHenryVIII’spoliticalcouncil and became LordChancellor in 1529, writing

manyofHenry’spoliticalandtheological tracts in theprocess. More exemplifiedCicero’s vision of thecultivated humanist –someone capable ofaccommodating privatephilosophicalmeditationwithpublic oratory andinvolvement in the civicworld of politics anddiplomacy.

This delicate balancing actpermeatesUtopia. The bookwaswritten in the form of aLatin dialogue betweenlearned men, in directimitation of Plato’sfashionable treatise on anideal state, the Republic. Itopens with More himself inAntwerp acting as HenryVIII’s diplomaticrepresentative. More’s friendintroduces him to RaphaelHythloday, an adventurer

recently returned from theisland of Utopia. Hythlodayoffers a detailed descriptionof the ideal ‘commonwealth’of Utopia, where ‘all thingsare held in common’, ‘nomen are beggars’, anddivorce, euthanasia, andpublic health are taken forgranted.

Did More believe in hisfictionalized vision of an

ideal society? There areseveral reasons for believingthathewasratherambivalentabout his Utopia. The word‘utopia’ is a pun, a linguisticinvention from the Greek,meaning both ‘fortunateplace’ and ‘no place’.Hythloday’snamealsomeans‘expert in nonsense’. MorefoundmanyofUtopia’s‘lawsand customs’ ‘really absurd’,but confessed ‘that in theUtopiancommonwealth there

aremanyfeaturesinourownsocieties I would like ratherthanexpecttosee’.Theseareheavily qualifiedendorsements of hisimaginarysociety.

Throughout the book, Morerefuses to approve or rejectthe politically contentiousissues he discusses, fromprivatepropertyandreligiousauthority topublicofficeand

philosophical speculation.This was not because hecould notmake up hismind:politically, he could not beseen to endorse a particularstandpoint. As a skilledpoliticalcounsellorMorehadtodisplayhisrhetoricalskillsin justifying often mutuallyincompatibleorcontradictorystatements and beliefs in theserviceof thestate.Utopiaisa canvas upon which he candebate a range of issues

relevanttohisownparticularworld. If his analysis wascalledintoquestion,hecouldalways point out that heargued for the contraryposition, or that Utopia was,after all, simply made up: itwasnowhere.

Utopia advertises More’sabilitytoeloquentlydiscourseon a range of contentiousissues that affected his

employer,anduponwhichhewas expected to advise.Unlike Machiavelli, MorewroteUtopiaat theheightofhis public career and had tobe far more circumspect andpolitically flexible in histhinking. This is why theargumentandstyleofUtopiais so paradoxical. Theunemployed Machiavellicould offer a much lessambiguous and far morepoliticallyrealisticaccountof

politics and power in ThePrince. More’s refusal toendorseHenry’s divorcewasless a principled ethicalposition than a politicalmiscalculation made on thegrounds of religion, leadingasitdidtoMore’sexecution.Both his Utopia andMachiavelli’s The Princeexhibit the politicalopportunism of theRenaissancehumanist.

From Petrarch to More,Renaissance humanismflexibly served whoever itseemed politically expedienttofollow.Thisiswhyarangeof modern politicalphilosophies have claimedthat books like The PrinceandUtopia justify their ownclaims to power andauthority. Renaissancehumanism continues toexerciseapowerful influenceupon themodern humanities,

yetasthischapterhasargued,humanismisnottheidealizedcelebration of humanenessthatitoftenclaimedtobe,buthas a hard core ofpragmatism. The legacy ofRenaissance humanism is farmore ambivalent than manyhave been led to believe,partly because its rhetoricremainssoseductive.

Chapter3Church andstate

In1435 thehumanist scholarLorenzo Valla arrived inNaplestoofferhisservicesto

its future king, Alfonso ofAragon.At the timeAlfonsowas locked in a politicalstruggle with Pope EugeniusIVoverpossessionofNaples.Vallawent toworkona textofdirectpoliticalrelevancetohis new paymaster: theDonationofConstantine.TheDonation was one of thefounding documents of theRoman Catholic Church. Itpurportedtobeagrantissuedin the 4th century by the

Emperor Constantine thatawarded sweeping imperialand territorial powers to thepapacy. It was one of themost powerful andconvincing justifications ofpapal claims to worldlyauthority. Lorenzo Vallaexposed the Donation as afake. Using his humanistskills in rhetoric, philosophy,and philology, hedemonstrated that itshistorical anachronisms,

philological errors, andcontradictions in logicrevealed that the Donationwasan8th-centuryforgery.

The deftness of Valla’stextual analysiswasmatchedby his scathing attack uponthe Roman Church and itspontiffs, who had either ‘notknown that the Donation ofConstantine is spurious andforged,orelsetheyforgedit’.

He accused them of‘dishonouring the Christianreligion, confoundingeverything with murders,disasters and crimes’. Vallaridiculed the inaccurate andanachronistic Latin of theDonation, before againposingtherhetoricalquestion‘can we justify the principleof papal power when weperceive it tobe thecauseofsuchgreatcrimesandofsuchgreat and varied evils?’ This

rhetorically elegant invectiveconcluded with an attackupontheimperialpretensionsof thepope,who, ‘so thathemayrecovertheotherpartsofthe Donation, moneywickedly stolen from goodpeople he spends morewickedly’. Alfonso wasdelighted with Valla’sdemolition of the Donationandused itsarguments inhisultimately successful attemptto secure the kingdom of

Naples despite concertedpapalopposition.

The story of Valla’srevelation represents a newdevelopment in the relationsbetween Renaissancereligion, politics, andlearning.The riseofpoliticalorganizations like thesovereign state created theneed fornew intellectual andadministrative skills to

organize political structuresand successfully challengethe authority of institutionslike the church.The fact thatPope Martin V subsequentlyemployed Valla as a papalsecretary may seemsurprising in the light of hisexposure of the Donation.However, it reveals thechurch’s attitude towardssuchscholars(betterthedevilyouknow).Italsoshowshowpoliticallystrategichumanists

likeVallawerepreparedtobewhen new opportunitiesbeckoned.

This story helps us tounderstand the complexinterrelation of the religionand politics of theRenaissance. Between 1400and1600religiousbeliefwasan integral part of everydaylife.Itwasalsoimpossibletoseparate religion from the

practiceofpoliticalauthority,the world of internationalfinance,andtheachievementsof art and learning. As theCatholic Church struggled toassert its temporal andspiritual power throughoutthisperiod, it facedperpetualconflict,dissent,anddivision.This culminated in theReformation that sweptthrough 16th-centurynorthernEurope, creating thegreatestcrisisinthehistoryof

the Roman Church. TheCatholic Counter-Reformation of the mid-16thcentury transformed theChurch forever and,combinedwith theProtestantReformation led by MartinLuther, established thegeneral shape of Christianityas it exists today. TheReformation also raisedcomplex questionsconcerning Christianity’srelationship with the other

two great religions of thebook, Judaism and Islam,both of which asserted theirtheological superiority overChristianity,andwhichinthecase of Islam was quick toexploit the schisms of the16th-century Christianchurch. Religion in theRenaissancewas inperpetualcrisis. Doubt, anxiety, andinward contemplation remaincornerstones of modernthinkingandsubjectivity,and

their origins can be tracedback to the religious fermentoftheperiod1400–1600.

The other development thattransformed religiousauthority within this periodwas the riseofnew formsofpolitical authority. From thelate 15th century politicalorganizations increasinglycame tocontrol theeverydaylives of many people. The

wealth and administrativeinnovation that accompaniedthe uneven commercial andurban expansion of the 15thcenturycreatedtheconditionsfor significant politicalupheaval and expansion.ItaliancitieslikeFlorenceandVenice experimented withrepublican governments,while the courts of Milan,Naples, Urbino, and Ferrararuled as petty principalities.In the north, the peace and

prosperity following theHundred Years Warconcentrated wealth andpowerinFranceandtheLowCountries,spawningthegreatHabsburg Empire. To theeast, the Ottoman Empireprovided a model of globalimperialpoweragainstwhichall others must compete. Bythe middle of the 16thcentury, Europe was in thecontrol of a series ofsovereign states and empires

–France,Portugal,Spain,andtheOttomans. Their risewasin inverse proportion to theworldlypowerofthechurch.

By thebeginningof the15thcentury, the Catholic Churchwas in crisis. The word‘Catholic’ came from theGreek word for ‘universal’,but by 1400 the churchlooked anything butuniversal. The church had

already experienced divisionwith its separation into theWestern, RomanChurch andtheEastern,OrthodoxChurchbased in Constantinople in1054. Over the followingthree centuries the WesternChurch battled to assert itstheological and imperialauthority in the face ofopposition from inside andoutside.Thepopeclaimedbybiblical authority that, asChrist’s representative on

earth, he held political swayoverworldlyissues.

Throughout the 14th centurythepapacywassplitbetweenrival claimants in Rome andAvignoninFrance.ThePapalSchism allowed dissidentcardinals from both sides topropose the conciliar theoryof church governance. Thisledchurchcouncilstoimposetheircollectiveauthorityover

schismaticpopes.In1414thechurch fathers convened theCouncil of Constance to putan end to the schism. TheCouncil ruled that ‘all men,of every rank and condition,including the pope himself,are bound to obey it inmatters concerning theFaith,the abolition of the schism,and the reformation of theChurchofGod’.ThisallowedtheCounciltoappointMartinV as the first uncontested

Roman pope for nearly acentury.

An orthodoxmarriage

The Council of Constanceunintentionally increased theautocratic power of thepapacy. Both PopeMartinVand his successor, Eugenius

IV, consolidated theirauthority by embarking onambitious plans to rebuildRome and unite with theEasternOrthodoxChurch. In1437 Eugenius convened theCouncil of Florence todiscuss the unification of theEastern Orthodox andWestern Roman Churchesand deflect the Council’sattempts to reduce papalauthority. In February 1438the Byzantine Emperor John

VIII Paleologus arrived inFlorencewitharetinueof700Greeks and the head of theOrthodox Church, thePatriarch Joseph II. As wellas the Greek delegation,deputations arrived fromTrebizond, Russia, Armenia,Cairo, and Ethiopia. As withmany Renaissancetransactions ostensiblyconcerned with religion, thismomentous official meetingbetween east and west had

profound political andcultural implications. JohnVIII proposed a unionbetween the eastern andwestern branches ofChristendom as the onlyrealistic way to prevent thecollapse of the ByzantineEmpire and the capture ofConstantinople in the face ofthe rise of the OttomanEmpire. The pope was eagertounifythetwochurchesasaway of extending his own

political power throughoutItaly.

Away from official councilbusiness, delegatesenthusiasticallyexploredeachother’s intellectual andcultural achievements. TheGreeks admired thearchitectural achievements ofBrunelleschi, thesculptureofDonatello, and the frescos ofMasaccio and Fra Angelico.

The Florentines marvelled atthe extraordinary collectionof classical books that JohnVIIIandhisscholarlyretinuehad brought with them fromConstantinople. Theseincluded manuscripts ofPlato, Aristotle, Plutarch,Euclid, and Ptolemy andother classical texts whichwere ‘not accessible here’ inItaly according to oneenvious scholar. TheEgyptian delegation

presented the pope with a10th-century Arabicmanuscript of the Gospels,and the Armenian delegationleft behind 13th-centuryilluminated manuscripts onthe Armenian Church thatreflected its mixed Mongol,Christian, and Islamicheritage. The Ethiopiandelegation also circulated15th-century Psalters writtenin Ethiopic and used inchurches throughout north-

eastAfrica.

Twenty years after thecouncil, Benozzo Gozzolicompleted his frescos in thePalazzo Medici thatcelebrated theMedici role inbringing together the Easternand Western Churches. InGozzoli’s frescos John VIII,Joseph II, and Lorenzo de’MedicihavebecomethethreeMagi. For political reasons

Lorenzo’s forebear, Cosimode’ Medici, had bankrolledthe entire Council. TheMedici had been negotiatingcommercial access toConstantinople throughoutthe 1430s, but an agreementwas only reached in August1439 as a token of JohnVIII’s thanks for Cosimo’slavish hospitality throughoutthe Council of Florence.Cosimo’s pious act offinancial sacrifice for the

good of the church wasactually a clever sleight ofhand. Eugenius remainedeven more financiallyindebted to the Medici, andGozzoli’s frescos make itclearthatthefamilyregardedtheir involvement inunifyingthe two churches as evenmore important than themediationofthepope.

8. Benozzo Gozzoli’s

frescoThe Adoration of theMagi:anartisticattemptbytheMedicitotakethecreditforuniting theEasternand

WesternChurches

On6July1439theDecreeofUnion was finally signedbetween the two churches. Itrejoiced that ‘the wall whichseparated theEasternChurchand the Western Church hasbeen destroyed, and peaceand concord have returned’.Therejoicingwasshort-lived.Back in Constantinople, theunion was rejected by thepopulace, stirred up by

members of the EasternChurch, while the Italianstates demonstrated theirreluctance by consistentlyrefusing to provide militaryaidtoassisttheByzantinesintheir struggle against theOttomans. With the fall ofConstantinople toMehmedIIinMay1453,theunioncameto a bloody and ignominiousend.

TheCouncilofFlorencewasa defining moment of theRenaissance. As a religioussummit, it was a failure,crushing the papacy’s hopesfor the consolidation of itsown imperial power throughunification with the EasternChurch. As a political andcultural event, it was atriumph.ItallowedtheItalianstates to challenge theauthority of a weakenedpapacy, and strengthen

commercial relations to theeast.Ruling families cleverlymanipulatedtheirownroleinthe Council, throughsumptuous art objects likeGozzoli’s frescos thatclaimedMedicipre-eminencein bringing about the Decreeof Union. Culturally, thetransmission of classicaltexts, ideas, and art objectsfrom east to west that tookplace at the Council was tohave a decisive effect on the

art and scholarship of late15th-centuryItaly.

Themasses

What of the everyday realityof religious observance forthemillions of people acrossEurope who regularlyattended church andidentified themselves as

Christians? It would beidealistic to believe thatdebates aboutpapal authorityand textual exegesis hadmuch impact upon many ofthesepeople.Thechurchwaspartofthefabricofeverydaylife formost individuals, andthismeantthatthedistinctionbetween the sacred and theprofaneoftenbecameblurred.Churches were used forfestivals, political meetings,eating, horse-trading, and

even storing merchants’goods and valuables. Theclergy were everywhere. By1550 out of a population of60,000,Florenceboastedover5,000 clergymen. Poorlyeducatedandbadlypaid,theywere often to be foundworking as masons, horsedealers, and cattle traders,keeping lovers and children,andcarryingweapons.

In theory, the CatholicChurch acted as the earthlymanifestation of Christ’sincarnation. It mediatedbetween God and theindividual, and wasexclusively responsible fordispensing God’s gracethrough the sacraments –baptism, confirmation, theEucharist, penance,ordination, marriage, andextreme unction. Accordingto the theory of

transubstantiation, the priestpossessed the miraculous(arguably magical) power oftransforming the bread andwineoftheEucharistintotherealbodyandbloodofChrist.Without the intercession ofthechurchand thepriest, theindividual had no directcontact with God. In theperformance of thesacraments, the priest alonebroughtGodintodirecttouchwith the laity. It was this

mediating role which madethe church such a powerfulinstitution.

In practice, the mostenthusiastic public interest inreligiousobservancerevolvedaroundwhatonehistorianhascalled a passionate ‘appetiteforthedivine’.The‘miracles’of the sacramentswere ofteninterpreted as magical acts,and led to the adoption of a

range of popular practices,from the fervent worship ofrelics, saints, and images tothe superstitious use of holywater,theEucharist,andholyoil. Although such magicalpractices went againstreligious orthodoxy, thechurch often turned a blindeye to such transgressions,eager to sustain the mysticalpower of the church and itsauthority.

For most people, the churchprovided a ritual method oflivingday today, rather thana set of rigid theologicalbeliefs. The sacraments ofbaptism, confirmation,marriage, and extremeunction provided rites ofpassage through crucialmoments in an individual’slife.Asaconsequence,manypeople only went to churchonce or twice a year, andcourt records reveal

remarkably low attendances,aswellasprofoundignoranceon basic points of religion.OneEnglishpreachertoldthestoryofashepherdwhowhenasked about the Father, Son,andHolyGhostreplied,‘Thefather and the son I knowwellforItendtheirsheep,butI know not the third fellow;there isnoneof thatname inour village.’ At best, thisattitude represented religiousignoranceandindifference;at

worst,itsuggestedheresyandunbelief, which took variousforms throughout theRenaissance period andbeyond.

In the 1440s the bishop ofTournai, Jean Chevrot, wasso concerned at the poorattendanceandobservationofthe sacraments that hecommissionedRoger van derWeydentopaintanaltarpiece

thatwould educate people inthe ritual significance of thesacraments, simply entitledthe Seven Sacraments. Theleft panel of van derWeyden’s triptych showsbaptism, confirmation, andconfession, while the rightpanel shows ordination,marriage, and extremeunction. The central panel isreserved for the mostimportant sacrament, theEucharist, which takes place

behind the revelation ofChrist. To avoid anyconfusion, angels helpfullyfloat above each sacrament,holding banners withexplanatory verses. By usingcontemporary figures,architecture, and clothing,van der Weyden’s triptychemploys a typicallyRenaissance technique of‘vulgarization’, where themysteries of the church areset against modern settings

that encourage thecongregation’s closeidentificationwiththepaintedimage.The quiet intensity ofthescenewasalsonoticeablydevoid of the jostling,hawking, joking, spitting,swearing, knitting, begging,sleeping, andevengun-firingthat were a daily feature ofchurchlife.

9. Roger van der

Weyden’s altarpiece theSeven Sacraments tries toeducate a 15th-centurycongregation about the

sacraments

Building theReformation

When Pope Martin V endedthe factional schism andreturnedtoRomein1420,‘hefound it so dilapidated anddeserted that it hardly boreany resemblance to a city’,

nevermindthecapitalofboththe former Roman Empireand the future CatholicEmpire. The response ofMartin and his successorswas to begin an ambitiousbuilding programme thatwould celebrate the glory ofthe newly centralizedRomanChurch.Itwouldalsoturnthecity into a building site forthe following 150 years. Inthe words of Pope NicholasV, the laity would find their

‘belief continually confirmedand daily corroborated bygreat buildings’ that were‘seeminglymadebythehandof God’. Alberti, FraAngelico, Bramante,Michelangelo, Raphael, andBotticelli were just some ofthe artists who came to beassociatedwiththerebuildingofthecity.

The biggest problem that

successive popes faced wasthe renovation of thecrumbling basilica of StPeter’s, built on the saint’stomb by Constantine in themid-4th century. As hasalreadybeen said,Romewasalready competing withConstantinople as imperialcapitaloftheChristianworld.Thecompetitionbecameevenfiercer once that city fell toSultan Mehmed in 1453.Rome and its popes did not

want to be outshone byIstanbul and its sultans. InApril1506PopeJuliusIIlaidthecornerstoneforthenewStPeter’s, having appointedBramanteasitsarchitect.Thefoundation medal cast byCaradossoshowshowcloselyBramante’s original designwas modelled on HagiaSophia. Subsequent revisionsby Raphael, Sangallo, andMichelangelo throughout the16th century led to the

completionofStPeter’sas itlookstoday.

Ironically it was the cost ofcompleting this monumentalcelebrationofpapalauthoritythat started a protest thatwould ultimately challengethe core of the CatholicChurch, and transform thesocial andpolitical landscapeof Europe forever. In 1510,four

10. Caradosso’s medal

commemorates thebeginning of work on St

Peter’s in 1506, and showsthat the early designsborrowed from ByzantineandOttomanarchitecture

years afterworkbeganonStPeter’s, and as Michelangelolaboured on his frescos forthe ceiling of the SistineChapel, the German monkMartin Luther arrived inRome. His disillusionmentwith the corruption and

conspicuous consumption hewitnessed provided theinspiration for the beginningofhisattackupon theabusesof theCatholicChurch – thecirculation of his 95 thesesagainst indulgences inOctober 1517. In March ofthatyear,thepopehadissuedan indulgence to finance thebuilding of St Peter’s. Anindulgence was a papaldocument that granted thebuyer remission from the

need to do penance for hissins.Soeagerwasthechurchto finance the rebuilding ofRome that indulgences wereeven sold to individuals tocover uncommitted futuresins. The church had createda trade in salvation thatallowedtheindividualtobuyand sell deliverance. Lutherwasoutraged.Hewrotetothearchbishop of Mainz,complaining:

Papal indulgences forthebuildingofStPeter’sare circulating underyour most distinguishedname . . . I grieve overthe wholly falseimpressions which thepeople have conceivedfrom them; to wit – theunhappy souls believethat if they havepurchased letters ofindulgence theyare sureoftheirsalvation.

Lutherrepeatedhisprotest inthe 95 theses famouslycirculated throughout thetown of Wittenberg. ‘Whydoes not the pope’, wroteLuther, ‘whose wealth is to-daygreater thantherichesoftherichest,buildjustthisonechurch of St Peter with hisownmoney, rather thanwiththemoneyofpoorbelievers?’

ThefirstshotoftheEuropeanReformationhadbeenfired.

Faithwars

Like the term ‘Renaissance’,‘Reformation’ is aretrospective term applied tothe consequences ofLuther’sideas. Luther did indeed setoutwiththeideaofreforming

the church, but reformationquickly turned intorevolution. Luther’s protestagainst indulgences sooncrystallized into a systematicrejection of every religiousassumption upon which theCatholic Church rested.Luther argued that theindividual possessed a directrelationship with God, andcould not rely on themediationofpriests,saints,orindulgences to grant

salvation; the individualcould onlymaintain absolutefaith in the grace of aninscrutable but ultimatelymerciful God in the hope ofbeing saved. There wasnothing weak and evilindividuals could do in theface of God, but hold on tofaith, the ultimate gift fromGod. Worldly attempts tochangethestateofone’ssoulthrough indulgences andpenances were meaningless.

AsLutherhimselfconcluded,‘A Christian has all that heneeds in faith and needs noworkstojustifyhim.’

Theimplicationofallthisforthe Catholic Church wasprofound. Having abandonedpapalmediationbetweenGodandtheindividual,atastrokeLuther rejected the authorityof both pope and priest. Thetheatre and paraphernalia ofchurchritualwererejected,as

was the distinction betweenclergy and laity. Luther alsocondemnedallbuttwoofthesacraments. He argued thatGodgavefaithdirectlytotheindividual,anddidnotappearthrough intermediaries, bethey priests or sacramentalrituals.

The impact ofLuther’s ideaswas complex but immediate.As he refined and expanded

his position in response toincreasinglyalarmedCatholicreaction, ‘Lutheranism’spread throughout northernEurope with astonishingspeed and profoundconsequences way beyondLuther’scontrol.By the timeofhisdeathin1546,councilswith reformed churchtendencies controlledWittenberg, Nuremberg,Strasbourg, Zurich, Berne,andBasle.Lutheranismfound

fertile ground amongst apredominantly civic, urbanlaity disaffected withCatholicism.Monastic ordersand traditional worship wereabolished, church propertywas smashed or confiscated,and religious images weredestroyed in iconoclasticriots.Intheirplacecamenewsitesandmethodsofworship,and idealistic experiments insocialandpoliticalreform.In1524 the German peasants

rose up, seeking justificationfor their grievances inLuther’s teachings. Hecontemptuously condemnedthe ‘poisonous, hurtful’rebellion, revealing the limitsof his radicalism when itcame to more worldlymatters.

Luther was also unable tocontroltheintellectualimpactofmanyofhisarguments.By

the 1540sGenevawas underthecontrolofthetheologyofJohnCalvin,whoarguedthatman was powerless toinfluence divinepredestination. For Calvin,God had always alreadydecided who would bedamned and who saved. InEngland, Henry VIII’spoliticaldecisiontosplitfromRome in 1533 led ultimatelyto the excommunication ofHenry’s daughter, Queen

Elizabeth I, for what was bythen called her‘Protestantism’.

PrintingtheWord

Humanismandprintinglayatthe heart of the rise andspread of Luther’s ideas.Luther and his followersutilized humanist training in

philology, rhetoric, andtranslation to produce atheologybasedon‘theWord’and ‘Scripture alone’. Whatunited reformers like Lutherand humanists includingErasmus was a commitmentto close biblicalinterpretation, or exegesis,which challenged theperceived ignorance andsuperstition of earlierscholastic thinking. Luthercould match the finest papal

scholarship, boasting in hisdiscussion On Translating(1530) that ‘I can do theirdialectics and philosophybetter than all of them puttogether’.Hepartedcompanywith humanism when herealized the limits of itscommitment to change,telling Erasmus that ‘itmatters little to you whatanyonebelievesanywhere,aslongasthepeaceoftheworldis undisturbed’. However,

humanism had alreadysupplied Lutheranism withthe intellectual tools totransformreligion.Ithadalsoprovided Luther with theobjectthatwouldtransmithisnew ideas all over Europe:theprintingpress.

Writing on the spread of hisideasin1522,Lutherclaimed‘I did nothing; theWord dideverything’. He was right. It

was themediumofprint thatcirculated‘theWord’.Earlierchallengerstopapalauthorityhad little ability to circulatetheir ideas to a wideraudience, but the technologyof the printing press allowedLuther to disseminate hisideas in thousands of printedbooks, broadsides, andpamphlets. The Germanstates were also the perfectlocationfromwhichtospreada religious revolution, being

at the geographical andtechnological heart ofEurope.By 1520 62Germancities possessed printingpresses, and between 1517and 1524 the publication ofprinted books in these citiesincreased sevenfold. One ofthe reasons for this increasedoutput was Luther himself.He soon realized the radicalpotentialoftheprintingpress,calling it ‘God’s highest andextremest act of grace,

whereby the business of theGospel is driven forward’.Between 1517 and 1520Luther wrote over 30 tracts,with more than 300,000copiesprinted.One admiringfriendclaimedthat,‘Lutheristhe man who can keep twoprinters busy, each workingtwo presses’. Luther alsorealized the power ofspreading his Word in thevernacular, rather than theelite church language of

Latin. By 1575 his printedGerman translation of theBible had sold an estimated100,000 copies. It has beenfurther estimated that hisworks represented one thirdof all German-languagebookssoldbetween1518and1525. By 1530, Luther hadbecome the first best-sellingauthor in the short history ofprint.

Lutheranism emerged from aworld in which thecommercial, financial, andpoliticalcentreofgravityhadgradually shifted northwards.By thebeginningof the16thcentury Antwerp wasovertaking Venice as thecommercialcapitalofEurope,and the German states thatgave birth to Lutheranismwere also forging newpolitical identities thatwouldcreatea recognizablymodern

mapofEuropeby theendofthecentury.By1519CharlesV of theHouse ofHabsburgaddedAustria tohisdynasticinheritance of Spain, Naples,theNetherlands,andtheNewWorld. His election to thetitleofHolyRomanEmperorinitiated a monumentalpolitical power strugglethroughout Europe that sawCharles, King Francis I, andHenry VIII, as well as JohnIII of Portugal and Sultan

Süleyman, vie for territorialandpoliticalcontrol,withthecitystatesof Italy reduced tothe status of helplessbargaining counters. Theseeds of nationalist revoltwerealsobeginningtostir innorthern Europe, and to theeast Charles faced theoverwhelming imperialpower of Süleyman, whoconquered Belgrade in 1521andby1529waslayingsiegeto Vienna. The rise of

Lutheranism onlycompounded Charles’sdifficulties.

Charles was keen not toalienatehisGermanalliesbyexcommunicating one of itsmonks. However, followingLuther’s personal promise tothe emperor himself that ‘Icannot and I will not retractanything, since it is neithersafe nor right to go against

conscience’, Charlescondemned him as ‘anotorious heretic’. TheGerman states resisted papalcalls for the destruction of‘Protestantism’, as it wascalled from 1529 when agroup of German princes‘protested’ against calls forthe condemnation ofLutheranism. Charles wasdistracted by theadministrationofhisoverseaspossessions as well as being

faced with the spectre ofSultan Süleyman theMagnificent beating at thedoorofhisownempire.

By 1529 Süleyman’s empirestretchedacrossNorthAfrica,the Mediterranean, and mostofeasternEurope,andwasinleaguewithCharles’senemy,FrancisI.WhiletheOttomanscontinuedtoconfrontCharlesas political equals, their faith

also became an issue in theincreasingly polarizedreligious atmosphere of the1520s. Like Francis, Lutherand his followers consideredthe possibility of a strategicalliancewiththeOttomansasa bulwark against Charles’sHabsburg Empire. Lutherstudied the Koran, andparticipatedinthepublicationof several German texts onIslam. Following the calls ofvarious Lutheran

pamphleteers to ‘seek theenemy in Italy, not in theEast!’ he cautiously arguedthat ‘if we must have anyTurkish war, we ought tobegin with ourselves’. Thissuggested that the Ottomanthreat was sent by God toplague the Catholic emperorand pope. Süleyman alsorealized how Lutheranismcould play into Ottomanhands by distracting theHabsburgs from

concentrating on themilitarythreat from the east. BothIslamandProtestantismwereaware that theologically theirbelief in the power of thebook and opposition toidolatry made a politicalrapprochement a distinctpossibility in the volatileyearsofthemid-16thcentury.

Charles V was far lessideologically flexible. His

dynastic heritage was basedon the expulsion of both theJews and the Moors fromSpain in 1492. He and hisadvisers soon becameconvinced that Luther andSüleyman represented twosides of the same coin, both‘heretics’ that must beexterminated. In 1523 thepapal nuncio based inNurembergwrotethat‘weareoccupied with thenegotiations for the general

waragainst theTurk,andforthat particular war againstthat nefariousMartin Luther,who is a greater evil toChristendom than the Turk’.In 1530Cardinal CampeggiowrotetoCharlesthatLuther’s‘diabolical and hereticalopinions . . . shall becastigated and punishedaccording to the rule andpractice observed in SpainwithregardtotheMoors’.

As the zeal for religiousreformation collided withincreasinglyambitiousclaimsto global political authority,religious intoleranceintensified. Jewishcommunities had livedthroughout Europe forcenturies, in spite of theirofficial expulsion fromEnglandin1290andSpainin1492. However, in such aperiod of polarized religiouspositions, the Jews soon

found themselves persecutedby both Catholics andProtestants,accusedofcrimesthat ranged from poisoningwells to murdering Christianbabies.In1555PopePaulIVissued a papal bull attackingtheJewishfaith,claimingthatthe church only ‘toleratesJews in order that they maybearwitnesstotrueChristianfaith’. Jews could convert toCatholicism, otherwise theywere forbidden to own

property, and were confinedto ghettos where they wererequired to wear a yellowbadge as a sign of infamy.Protestantismwashardlyanymoretolerant.In1514Lutherclaimed that ‘the Jews willalways curse and blasphemeGodandhisKingChrist’.Helaterclaimed, ‘Iwouldratherhave the Turks for enemiesthan the Spaniards forprotectors: for barbaroustyrants as they are, most of

theSpaniardsarehalfMoors,half Jews, fellows whobelieve nothing at all.’ TheSpanishCatholicsinturnsawProtestants as hereticscomparable to Muslims andJews. As Catholicismresponded to the threat ofLutheranism, andProtestantism tried to defineitself in clear theologicaldistinction to other religions,bothincreasinglyattackedthetworeligionsofthebookthat

didnotsubscribetothebeliefthat Jesus was the Son ofGod.

These conflicts also changedthe shapeofRenaissance art.As the papacy in Romesensed the erosion of itspolitical power, it respondedwith even more lavishdisplays of art andarchitecture in an attempt toreaffirm its authority. The

strain showed in the art ofMichelangelo and Raphael.Michelangelo’s frescos ofscenes from Genesis thatdecorate the Sistine Chapel,commissionedbyPopeJuliusII, offer a comprehensiveviewofcreationbasedontheteachings of Rome. Thegraceful dynamism of thescenes and the powerful,straining musculature of itscharacters also idealize thepower and potentialwrath of

the Roman Church ifquestioned. This tension isalso detectable in Raphael’sfrescos for the Vatican’sSalon of Constantine. TheytellthestoryofthelifeoftheEmperorConstantine,andtheshift in church power fromthe east (Constantine’simperial seat ofConstantinople) to the west(StPeter’sinRome).

The final scene in the frescocycle, entitled the Donationof Constantine, shows theEmperorConstantinehandingoverhisworldlyandimperialpowertothepope,wearingatiara that demonstrates bothhis spiritual and worldlypower. Just months afterwork began on theConstantine Salon, Lutherwrote,

I have at hand Lorenzo

Valla’s proof that theDonationofConstantineis a forgery. Goodheavens, what darknessand wickedness is atRome. You wonder atthe judgement of Godthat such unauthentic,crass, impudent lies notonly lived,butprevailedforsomanycenturies.

Valla’s treatise on theDonationhadbeenprintedforthe first time in Germany in1517 as part of the growingattack upon the RomanChurch. The frescos in theSalon of Constantine, withtheirtoweringpopes,warringfactions, anddramatic scenesof papal authority areaggressive, mannered, andanxiousresponsestoreligiousand political change. Theprinted‘word’fromthenorth

was triumphing over thetowering monuments andgloriousfrescosofthesouth.

The empire strikesback

The Roman Church soonrealized that triumphant artwas no answer to thequestions posed by the

dramatic rise of northernEuropean Protestantism. In1545PopePaul III convenedthe

11. The fresco theDonationofConstantinewaspainted in the Vatican byRaphael’s workshopbetween 1523 and 1524.Religious conflict shapes itsimperial content andmannered,aggressivestyle

Council of Trent to reformthe church and refuteLutheranism. Over the next18 years the council drafteddecrees that formed thebasis

of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Councilreaffirmed the sanctityof theseven sacraments,transubstantiation, purgatory,and papal authority. Itendorsed the veneration ofsaints, relics, and thepurchase of indulgences,while also reforming theabuses that had so angeredLuther.Religiousorderswerereformed, seminaries wereestablishedforthetrainingof

priests, and bishops wereexpected to take a moreproactive approach to theadministration of theirdioceses. The Councilendorsedthecreationin1540oftheSocietyofJesus(betterknown as the Jesuit order),led by the Spaniard IgnatiusLoyola,andtheestablishmentin 1542 of the RomanInquisition that hunted downhereticsandreformers.

The Council also turned itsattention to the mostpernicious carrier of theProtestant Reformation – theprinted book. In 1563 itissued an index of forbiddenbooks deemed ‘heretical’,declaring ‘if anyone shouldread or possess books byheretics or writings by anyauthor condemned andprohibited by reason ofheresy or suspicion of falseteaching, he incurs

immediately the sentence ofexcommunication’.TheIndexforbade thousands of books,starting with the works ofLuther, Zwingli, and Calvin,but also including the worksof Machiavelli and selectedwritings of Erasmus. Trentimplicitly conceded thepower of the printed book(partlythroughthefundingofCatholic printing presses topublishorthodoxtexts),butatthecostofestablishingoneof

the first modern attempts atmasscensorship.

The Council of Trent’szealousmixof reform,piety,militancy,andrepressionwasremarkably successful. It hasbeen calculated that by theendofthe16thcenturynearlya third of the laity lost toRomehadreturnedtothefoldas a result of the Counter-Reformation. However, its

attitude towards religiousobservance, books, and evenimages further polarized thereligious landscape of thelater 16th century. Trentunderlined the widening gulfbetween the ideology ofProtestantism andCatholicism, and in theprocesspavedthewayforthereligious wars of the latterhalfofthecenturythatwouldredefinetheshapeofEurope.

By1600,Europehadchangedbeyond all recognition fromthe illdefined collection ofcity states and principalitiesthat made little reference tothe entity of ‘Europa’ in1400. Nation states andemerging global empires setthe political agenda, and thefluidity of religiousencounters and exchangesbetween east and west hadhardened into theprogrammatic belief systems

of Catholicism,Protestantism, and Islam.Thissignalledthebirthofthemoderninstitutionofthestateand the concomitant rise ofnationalism. The greatimperial powers of Europewouldgoontoclaimmostofthe newly discovered globeover thenext three centuries.But the legacy of the periodwasalsoaseriesofseeminglyirresolvable religious andpolitical conflicts in regions

as diverse as Ireland, theBalkans,andtheMiddleEast,whose origins lay in thecollision of church and statethat first took place in theRenaissance.

Chapter4Brave newworlds

In1482aprintingpressintheGerman town of Ulmpublished a new edition of

Ptolemy’s Geography. Itsworldmapcapturedwhat theworldlookedliketoEurope’s15th-century ruling elite.PtolemywrotehisGeographyin Alexandria in the 2ndcentury ad. Arabic scholarshadpreservedandrevisedthetext prior to its translationinto Latin by the end of the14th century. MedievalChristiangeographyhadbeenlimited to schematic maps,known as mappae mundi,

whichwerereligioussymbolsof the Christianunderstanding of creation.They placed Jerusalem attheir centre, with little or noattempt to understand orrepresent the wider world.Ptolemy’s Geographytransformed 15th-centuryperceptions of the shape andsize of the earth. His textlisted and described over8,000 places, as well asexplaining how to draw

regionalandworldmaps.Thegeometrical grid of latitudeand longitude that Ptolemythrewacrosstheknownworldprovidedthetemplateusedbythe 15th- and 16th-centuryvoyages of trade anddiscovery, which began toshape today’s modern imageoftheglobe,andwhichformthebasisofthischapter.

For a late 15th-century ruler

ormerchant, theUlmversionof Ptolemy provided areasonably accuraterepresentationoftheworldofthe time. ‘Europa’ and theMediterranean, ‘Affrica’ and‘Asia’ are all recognizable.What seems erroneous to ustoday is the omission of theAmericas, Australasia, thePacific, the bulk of theAtlantic

12. Ptolemy’s world

map from one of the newprinted editions of hisclassical text Geography,publishedinUlmin1482

Ocean,andthesoutherntipofAfrica (without which theIndian Ocean is representedas a giant lake). Ptolemy’sworld centred on the easternMediterranean and centralAsia, on cities likeConstantinople,Baghdad,andAlexandria. These locationsrepresented the predominantinternational reality ofeducatedpeoplefromthe2ndcentury ad right down to thecloseofthe15thcentury.

The Geography was ownedby princes, clerics, scholars,and merchants eager todisplay their own awarenessof geography and travelthrough possession ofexpensive manuscript copiesof Ptolemy. However,working maps that survivefrom the 14th century showthe mixed cultural traditionsthat shaped the Renaissanceworld. The anonymousMaghreb chart, dated around

1330, is a practical exampleof the so-called ‘portolan’chartsusedbymerchantsandnavigatorstomoveacrosstheMediterranean. The ‘rhumb’lines that criss-cross themapaid compass bearings andallow navigators to sailreasonably accurate courses.ProducedineitherGranadaorMorocco, it demonstrates thecirculation of geographicalknowledge, navigation skills,and trade between Christian

andMuslimcommunities.Ofits202placenames,48areofArabic origin, the restCatalan, Hispanic, or Italian.Based on the expertise ofArab, Jewish, and Christiannavigators and scholars, itwas practical charts such asthese that enabled the firsttentative seaborne voyagesbeyondtheboundsofEurope.

RoundingtheCape

In 1415 the Portuguesecaptured the Muslim city ofCeuta in Morocco. Thevictory gave Portugal aspringboard for expansiondowntheWestAfricancoast.Taking advantage of itsgeographical location facingout into the Atlantic, thePortuguese crown sought tobreak into the trans-Saharantrade routes, circumventing

the need to pay cripplingtariffsthatburdenedoverlandandseaborne traderoutesviaNorth Africa back intosouthernEurope.Asthe

13. This sea chart, or‘portolan’, the ‘Maghrebchart’,wasdrawn inNorthAfrica around 1330 andshows how sharedknowledge shapedMediterraneannavigation

Portuguese crown claimedMadeira (1420), the Azores(1439), and the Cape VerdeIslands (1460s), the trade inbasic materials like timber,sugar,fish,andwheatbecame

more important than theglamorous search for gold.This led to a redefinition ofthe aims of seabornediscovery and settlement onthe part of the Portuguesecrown.

Once they had settled theAzores, the Portuguese weresailing south into unchartedterritories, or what waslabelled on Ptolemy’s map

‘Terra Incognita’. Havingreached the limit ofMediterranean traditions ofnavigation and map-making,the Portuguese employed theservicesofJewishscholarstodevelop solar tables, starcharts, astrolabes, quadrants,and cross staffs to calculatelatitude according to theposition of the sun, moon,andstars.Bythe1480sthesescientific developments wereso successful that the

Portuguese had roundedSierra Leone and establishedtrading posts (or feitoria)alongtheGuineacoast.

The commercial encountersthat stemmed from thesedevelopments had anoticeable impact upon theculture and economy ofcommunities inWest Africa,Portugal, and the rest ofmainland Europe. The

minglingofpeople led to thecreation of autonomousmixed-race communities inWest Africa, referred to aslançados.Copper,horses,andcloth were also traded forgold, pepper, ivory, andebony.Bytheendofthe15thcenturythegoldshippedbacktoLisbonallowedPortugaltoissue its first national goldcoin, the crusado, andembark on an ambitiouspublic building programme

that fused classical, Mughal,andPersianmotifs,andwhicheventodaycanbeseenasfarafield as Lisbon, Goa, andMacau.

In December 1488Bartolomeu Diaz returned toLisbon to announce that hehad sailed around thesouthernmosttipofAfrica.Acontemporary Portuguesegeographer recorded that

Diaz realized ‘that the coasthere turned northwards andnorth-eastwards towardsEthiopia under Egypt and onto theGulf ofArabia, givinggreathopeofthediscoveryofIndia’. As a result Diaz‘called it the “Cape of GoodHope”’. The news renderedprintedmapsstillreproducingPtolemy’s view of the worldincreasingly obsolete. Fromnow on, European voyagersreallywere sailing into ‘terra

incognita’, a whole NewWorld where they could nolonger rely on classicalauthority.

Eastiseast

One observer who wasparticularly impressed bythese discoveries was theGenoese navigator

Christopher Columbus, whowaspresentatthePortuguesecourt when Diaz returnedwith news of hiscircumnavigation of theCape. It was Columbus’sobservation of the practicalachievements of thePortuguesenavigatorsandhisimmersion in classicalgeography that led him tomake a fateful decision.Columbus accepted Ptolemyand Marco Polo’s massive

overestimation of the size ofAsia. But he also realizedthat, ifPtolemy’s estimate ofthe circumference of theworld were correct, then avoyage to Asia that sailedwestwards from Europewould be much shorter thanthe south-eastern routefollowed by the Portuguese.Columbus calculated that thewestward distance betweenJapan and the Azores was3,000 miles. It was in fact

over10,000miles.Ptolemy’scalculations on both the sizeof Asia and the globe werewrong. If Columbus hadknown this, he might neverhaveembarkedonhisvoyagein1492.

Columbus first proposed theidea to the Portuguese courtin 1485, but his plan wasrejected because of Lisbon’ssuccess in pursuing the sea

route to theeastvia southernAfrica.SoColumbustookhisproposal to the Castiliancrown. Castile was infinancial trouble due to itsongoing struggle against theIberian Muslims. Thepossibility of cornering themarket in spices and goldfromtheeastwastoogoodtomiss, and they offeredColumbus financial backing.On2August1492,Columbusfinally departed on his first

voyage from Palos insouthern Spain, in commandof90meninthreeships.

After nearly two monthssailing westwards across theAtlantic, on Thursday, 10October, Columbus sightedthe Bahamas, where helanded and encounteredlocals, who ‘were all verywell built, with veryhandsome bodies and verygood faces’, and were also

perceived to be ‘goodservants and of quickintelligence’. Columbus wasimpatient ‘to leave foranother very large island,which I believe must beCipangu[Japan],accordingtothesignswhichtheseIndianswhom I havewithmemake;they call it “Colba”’.Columbuswasconvincedthathe was on the verge ofreaching Japan. ‘Colba’turned out to be Cuba. He

skirtedthecoastofCubaandHaiti, before wrecking hisflagship and heading homewithsmall tracesofgoldandseveralkidnapped‘Indians’.

Columbus’s return to Europecaused a diplomatic storm.Thiswas not because he haddiscovered a ‘NewWorld’ –hestillclungtothebeliefthathe had reached the east bysailing west. Portugal

objected that the Castilian-backed expedition broke thetermsofanearlieragreementthat guaranteed thePortuguese monopoly on alldiscoveries ‘beyond Guinea’.But the ambiguity of thisphrase, and the intercessionof a sympathetic Spanishpope, granted the newdiscoveries to Castile underthe terms of the Treaty ofTordesillas(1494).Thetreatyalso stipulated that amap be

drawn up with a line ofpartition defining the relativespheresof interestof the twocrowns.Thedelegatesagreedthat ‘a boundary or straightline be determined anddrawn’ running down theAtlantic, ‘at a distance ofthree hundred and seventyleagues west of the CapeVerdeIslands’.Everythingtothewestofthislinebelongedto Castile, everything to theeast (and south) belonged to

Portugal. Castile got what itbelieved was a new route totheeast,whilethePortugueseprotected their Africanpossessions and passage totheeastviatheCapeofGoodHope.

The jewel in thecrown

Columbus’s initial‘discovery’ of America wasseenasafailure.Heappearedto have discovered a newterritorial obstacle blockingthe path to a shorter,commercially lucrative routeto the east. The Portuguese,delayed in their attempt tocapitalizeonDiaz’sdiscoveryof the Cape by Columbus’svoyage and the subsequentdiplomatic dispute,dispatchedanotherexpedition

round the Cape with theexplicitaimofreachingIndia.InJuly1497VascodaGamaleftLisbonwith170meninafleetoffourheavyships,eachcarrying 20 guns and avarietyof tradegoods.Asherounded the Cape, da Gamafound himself in completelyuncharted waters. Evenworse, Portuguesenavigational aids based onastronomical calculationswereuselessintheunfamiliar

skiesoftheIndianOcean.

LandinginMalindi,daGamahired the servicesofanArabnavigator-astronomer,reputedtobeoneofthefinestpilotsofhistime:

VascodaGama,afterhehad a discussion withhim, was greatlysatisfied with hisknowledge: principally,

when he [the pilot]showed him a chart ofthewholeofthecoastofIndia drawn, in thefashion of the Moors,that is with meridiansand parallels . . . Andwhen da Gama showedhim a large astrolabe ofwoodwhichhehadwithhim,andothersofmetalwithwhichhemeasuredthe altitude of the sun,the pilot expressed no

surprise, saying thatsome navigators of theRed Sea used brassinstrumentsof triangularshape and quadrantswith which theymeasured the altitude ofthe sun and principallyof the Pole Star whichthey most commonlyusedinnavigation.

These techniques werecompletely unknown toEuropean navigators. Jewishastronomical expertise hadtakenthePortugueseasfarasthe Cape. Now Islamicnavigational skill wouldfinallyhelpthemreachIndia.

Notonlydid theArabicpilotprovide da Gama with thenavigational expertiserequired to sail across the

Indian Ocean. He alsounwittingly disclosed justhow extensive thedevelopment of Arabicscience and astronomy hadbecome. Just as Ptolemy’sclassical texts on geographyand astronomy had beentransmitted from Alexandriato Constantinople, Italy,Germany, and Portugal, sothey had also circulatedeastwards via Damascus,Baghdad, and Samarkand.

Mehmed the Conqueror’spatronage of Ptolemy’sGeography represented justone dimension of thevigorous tradition of Islamicastronomyandgeography. In1513 the Ottoman navalcommander known as PiriReis issuedaworldmap thatits author claimed ‘is basedmainly on twenty charts andmappa mundi, one of whichis drawn in the time ofAlexander the Great, and is

known as dja’grafiye’. Thiswas a reference to Ptolemy’sGeography. Piri Reis alsoconsulted ‘new maps of theChineseandtheIndianSeas’,plus ‘oneArabmapof India,four new Portuguese mapsdrawn according to thegeometricalmethodsof IndiaandChina, and also themapofthewesternlandsdrawnbyColumbus’. The Ottomancourt in Istanbul was clearlykeeping a close watch on

developments in the westernAtlantic.

Only the western portion ofPiriReis’smap survives, butits detail suggests that therepresentation of the IndianOcean would have beenequally comprehensive inincorporatingnewPortuguesemaps into the astronomicaland navigational expertise ofIslamic, Hindu, and Chinese

pilots and scholars. PiriReis’s comments emphasizetheextensivelevelofculturalexchange and circulation ofknowledge that underpinnedthe Age of Discovery.Muslims, Hindus, andChristians were all tradinginformation and ideas in anattempt to capture thepolitical and commercialinitiative.

Navigationally speaking, daGama and his expeditionbelieved that they weresailing into a new world.They soon discovered thatculturally they were enteringa surprisingly familiar worldin which they were seen asdirty, violent, andtechnologicallybackward.DaGama reachedCalicuton thesouthern coast of India inMay 1498, but the gifts thathe had brought were more

appropriate for trade inGuinea than ceremonialpresentation to the elegantcourt of the Samorin ofCalicut. When the localmerchantssawdaGama’s

14. Piri Reis’s worldmap (1513) shows howgeographical informationcirculatedbetweeneastandwest

motley presentation of cloth,coral, sugar, oil, and honey,‘they laughed at it, saying itwas not a thing to offer to aking, that the poorestmerchant from Mecca, orfrom any other part of Indiagavemore’. This inability to

present suitable giftsproduced political tensionsand restricted the Portugueseto limited bartering.Nevertheless, the small butprecious cargo of cinnamon,cloves, ginger, nutmeg,pepper, drugs, and preciousstones and woods that daGama presented upon hisreturntoLisboninSeptember1499 convinced thePortuguese court that theyhad finally broken into the

spicetrade.

Portugal’s entry into thetrading emporium of theIndian Ocean was no morethanadropintheocean.Theregion’s ritualizedpatternsoftrade and exchange and thesheermagnitudeanddiversityof its commodities dwarfedthesupplyanddemandoftheearly Portuguese fleets. ThePortuguese responded with a

pragmatic accommodationand acceptance of differentmethods of exchange,exploitation of politicaldifferences between Hinduand Muslim communities,and the use of gunpowder inestablishing limitedcommercial footholdsthroughout the region.However, back in Europemaps, books, and diplomaticexchanges reported daGama’s voyage as

establishing Portugal’smonopolization of the Asianspicetrade.

The effect of the Portuguesecommander’s voyage was totransformthepoliticalmapofthe Renaissance world.Venice immediatelyattempted to sabotagediscussionswith Indian spicemerchantswhohadarrivedinLisbon to discuss Portugal’s

role in the trade, and openedtalkswith both theOttomansand the Egyptian Mamlukswith the intention of usingboth diplomatic and militaryforce to defend theircommercialinterests.In1511Portugal responded bynegotiating with the Persianruler Shah Ismail for a jointmilitaryattackonEgypt, thatwouldstrangleVenice’sspicesupplyandhelp Ismail inhiswarwiththeOttomans.Asso

often in the Renaissance,when trade and wealth wereat stake, religious andideological oppositionsmeltedaway.

Globalventures

By 1502, the first majorphase of seaborne travel hadreacheditsclimax.Ptolemy’s

world picture had beenshattered and a recognizablymodern image of the worldhad started to emerge. ThePortuguese had roundedAfrica, reached India,accidentallydiscoveredBrazilen route to the east (1500),and were pushing on toMalacca (1511), Hormuz(1513), China (1514), andJapan (1543). To the westColumbus’s three voyages totheAmericas had established

a thriving trade in gold,silver, and slaves. In fourvoyages between 1497 and1502, Amerigo Vespucciproved that Columbus haddiscovered a new continent.Disseminatinghisdiscoveriesvia the printing press,Vespucci ensured that itwould be him and notColumbus who becamesynonymous in the Europeanimagination with this newcontinent, America. Castile

nowhada separatecontinentto claim as its own, and anempire to build that couldrivalitsIberianneighbour.

With the revision of theEuropean geographicalimagination came atransformation in the textureof everyday life. The spicesthat flowedback intoEuropeaffectedwhatandhowpeopleate, as did the influx of

coconuts,oranges,yams, andbananas (from the east) andpineapples, groundnuts,papayas, and potatoes (fromthe Americas). The term‘spices’ could also refer to adizzying array of drugs(including opium, camphor,and cannabis), cosmetics,sugar, waxes, and cosmetics.Silk, cotton, and velvetchanged what people wore,and musk and civet alteredthewaythattheysmelt.Dyes

like indigo, vermilion, lac,saffron, and alum madeEuropeabrighterplace,whileporcelain, amber, ebony,sandalwood, ivory, bamboo,and lacquered wood alltransformed the public andprivate domestic interiors ofwealthy individuals. Tulips,parrots, rhinoceroses, chesssets, sexual appliances, andtobaccowerejustsomeofthemore esoteric but prizedgoods that reached Europe

from east and west. Lisbonitself was transformed intoone of Europe’s wealthiestcities, where it was possibleto buy virtually anything.Princes displayed jewels,armour, statues, paintings,bezoar stones, and evenparrots,monkeys, and horsesin cabinets of curiosity, andAlbrecht Dürerenthusiastically listed hisacquisition of African saltcellars, Chinese porcelain,

sandalwood, parrots, andIndiancoconutsandfeathers.

In 1513 the PortuguesefinallyreachedtheMoluccas,a small collection of islandsin theIndonesianarchipelagothat provided the sole supplyof cloves. This discoveryprovoked a serious politicalcrisis. Since the Treaty ofTordesillas Portugal hadpursued its commercial

interests to the east, whileCastile had concentrated onexpansion to the west. Thiswas fine when plotted on aflatmapofthetypeobviouslyused under the terms ofTordesillas.Butthediscoveryof the Moluccas posed thequestionofwheresuchalinewould fall in the easternhemisphere if it were drawnall the way round the worldonaglobe.

Enter the Portuguese pilot,Fernão de Magalhães, betterknown today as FerdinandMagellan.Hesuspectedthatawestern passage to theMoluccas would be shorterthan thePortugueserouteviathe Cape of Good Hope.However, in revivingColumbus’s original idea ofreaching the east by sailingwest, Magellan faced theproblem of Portugueseopposition to such a plan, so

he offered the scheme to theCastilian king and futureHabsburg Emperor CharlesV. It was an ambitiouscommercial proposition thatrequiredinvestmentinalong-distance voyage, a typicalexampleofthemotivationforsomanyRenaissancevoyagesof ‘discovery’. Magellan’saim was not tocircumnavigatetheglobe.Hisproposal was for a voyagethat sailed westwards to the

Moluccas,thencamebackviaSouth America. This wouldclaim the Moluccas forCastile on the basis ofdiplomatic and geographicalprecedent, cutting offPortugal’s supply of top-quality spices and divertingLisbon’s wealth to Castile.Magellan’s successful pitchfor financial support wasbased on global thinking.Hearrived in Seville in 1519with ‘a well-painted globe

showingtheentireworld,andthereon traced the course heproposedtotake’.Globes,notmaps, were now the objectsthatmost accurately capturedthe political and commercialgeography of the 16th-centuryworld.

Magellan quickly convincedCastile. He set sail inSeptember 1519. Sailingdown the coast of South

America, Magellan had tosuppressmutiny,andlosttwoships searching for a waythroughthestraitatthetipofSouth America that nowbears his name. He spentweekssailingacrossaPacificOceanthatwaslargerthanhismaps suggested. The fleetfinally reached Samar in thePhilippines in April 1521,where Magellan gotembroiled in a petty localconflict, and was killed

alongside forty of his men.The remnants of the fleet setsailagainandfinallyreachedthe Moluccas where theyloadedcloves,pepper,ginger,nutmeg, and sandalwood.Unable to face the plannedreturn journey throughMagellan’s Strait, the crewagreed to returnvia theCapeof Good Hope, running therisk of capture by patrollingPortuguese ships. Theirdecisionmadeglobalhistory.

On8September1522just18of the original crew of 240arrived back in Seville,having completed the firstrecorded circumnavigationoftheglobe.

The news of Magellan’svoyage caused diplomaticuproar. Charles Vimmediately interpreted thevoyage as a justification forclaiming that the Moluccas

lay within his half of theglobe. His advisers began tobuild a diplomatic andgeographical case forpossession. The Castilianscleverly used classicalauthority to support theirclaim. Ptolemy’soverestimation of the size ofAsia played into their hands.By repeating the inaccuratewidth of Asia in their maps,Castile pushed the Moluccasfurther east, and thus into

their half of the globe. TheCastilians submitted mapsand globes where ‘thedescription and figure ofPtolemy and the descriptionandmodel found recently bythose who came from thespice regions are alike . . .therefore Sumatra, Malaccaand theMoluccas fall withinourdemarcation’.

As the two crowns sat down

for their final attempt toresolve the dispute atSaragossa in 1529, Castileemployed the PortuguesecartographerDiogoRibeirotomake a series of maps andglobes that placed theMoluccaswithintheCastilianhalf of the globe. This wasthe moment at which theRenaissance world wentglobal in a recognizablymodern sense. Theconsequences of Magellan’s

voyage meant that terrestrialglobes became far moreconvincing representationsofthe shape and scope of theworld.

While such globes did notsurvive,Ribeiro’sworldmapdated 1529 remains astestimonytothemanipulationof geographical reality thatcharacterized the dispute.Ribeiro placed the Moluccas

172 and a half degrees westof the Tordesillas line – justseven and a half degreesinside the Castilian sphere.ThemapgaveCharlesV thenegotiatingpowerheneeded.He sold his rights to theisland back to the haplessPortuguese. Charles had infact realized that short-termcashwaspreferabletoalong-term commercial investment,because of the formidablecost and logistics of

establishing a western traderoute to the Moluccas.RibeiroestablishedhimselfasCastile’s most respectedcartographer, guessing thathis geographical sleight ofhand would never bediscovered, because withoutan accurate method forcalculating longitude, itwould be impossible to everfix the exact position of theMoluccas.

New worlds, oldstories

With Columbus’s discoveryof America, the gold andsilverthathadstartedtoflowback into the coffers ofCharles’s Habsburg Empirebegantodwarftherevenueoftheeasternspicetrade.WherePortugal had established

trading posts throughout theeast, which demanded newmechanisms of trade andexchange, Spain used itsmilitary power to turnAmerica into one large slaveandminingcolony.

In 1521 Hernando Cortesreached Tenochtitlán(modern-day Mexico City),the capital of the AztecEmpire;thishesystematically

destroyed, killingmost of itsinhabitants in the process,including its emperor,Montezuma. In 1533 theadventurerFranciscoPizarro

15.DiogoRibeiro’s1529

Planisphere manipulatedgeographical knowledge to

place the Moluccas Islandsin theHabsburghalfof theglobe

led a handful ofconquistadores and horses intheoccupationofCuzco(nowin modern Peru), the capitalof the Incan Empire. Theindigenous population hadlittle commercial or militarypower to oppose the violentdepredations of theSpaniards, who imposed a

quasi-feudal arrangementupon conquered regions,known as encomienda. Thisinvolvedthedivisionofsmalllocal communities amongstSpanish overseers, whoprovided a brutallyexploitative ‘livelihood’ (ineffect exacting unpaid hardlabour) and Christianeducation.

Conservative estimates

calculate that, of a worldpopulation of approximately400million in 1500, roughly80 million inhabited theAmericas. By 1550, thepopulation of the Americaswas just 10 million. At thestart of the 16th centuryMexico’spopulationhasbeenestimated at 25 million. In1600, it had been reduced toone million. Europeandiseasessuchassmallpoxandmeasles wiped out most of

the indigenous population,but warfare, slaughter, andterrible treatment accountedfor many fatalities. Theromance of discovering pilesofgoldandsilverhadquicklyturnedintoadirty,murderousbusiness of mining andenslavement.

The Spanish exploitation ofthe Americas had a directimpact on the economy of

Europe.Initially,goldflowedback into Europe fromHispaniola and CentralAmerica. However, theconquests of Mexico andPeru soon tipped the balancein favour of silver mining.Between 1543 and 1548silver depositswere found atZacatecas and GuanajuatonorthofMexicoCity;in1543the Spaniards discovered theinfamous sugarloaf mountainof silver atPotosí inBolivia.

The decisive breakthroughcame in 1555 with thediscovery of the mercuryamalgamationprocess,whichallowed thecreationofmuchpurer silver through thesmelting of silver ore withmercury. The result was amassive influx of silver intoEurope. By the end of the16thcenturyover270,000kgof silver and approximately2,000 kg of gold werereaching Europe every year,

compounding the rise ininflation, and therebycontributing to whateconomic historians havecalleda ‘price revolution’,aswages and the cost of livingsoared, providing theframework for the long-termdevelopment of Europeancapitalism.

The American mines andestates requiredworkers, and

the decimation of the localpopulation soon meant thatthe Spanish needed anothersource of labour. Theirsolution was slaves. In 1510King Ferdinand of Castileauthorized the export of 50African slaves, to the minesof Hispaniola. Alonso ZuazowrotefromtheretoCharlesVin 1518, concerned at thework rate of the Indians. Herecommended the ‘import ofnegros, ideal people for the

work here, in contrast to thenatives, who are so feeblethatthereareonlysuitableforlight work’. Between 1529and1537theCastiliancrownissued 360 licences to carryslavesfromAfricatotheNewWorld.Thusbeganoneofthemost ignominious features ofthe Renaissance, as Africanslaves, kidnapped or boughtfor 50 pesos each byPortuguese ‘merchants’ inWest Africa, were crammed

intoboats and shipped to theNewWorld.There theyweresoldfordoubletheirpurchasepriceandsettoworkinminesandonestates.Between1525and 1550 approximately40,000 slaves were shippedfromAfrica to theAmericas,enriching Europe butdevastating Africancommunities.

Not all Spaniards endorsed

the slaughter and oppressionthat took place in theAmericas. The FranciscanFray Motolinia believed that‘if anyone should ask whathas been the cause of somany evils, I would answer:covetousness’. Bartolomé deLasCasassimilarlyargued,‘Ido not say that they want tokill them [Indians] directly,fromthehatetheybearthem;they kill them because theywant to be rich and have

much gold’. Philosophically,thediscoveryofaNewWorldalso transformed Europeanunderstanding of its owncultural superiority. In ‘Onthe Cannibals’, published inhis Essays of 1580, thehumanist Michel deMontaigne claimed to havespokenat lengthwithseveralBrazilian Indians. Heconcluded ‘there is nothingsavage or barbarous aboutthose peoples, but that every

mancallsbarbarousanythingthatheisnotaccustomedto’.Montaigne developed ahighly sceptical andrelativistic approach toperceptions of ‘civilization’and ‘barbarism’, arguing that‘wecanindeedcallthosefolkbarbarians by the rules ofreasonbutnot incomparisonwith ourselves, who surpassthem in every kind ofbarbarism’.

The discovery of Americarevolutionized RenaissanceEurope’sworldpicture.Ithadconfounded deeplyentrenched classicalphilosophical and religiousbeliefs that simply could notaccommodatetheexistenceofthe culture, language, andbelief systems of theindigenousinhabitants.Itwaspartly responsible fordefining Europe’s shift froma medieval world to a more

recognizably modern world.However, the discovery ofAmerica brought together avolatile fear of the new andtheunknownwithadesireforunlimitedwealth that ignoredthe incredible suffering andoppression inflicted uponindigenous people and slavesin the Americas. Its legacycan be seen in the povertyand political instability ofmuch of South Americatoday, and the inequalities of

wealth and opportunity thatcharacterize so much of themodernglobaleconomy.

Chapter5Science andphilosophy

Come,Mephistopheles, letusdisputeagain,

And reason of divineastrology.

Speak, are there manyspheresabovethemoon?

Areallcelestialbodiesbutoneglobe,

As is the substance of thiscentricearth?

(Faustus, in ChristopherMarlowe, Doctor Faustus,

c.1592)

Christopher Marlowe’sDoctor Faustus dramatizesthe excitement and dangerassociated with the rise ofscience and speculativethought in the Renaissance.Faustus is a learned‘astrologer’ who has reachedthe limits of the study ofastronomy, anatomy, andphilosophy. In seekingmagical powers of life over

death, Faustus sells his soulto the devil Mephistopheles.Given a chance to repent, herefuses.Heismoreinterestedin questioningMephistopheles on thecontroversial topic of ‘divineastrology’. Faustus isultimately damned and fallstohell.Buthispreferenceforlearning and contempt forreligion caught the lateRenaissance popularimagination. His fate

encapsulates modernanxieties about the ethics ofscientific experimentation.Thisambivalence(wewanttoknow, but can we know toomuch?)captures themoodofthetransformationsinpopularandapplied science that tookplace in the 15th and 16thcenturies. The individual’srelationship to his/her mind,body, and environment wereall transformed as a result ofrenewed scientific

collaborationinthepursuitofpractical problem-solving,exchanges of ideas betweencultures, and the impact ofnewtechnologies.

From macrocosm tomicrocosm

Once Faustus has sold hissoul, he asksMephistopheles

forabook‘whereImightseeall characters and planets ofthe heavens’. The mostcontroversial book thatFaustus couldhaveconsultedwasOntheRevolutionsoftheCelestial Spheres by thePolish canon and astronomerNicolaus Copernicus. FirstprintedinNuremberginMay1543, Copernicus’srevolutionary bookoverturned the medievalbeliefthattheearthlayatthe

centre of the universe.Copernicus’s vision of theheavens showed that theearth,alongwithalltheotherknown planets, rotatedaround the sun. Copernicussubtly revised the work ofclassical Greek and Arabicastronomy scholars. Heargued that ‘they did notachieve their aim, which wehope to reach by acceptingthefactthattheearthmoves’.

Copernicus tried to limit therevolutionary significance ofhis ideas by accommodatingthem within a classicalscientific tradition. But theCatholic Church washorrified and condemned thebook. Copernicus’s argumentoverturned the biblical beliefthattheearth–andhumanitywithit–stoodatthecentreofthe universe. It was aliberatingbutdangerousidea.

Within a month of thepublication of Copernicus’streatise, another book wasprinted that would transformanother area of science:Andreas Vesalius’s On theStructureoftheHumanBody.Published in Basle in June1543, Vesalius’s bookmarked the beginning ofmodernobservationalscienceand anatomy. Its title-pagedepictsVesaliusconductingagraphic public anatomy

lesson, held in a ‘theatre’,surrounded by students,citizens, and fellowphysicians. Vesalius returnsourgazeashepeelsbackthefemale cadaver’s abdomen.Thisgestureinvitesthereaderto open the book and followthe anatomist as he reducesthe human body to theskeleton that hovers abovethe dissected body. Vesaliusrevealed the mystery of theinnerbodyasacomplexmap

of flesh, blood, and bone, apotentially infinite source ofstudy. His exploration of thesecrets of the human bodyopened the way for the later16th-centurystudyof

16. Nicolaus

Copernicus’s heliocentricsystem from his On theRevolutions of the CelestialSpheres(1543).Forthefirsttime the sun (‘Sol’) lies atthecentreofthecosmos

the ear, the femalereproductive organs, thevenous system, and, in 1628,William Harvey’s theory ofthecirculationoftheblood.

Vesalius’s anatomical studieswere based on methodicalobservation and analysis ofempirical reality. ForVesalius this meant stealingthe bodies of the condemnedand the diseased, as heconfessed:‘Iwasnotafraidtosnatch in the middle of thenight what I so longed for.’While Vesalius discoveredthemicroscopicsecretsofthehuman body, Copernicusexplored the macrocosmic

mysteriesoftheuniverse.Theimplications were profound.Copernicus ultimatelytransformed scientificapprehensions of time andspace by undermining thenotion of a divinely orderedworld. Instead, the earthwasenvisaged as one planetamongst the vast time andspace of the universe.Vesalius envisaged theindividual as an infinitelycomplex and intricate

mechanism of blood, flesh,and bone that Shakespeare’sHamletwould later regardasa ‘quintessence of dust’ andthe philosopher RenéDescartes would call a‘movingmachine’.

Alongside Copernicus andVesalius came hundreds ofpublications that began todefine the emergingdisciplines of scientific

enquiry: mathematics,physics, biology, the naturalsciences, and geography.Luca Pacioli’s Everythingabout Arithmetic, Geometryand Proportion (1494) wasthe first account of thepractical application ofarithmetic andgeometry,oneof 214 mathematical bookspublished in Italy between1472 and 1500. In 1545 theastrologerGeronimoCardanopublished his Great Art, the

first contemporary Europeanbook of algebra. In 1537Niccolò Tartaglia issued hisNew Science, dealing withphysics, followed by hisstudy of arithmetic, AGeneralTreatiseonNumbersand Measurement (1556). InthenaturalsciencesLeonhardFuchs’s History of Plants(1542) studied over 500plants, whilst ConradGesner’sHistory of Animals(1551–8)containedhundreds

of illustrations that redefinedzoology. In geography,experiments in new ways ofmapping the worldculminated in GerardMercator’s 1569 world map:his famous projection is stillusedtoday.

17. The title-page to

Andreas Vesalius’s On theStructure of the HumanBody (1543), where thedrama of anatomicaldissectioniscarriedoutasifinatheatre

Renaissance scientificinnovation was invariablytiedtopracticalrequirements,andnowheremorethaninthefield of warfare. Niccolò

Tartaglia’s publications onmechanics, dynamics, andmotion represented the firstmodern studies of ballistics.His Various Queries andInventions (1546) wasdedicated to the militarilyambitious Henry VIII, anddealtwithballisticsaswellasthe creation and use ofartillery. Tartaglia’s workresponded to and furtherdeveloped new inventions inweaponry and warfare, from

the innovation of usinggunpowderasapropellant inthe early 14th century to theemergence of cavalry as adecisive factor in 16th-century conflict. The impactof such military-scientificdevelopments led to furtheradvancementsinthefieldsofanatomyandsurgery.In1545Ambroise Paré, a greatadmirer of Vesalius,publishedhisstudyofsurgerybased on his involvement in

theFranco-Habsburgwars ofthe1540s.Parédisprovedthepopular belief that gunshotwounds were poisonous andrejected the dressing ofwounds in boiling oil, apractical innovation thatsubsequently earned him theepithet of the father ofmodernsurgery.

Geometry and mathematicsalso provided new ways of

understanding theincreasingly elaborate andoften invisible movement ofcommodities and papermoney across the globe, butthey also enabled newdevelopments in ship design,surveying, and map-making,which anticipated ever morerapidcommercialtransactionsof a speed and volumehitherto unimaginable.Regiomontanus’s book OnTriangles became crucial to

16th-centurymap-makersandnavigators. Its sophisticatedtreatment of sphericaltrigonometry allowedcartographers to constructterrestrial globes and mapprojections that took intoaccount the curvature of theearth’s surface. The firstprintededitionwaspublishedin 1533 in Nuremberg, thehome of the early terrestrialglobe industry that emergedin the aftermath of the first

circumnavigationoftheglobein1522.

Scientific innovation inmathematics, astronomy, andgeometry enabledincreasingly ambitious long-distancetravelandcommerceboth eastwards andwestwards, which in itselfcreated new opportunities aswell as new problems.Encountering new people,

plants, animals, andmineralsthroughout Africa, south-eastAsia, and the Americasenlarged and redefined thedomains of Europeanphysiology, botany, zoology,and mineralogy. Thesedevelopments often had aspecifically commercialdimension. GeorgiusAgricola’s De Re Metallica,first published in 1556, dealtwith ‘Digging of ore’,‘Smelting’, ‘Separation of

silver from gold, and of leadfromgoldandsilver’,andthe‘Manufacture of salt, soda,alum, vitriol, sulphur,bitumen, and glass’. Thecombination of chemistry,mineralogy, and Agricola’sobservations and experiencesoftheminingcommunitiesofsouthern Germanyrevolutionized miningtechniques, and played acrucial role in the massiveincreaseintheproductionand

exportofNewWorldsilverinthe latter half of the 16thcentury.

Merchants and financierssoonrealizedthatinvestinginscience could be a profitablebusiness.In1519theGermanhumanist Ulrich von Huttonwroteatreatiseonguaiacum,a newwonder drug from theAmericasthatwasbelievedtocure syphilis. Dedicating his

book to the archbishop ofMainz,Huttonwrote,‘Ihopethat Your Eminence hasescaped the pox but shouldyou catch it (Heaven forbidbut you can never tell) Iwould be glad to treat andheal you’. It was believed(mistakenly) that syphilisoriginated in theNewWorldand returned to Europe withColumbus in 1493, and thatthegeographicaloriginofthedisease had to provide the

cure. The German merchanthouse of Fugger, which heldan import monopoly on thedrug, began a campaign toendorse guaiacum, opening achainofhospitalsexclusivelysupplying the drug. As theprice climbed and itsuselessness became apparent,the Swiss physician andalchemist Paracelsuspublished a series of attackson guaiacum, denouncing itas a commercial scam, and

recommending the morepainfuluseofmercury.

Paracelsus rejected theclassical belief in humoraltheory, which believed inmaintaining a balancebetween the body’s fourconstituent fluids: blood,yellow bile, phlegm, andblackbile. Instead,he tookamore alchemical approach tomedicine, arguing that the

basic components of Naturecould bematched to specificdiseases, which led him touse elements like iron,sulphur, and mercury in histreatment of diseases likesyphilis. In drawing on thenew practical world of trialand error, as well aschemistry,Paracelsusclashedwith institutional andfinancial authorities. TheFuggers responded to hisworkonsyphilisandmercury

by using their financialmuscle to suppress hispublications and ridicule hisscientific credibility. Theseconflicts anticipated the riseofthemodernpharmaceuticalindustry, and the world ofpatentmedicine.

Sciencefromtheeast

Renaissance science alsoreceived added impetus fromthe increased transmission ofknowledge between east andwest. Many of the classicalGreek scientific textssurvived in Arabic, Persian,and Hebrew translations andwere revised in places likeToledo in Spain and theAcademy of ScienceestablishedinBaghdadinthe9th century. Islamic centresof learning were crucial in

driving forward scientificadvances based on bothGreek learning and Arabicinnovations, particularly inthe fields of medicine andastronomy. As early as the1140s Hugo of Santalla, aLatin translator of Arabictexts, wrote, ‘it befits us toimitate the Arabs especially,for they are as it were ourteachersandthepioneers’.

Arabic studies of medicinedirectly affected thedissemination of knowledgeinthewest.The10th-centuryArabic scholar Avicennastudied the Greek medicaltreatises of Galen andAristotle in composing hisencyclopedicbooktheCanonof Medicine. He definedmedicine as ‘the science bywhich we learn the variousstates of the human body,when inhealthandwhennot

in health, whereby health isconserved and whereby it isrestoredafterbeinglost’.TheCanon was translated intoLatin in Toledo in the 12thcentury by Gerard ofCremona. The translationgenerated over 30 printededitions in Italy between1500and1550,asAvicenna’sbook became a set medicaltextinuniversitiesthroughoutEurope.In1527theVenetianphysician Andrea Alpago

publishedaneweditionoftheCanon based on hisexperienceasphysiciantotheVenetian consulate inDamascus. Alpago alsostudied the writings of theSyrianphysician Ibnal-Nafis(1213–88),whoseresearchonthe pulmonary movement ofthe blood influenced 16th-century Europeaninvestigations of circulation.Vesalius condemnedacademic physicians who

spent their time ‘unworthilydecrying Avicenna and therestoftheArabicwriters’.Hewas so convinced of theimportance of Arabicmedicine that he began tolearn the language himself,and wrote commentariespraising the therapeutics andmateria medica of al-Razi(‘Rhazes’). In 1531 OttoBrunfels,theso-called‘fatherof botany’, edited a printededition of the 9th-century

materia medica of IbnSarabiyun (Serapion theyounger), which had adecisiveinfluenceonhisownunderstandingofbotany.

Inastronomyandgeography,Arabic scholars wereparticularly instrumental intranslating the crucial worksof the Greek cosmographerPtolemy. His Almagest andGeography were translated

from Greek into Arabic,criticized,andthenrevisedinToledo, Baghdad, andSamarkand. After the fall ofConstantinople in 1453, theOttoman SultanMehmed theConqueror proved to be anenthusiastic patron ofPtolemy. He commissionedthe Greek scholar GeorgiusAmirutzes to revisePtolemy’stextinArabic.Theworld map, completed in1465, is an amalgamation of

Ptolemy’s calculations withmore up-to-date Arabic,Greek, and Latingeographical information.Withsouthorientedatitstop,scales of latitude, and acomplex conical projection,thiswasacutting-edgeworldmap.

Scientific transactionsbetween east and west alsocontributed to Copernicus’s

account of the heliocentricnature of the solar system.One of the most importantcentres of Arabic astronomyand mathematics wasestablished at the Maraghaobservatory in Persia in themid-13th century. Its leadingfigurewas

18. Mehmed the

Conqueror commissionedGeorgius Amirutzes’sPtolemaic map in 1465. Itshows how the study ofPtolemy developed in the

eastaswellasthewest

(1201–74)whoseMemoir onAstronomymodified Ptolemy’scontradictory work on themotionof the spheres.Tusi’smost important revision ofPtolemyledtothecreationofthe ‘Tusi couple’. Thistheorem states that linearmotion can be derived fromuniform circular motion,which Tusi demonstrated

using one sphere rollinginside another of twice theradius. Historians ofastronomyhavenow realizedthat Copernicus reproducedthe Tusi couple in hisRevolutions, and that thetheorem was crucial indefining his heliocentricvision of the solar system.Nobody looked for Arabicinfluence upon Renaissancescience because theassumption was that there

wasnothingtofind.

Theartofscience

The printing press broughttogether art and science asnever before, and one of theindividuals who capitalizedonthissituationwasAlbrechtDürer. He quickly masteredthe new technique of

copperplate engraving, andtravelledtoItaly‘tolearnthesecrets of the art ofperspective’.Hebelievedthat‘the new art must be basedupon science – in particular,upon mathematics, as themost exact, logical, andgraphically constructive ofthe sciences’. In 1525 hepublished a treatise ongeometry and perspectiveentitledACourseintheArtofMeasurement with Compass

and Ruler, to ‘benefit notonly the painters but alsogoldsmiths, sculptors,stonemasons, carpenters andall thosewhohavetorelyonmeasurement’.

Dürer’s book explained theapplication of the newscience of perspective andoptics. It also containedillustrations of ‘drawingmachines’ that couldbeused

to impose the grid ofperspective upon the subject.Oneofhisillustrationsshowsthedraughtsmanusingasightto locate his subject on apiece of paper. The grid-likestructure of the artist’s platecorrespondstotheglasspanelthat separates draughtsmanfrom model. Thedraughtsman simply copieseverypointon theglassontothe corresponding gridreference on his plate.

Dürer’s illustration sharesmany similarities with thefemale cadaverwhosewombis ripped open for theedificationofaroomful

19. Dürer’s

draughtsman gazing at anaked woman through a

‘drawing machine’, fromhis Course in the Art ofMeasurement, printed in1525

ofmen inVesalius’sStudies.ForbothDürerandVesalius,women have no part to playin this artistic and scientificrevolution, other than asobjectsfordissectionormute,sexuallyavailablemodels.

AnearlyinfluenceonDürer’scareerwasthefigurewhohascome to personify therelations between art andscience in the Renaissance:Leonardo da Vinci. LucaPacioliclaimedthatLeonardowas the ‘most worthy ofpainters, perspectivists,architects andmusicians,oneendowed with everyperfection’, who utilized hisimmersion in science tomarkethisskillsasasculptor,

surveyor, military engineer,and anatomical draughtsman.Leonardo’sabilitytocombineartistic skills with practicalscientific ability made hisservices highly prized byseveralpowerfulpatrons.

In 1482 Duke LudovicoSforza of Milan employedLeonardo as a militaryengineer on the basis of acurriculum vitae that

emphasized his practicalabilities:

I have plans for verylight, strong, and easilyportable bridges . . . Ihave methods fordestroyingeveryfortress. . . I will make canon,mortar, and lightordnance . . . I willassemble catapults,mangonels, trebuckets,andother instruments . .

. I believe I can givecomplete satisfaction inthe field of architecture,and the construction ofboth public and privatebuildings. . .AlsoIcanexecute sculpture inmarble, bronze, andclay.

Ludovico discardedLeonardo’s fanciful militaryscience, commissioning him

instead to cast an immenseequestrianmonument that, asLeonardoclaimed,‘willbetothe immortal glory andeternal honour . . . of theillustrious house of Sforza’.Leonardo’s sketches of theproportionsandcastingofthehorse show that he used allhis skill in hydraulics,anatomy, and design todesign a statue for the civicglorificationoftheSforza.

Like most of his technicallyambitious projects,Leonardo’s horse was neverbuilt. He moved on and by1504 he was in negotiationswith the Ottoman SultanBayezid II to build a 350-metre bridge over theBosphorus. ‘I will erect ithigh as an arch’, Leonardowrote to Bayezid, ‘so that ashipunder fullsailcouldsailunderneathit’.ExasperatedatLeonardo’s unrealistic

designs, Bayezid droppedhim and opened negotiationswith Michelangelo. One ofLeonardo’s greatmiscalculations was notcommittinghisideastoprint.As a result, unlike Dürer,Leonardo left no concreteinnovations to posterity. Heremained a brilliant butenigmatic figure until beingrescued from obscurity byWalter Pater in the 19thcentury.

Naturalphilosophy

Therewasnodividebetweenscience, philosophy, andmagicinthe15thcentury.Allthree came under the generalheading of ‘naturalphilosophy’. Central to thedevelopment of naturalphilosophy was the recoveryof classical authors, most

importantly the work ofAristotle and Plato. At thebeginningofthe15thcenturyAristotle remained the basisfor all scholastic speculationon philosophy and science.Kept alive in the Arabictranslations andcommentaries of Averroësand Avicenna, Aristotleprovided a systematicperspective on mankind’srelationship with the naturalworld.Survivingtextslikehis

Physics, Metaphysics, andMeteorology providedscholarswiththelogicaltoolsto understand the forces thatcreated the natural world.Mankind existed within thisworld as a mortal ‘politicalanimal’ destined to forgesocial communities thanks tohis ability to reason aboveandbeyondanyotheranimal.Fromtheearly

20.Leonardo’sstudiesforacasting pit for the Sforzahorse completed in 1498.The statue was neverfinished

15th century, humanistscholars began to translateAristotle into Latin anddiscovernewtextssuchasthePoetics and the pseudo-

Aristotelian Mechanics.Engineers in building andconstruction utilized theMechanics with itsdescription of motion andmechanical devices. In theworld of political anddomestic managementLeonardoBrunitranslatedthePolitics,NicomacheanEthics,andOeconomicus,thelatterastudy of estates andhousehold organization,whichhearguedwerecentral

to the civic organization of15th-centuryItaliansociety.

As humanist scholars beganto publish new translationsand commentaries onAristotle, theyalsorecovereda whole range of neglectedclassical authors andphilosophical perspectives,most significantly exponentsof Stoicism, Scepticism,Epicureanism,andPlatonism.

The most decisivedevelopment was therecovery and translation ofthe works of Aristotle’steacher, Plato. The mystical,idealistPlatonismofMarsilioFicino,NicholasofCusa,andGiovanni Pico dellaMirandola argued that,contrary toAristotle’s belief,the soul was immortal, andaspiredtoacosmicunityandlove of ultimate truth.Imprisoned in its earthly

body, the soul, according toFicino in his PlatonicTheology (1474), ‘tries toliken itself to God’. FicinoarguedthatPlato

deemedit justandpiousthat the human mind,which receiveseverything from God,should give everythingbacktohim.Thus,ifwedevote ourselves tomoral philosophy, he

exhorts us to purify oursoul so that it mayeventually becomeunclouded, permitting itto see the divine lightandworshipofGod.

This Platonic approach hadtwo distinct advantages overAristotelianism.First,itcouldbeaccommodatedmuchmoreeasily into 15th-century

Christian belief in theimmortality of the soul andthe individual’s worship ofGod. Secondly, it definedphilosophical speculation asan individual’smostpreciouspossession. Ficino’s versionof Platonism cleverlyelevated his own professionas philosopher. Its rejectionof politics in favour ofmystical contemplation alsosuitedthepoliticalphilosophyof Ficino’s patron, the

Florentine ruler Cosimo de’Medici,whoappointedFicinoas head of his philosophicalacademyin1463.

Subsequent philosophersrapidly expanded and refinedFicino’sNeoplatonism.Intheintroduction to hisConclusiones (1486),Giovanni Pico dellaMirandolaattemptedtocreatewhat he called ‘the concord

of Plato andAristotle’, in anattempt to unify classicalphilosophy with Christianity.PicodrewonmysticalJewishand Arabic texts (he startedlearning Arabic inacknowledgement of thesignificance of Arabphilosophy) to establishnaturalphilosophyasthebestmethod of metaphysicalenquiry.‘Naturalphilosophy’he claimed, ‘will allay thestrife and differences of

opinion which vex, distract,and wound the spirit’.Unfortunately, Pico’sConclusiones wereinvestigated by a papalcommission that condemnedsome of his theses asheretical. Later scholars ofthe Renaissance were moreinterested in Pico’sintroductory remarks to theConclusiones, which theyidentifiedasprovidinganewvisionof individualselfhood.

Drawing on Plato, Picoarguedinhisintroductionthatman is ‘the maker andmoulder of thyself’, with theliberty ‘to have what hewishes, to be whatever hewills’. For 19th-centurywriters like Walter Pater,Pico’s introduction becamethe classic statement onindividuality and the birth ofRenaissance man, and in1882 itwasgiven itsEnglishtitle,Oration on the Dignity

of Man, a phrase that Picohimselfneverused.

Both Plato and Aristotlecontinued to exert anenormous influence upon theart,literature,philosophy,andscience of the 16th century.Neoplatonism inspired theartistic and literary work offigures as diverse asMichelangelo, Erasmus, andSpenser, while

Aristotelianism remained asufficiently diverse body ofwork to allow scientists andphilosophers to revise it inline with their expandingworld. However, as thecentury drew to a close, theintellectual primacy of bothphilosophers was slowly butsurely eroded. The discoveryofAmerica ledMontaigne torealize in1580 that theworkofAristotleandPlato‘cannotapply to these new lands’.

Galileo’s refutation ofAristotle’stheoriesofmotion,acceleration,andthenatureoftheuniverseintheearly17thcenturyledhimtoconclude‘Igreatly doubt that Aristotleevertestedbyexperiment’.

Sir Francis Bacon, who alsoshared Galileo’s rejection ofAristotle, began to argue forempirical observation inscientific analysis. By 1620

Bacon was calling for a‘Great Instauration’ oflearning, where ‘philosophyand the sciences may nolongerfloatinair,butrestonthe solid foundation ofexperienceofeverykind,andthe same well examined andweighed’. Bacon’s NovumOrganum, or The NewOrganon, offered a directrebuttal of Aristotle’sOrganon, or Instrument forRational Thinking, from

where Bacon took his title.Aristotle had argued for theuse of syllogisms in logicalreasoning, where twoincontrovertiblepremises(forinstance, all humans aremortal, and all Greeks arehuman) logically infer aparticular conclusion (allGreeks are mortal). In thisscheme, theory and rhetoricare regarded asmore reliablethan practice or experience.Bacon turned this scheme on

its head. He argued thatAristotle’s basic, acceptedpremisses requiredinterrogation, and what hecalled

a new logic, teaching toinvent and judge byinduction (as findingsyllogism incompetentfor sciences of nature)and thereby to makephilosophy and thesciences both more true

andmoreactive.

Baconproposedacompletelynew vision of scientificknowledge based on thecarefulcompilationofnaturaldata based on observation,experimentation, andinduction; in other words,deriving general theoreticalprinciples from particularfacts. It was a massive

undertaking of thereformation of theclassification of the naturalsciences that remainedincomplete at the timeof hisdeath, but it broke with theclassical assumptions reveredbyRenaissance scholars, andanticipated the experimentalscience carried out by theRoyal Society in the laterdecades of the 17th century.In1626BaconcompletedhisNewAtlantis,autopianworld

thatdrewonPlato,butwhosemostvaluedcitizenswerenolonger philosophers butexperimentalscientists.Itwasa shift that would influencemodern scienceand itsbreakwithphilosophy.

Chapter6Rewriting theRenaissance

‘Renaissance literature’: theterm is as misleading andanachronistic as phrases we

havealreadyencounteredlike‘Renaissance humanism’ and‘Renaissance science’.Petrarch, Machiavelli, More,and Bacon were politiciansanddiplomatswhosewritingshave only subsequently beenlabelled ‘Renaissanceliterature’, and who are nowstudiedinuniversityliteraturedepartmentsacrosstheworld.It is only towards the end ofthe 16th century that theconcept of the professional

writer develops with thegrowth of the theatre incountries like Spain andEngland, and the financialsuccess of printing, thatallowed poets andpamphleteers to considercreativewritingasafull-timecareer.Thedifferent typesofliterary expression – poetry,drama,andprose–respondedto these social and politicalchangesinavarietyofways,all of which had regionally

specificmanifestations.Whatwe now call Renaissanceliterature was writtenpredominantly in the variousEuropean vernacularlanguages: English, French,Italian,Spanish,andGerman.The story of such literarydevelopments involveswriters detaching themselvesfrom the international,classical languages of theelite (Greek, Arabic, and inparticularLatin)andchoosing

to write in their particularvernacular languages.Because of the difficulty ofdoingjusticetothesespecificvernacular traditions, inwhatfollowsmyemphasisfallsonthe development of poetry,prose, and drama in specificrelation to the Englishlanguage.

Poetry

Alongside epic, lyric poetrywasesteemedasthepinnacleof literary creativity in theRenaissance. The rise ofcourtly culture in Italy andnorthern Europe providedscope for the cultivatedsensibility of lyric poetry,with its focus on a belovedmistress, whilst alsoreflecting on the subjectivestatus of the lover-poet. One

of its most influentialpioneers was the humanistscholar Petrarch. His writingof IlCanzoniere,acollectionof 365 poems writtenbetween1327and1374,drewon Dante’s collection oflyrics theNew Life. Petrarchrefined the sonnet, a heavilystylized poem of 14 lines,broken down into twosections (the octave, or firsteightlines,andsestet,orfinalsix lines) with a highly

specific rhymestructure.ThePetrarchan sonnet idealizedthefemalesubjectatthesametime as it explored theemotional complexity of thepoet’s identity. Petrarchcomplainedinonesonnetthat‘In this state, Lady I ambecause of you’. Thisintimate, introspective poeticstyle,whichallowed thepoettoexplorehisownmoralstatein relation to either hisbeloved or his religion (and

thetwowereoftenconflated)came to influence courtlyRenaissance culture andpoetry throughout the 15thand16thcenturies.

The tradition developed inItalyinthepoetryofCardinalBembo, in Spain withGarcilaso de la Vega, inFrance with Joachim duBellayandPierredeRonsard,and in England with Sir

Thomas Wyatt’s mid-16thcentury translations ofPetrarch into vernacularEnglish. This Englishtradition culminated inShakespeare’s sonnetsequence (c.1600) thatparodied the Petrarchanconvention with its famousline, ‘my mistress’ eyes arenothing like the sun’ (Sonnet130). In his sonnetsShakespeare went beyondPetrarch by adding a third

dimension to the relationshipbetween the poet and hismistress: a male rival. Thistriangulated relationship,expressed in supple, punningvernacular English, wasunprecedented. It allowedShakespeare to address malerivalry and the problems ofliterary patronage anddomestic service, ‘Desiringthisman’sartand thatman’sscope’ (Sonnet 29) and toexplore the corrosive effects

of sexual desire, ‘ Th’expenseofspiritinawasteofshame’(Sonnet129).

InSonnet134thepoetadmitsto having lost hismistress tohismalefriend:

So, now I haveconfessed that he isthine,And I myself ammortgagedtothywill,

Myself I’ll forfeit, sothatothermineThou wilt restore to bemycomfortstill.

The poet hopes to retain atleasthismalefriendshipwithhis rival, but the poemconcludes that even this isimpossible: ‘HimhaveI lost;thouhastbothhimandme; /He pays the whole, and yet

am I not free’. The poet is‘mortgaged’ to his mistress,andoffersto‘forfeit’himselfto preserve his friend, but inthe end even the friend is inthe sexual grip of themistress. The poet hopes hisfriendwill settle the debt, orpay ‘the whole’, but the punhere is on whole/hole – agraphic sexual image thatreveals the power of thewoman to ‘ensnare’ bothmen. The sonnet’s language

draws on the specificallyElizabethan experience oflegal obligation and financialindebtedness. Its execution ispeculiarly English in itsrhyme and punning.Shakespeare has moved along way from the Latinateand classical influence ofPetrarch. His poetryanticipates the developmentoflaterEnglishpoetsliketheMetaphysical Poets, andsignals a departure from the

Renaissance style of poeticutterance to the nationalvernacular traditions of thelater17thcentury.

Kidnappinglanguage: womenrespond

While the poetry of Petrarchcelebrated women as

idealized but silent paragonsof chaste virtue,Shakespeare’s sonnetsreflected an increasinganxiety about women’scontradictory status in amale-dominated culture.Some women responded bytaking advantage of thechanging nature of humanisteducation and the rise ofprinting to offer a differentversion of femininity. Theirwritingsuggeststhatmanyof

the assumptions aboutrelations between the sexesweremore actively contestedthan the predominantly maleliterary canon has led us tobelieve.

Throughout the 16th centurya range of women writersappropriated Platonic andPetrarchan conventions toquestion male assumptionsabout women and to try to

definetheirownpersonalandcreative autonomy. In herRymes (publishedposthumously in Lyons in1545), Pernette du Guilletused Neoplatonic ideas andPetrarchan conventions toestablish poetic equalitywithhermale lover: ‘just as I amyours/(Andwanttobe),youare entirelymine’ she claimsin one poem. Elsewhere sheattacks the fickleness andinequality of Petrarchan

sentiment, assuring herfemale audience, ‘Let’s notbe surprised / If our desireschange’. This rejection ofmale poetic convention wastaken even further by LouiseLabé, whose poetic EuvreswerealsopublishedinLyonsin 1555. Labé used thePetrarchan sonnet to criticizeitsobjectificationofwomen’sbodies, turning the tables byasking ‘Whatheightmakesaman worthy of admiration?’

Rather than establishing hersubservience to afictionalizedmalelover,Labécompeteswith him, claimingin another reversal ofPetrarchan convention ‘I’duse thepowerofmy eyes sowell . . . That in no time I’dconquerhimcompletely’.

This sexual frankness wascombined with an insistenceupon women’s right to

educational attainment andcreative freedom. In TheCopyofaLetter(1567)andASweet Nosegay (1573), theElizabethan IsabellaWhitneyasserted some independencefrom the limitations ofdomesticlife,arguingthat‘tilsomehouseholdcaresmetie,/ My books and pen I willapply’. One poet who freedherself from the domesticlimitations explored byWhitney was the Venetian

courtesan Veronica Franco.Rime,hercollectionofpoemspublished in 1575, bothdemystified the idealism ofPetrarchan love from theperspective of a paidcourtesan and argued that‘When we women, too, arearmedand trained /We’ll beabletostanduptoanyman’.Struggling with theirrelationship to the increasingreligious persecution andpolitical upheaval of mid-

16th century Europe, writerslike Franco and Whitneyadapted male literarytraditions to present a verydifferent perspective on thenatureofwomen.

Printedtales

Writers also took advantageoftherelativelynewmedium

of print to establish theirdistinctive literary voices.Print transformed literaryexpression, as it createddemand amongst anincreasingly literate andpredominantly metropolitanaudiencethatwaslookingfornewformstounderstandtheirchanging world. In 1554 theDominican friar MatteoBandello published hisNovelle, short stories ofcontemporary urban life that,

according to theirauthor, ‘donot deal with connectedhistory but are rather amiscellany of diversehappenings’. GiambattistaGiraldi, more popularlyknown as Cinthio, printedanother collection of equallyinfluential novellas in 1565.The prologue to hisHecatommithi draws on thetraumatic sack of Rome byLutheran soldiers in 1527.The violent events are

described in termsreminiscent of the tragicRomandramatistSeneca,andCinthio and Bandello’sstories inspired some of thegreatest and bloodiesttragedies performed on theElizabethan and Jacobeanstage, including ThomasKyd’s Spanish Tragedy(c.1587), Shakespeare’sOthello (1603), and JohnWebster’s The White Devil(c.1613). Like prose writing,

the development of thetheatre, particularly inEngland, was increasinglybased on investment andprofit rather than courtlypatronageorreligiouspiety,asituation that allowed forincreasingly complex andnaturalistic representationsofsocietyandtheindividual.

Theflexibilityoftheprintingprocess also allowed writers

like François Rabelais torespond to criticism of hisbooks and to insertcontemporary events intolater editions of his work.Rabelais publishedPantagruel (1532) andGargantua (1534), whichrecounted the comicaladventures of two giants,Gargantua and his sonPantagruel.Rabelais uses theadventures of his giants tosatirize and parody

everythingfromthechurchtothe new humanist learning.Writing in a fantastic‘copious’ style that mixedlearned languages withvernacularFrench,Rabelais’sdescription of Pantagruelcaptureshis abundantmixingof styles. Born to a mother‘who died in childbirth’because‘hewassoamazinglylarge and so heavy that hecouldnotcomeintotheworldwithoutsuffocating[her]’,the

younggianteatswholesheepandbears,causesascholartoshit himself, and studies thenewlearninginabewilderingvariety of newly printedbooks including The Art ofFarting and The Chimney-Sweep of Astrology.Pantagruel also resolves alegal dispute between theLords Kissmyarse andSuckfart and, in a parody ofseaborne discovery andscientific innovation, he

finallysailsawayto‘theportofUtopia’.

The fourbooksofGargantuaand Pantagruel’s adventurespublished in Rabelais’slifetime were enormouslysuccessful; inhisprologue toPantagruel Rabelais boasted‘more copies of it have beensold by the printers in twomonths than there will be oftheBibleinnineyears’.From

1533 the scholastics of theSorbonne in Paris, who hadbeenmercilessly satirized byRabelais, took their revengeby condemning all his booksasobsceneandblasphemous.Hispublicationswerebannedfor the rest of his life.However, other writersadopted his irreverent,abundant style, including theEnglish satirist andpamphleteer Thomas Nashe.InTheUnfortunate Traveller

(1594), Nashe recounts thepicaresque wanderings ofJack Wilton, an itinerantpage, across 16th-centuryEurope,embroilinghimselfinwar, religious conflict,murder, rape, andimprisonment.LikeRabelais,Nasheusestherelativelynewformofprosewriting to turnthe conventions of lyric andepic upside down. Instead offollowing the romancenarrative of epic poets,

Nashe’s ‘fantastical treatise’uses the scepticism andverbal dexterity of earlierhumanists like More andErasmus (whoare introducedinthecourseofthenarrative)todefythemoralstricturesofmore traditional literaryconventions. In its exuberantmixing of styles and voices,Nashe’s voice sharesaffinities with Miguel deCervantes’s Don Quixote(1604) and anticipates the

subsequent development ofthe English novel. DanielDefoewasoneofmanyearlyEnglish novelists whoadmiredNashe’swork.

Epic

Epic poetry possessed a farmore distinguished lineagethan the relatively new and

experimentalprosefictionsofBandello,Cinthio,andNashe.Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,and Virgil’s Aeneid offeredRenaissance poets classicalmodels of empire-buildingand myths of national originstructured around the heroicwanderings of a centralprotagonist – in Homer,Odysseus, in Virgil, Aeneas.The rise of Italian city statesin the 15th century, and thelater development of the

Portuguese, Habsburg, andEnglish claims to globalauthority,gaveepicpoetstheopportunity to rework theclassical epic on a morecontemporaryglobalscale.

One of the most influentialpractitioners of the epic wasLudovico Ariosto, anambassador to one of thegreatest Italian dynasties ofthe 15th century, the Este of

Ferrara.Intheopeningofhisepic poem Orlando Furioso(1516) Ariosto announces, ‘Isingofknightsand ladies,oflove and arms, of courtlychivalry,ofcourageousdeeds– all from the timewhen theMoors crossed the sea fromAfrica andwrought havoc inFrance.’ This was abackward-looking, chivalricpoem about 8th-centuryconflictbetweentheChristianknights of Emperor

Charlemagne and theSaracens.Ariostowasunabletoofferamorecontemporarysetting, precisely becauseEste power was in terminaldecline by the beginning ofthe16thcentury.Readingandlistening to Ariosto’s poem,the noblemen of Este couldfantasize about defeatingTurks, the latter-dayequivalent of Saracens, butthis was a purely aestheticfantasy.By the 16th century,

real imperial power layoutsideItaly.

Luís deCamões’s epic poemThe Lusiads (1572) returnedtoamoreimmediatepast,thefading glory of anotherEuropean power, thePortuguese Empire. Camõeswas a soldier and imperialadministrator who composedhis poem as he worked inAfrica, India, and Macau in

the mid-16th century. TheLusiadsmythologizedtheriseof the 15th-centuryPortuguese Empire byfocusing on the voyage ofVasco da Gama to India in1497. Like Ariosto, Camõesclaimedhisepicexceededtheancients because its heroicandgeographical scope– thedeeds and exploits of thePortuguese in places neverdiscovered by the Greeks orRomans – surpassed the

achievements of the classicalworld. Camões sang ‘of thefamous Portuguese / Towhom both Mars andNeptune bowed’. The poemcreatedaliterarytemplateforliterary imperialism, andwasimitated throughout the 18thand 19th centuries ofEuropeanglobalcolonisation.However,by the1570swhenCamões wrote his epic, thePortuguese Empire wasalready in decline, and in

1580theSpanishKingPhilipII annexed it as part of theexpanding Habsburg Empire.As with Ariosto, Camões’spoemwas already trading onpastglories.

InEngland,EdmundSpenserandSirPhilipSidneytookuptheepictraditionbutgaveitapeculiarly Protestantsensibility. Both men wereambitious Elizabethan

courtiers,eagertosecuretheirown political positions bywriting epics in linewith theprevailingtastesoftheTudordynasty. Sidney’s Arcadia(1590)mixed narrative prosewithpastoralversespokenbyArcadian shepherds anddisguised aristocratic heroesto address a range of issuescentral to the Elizabethanpolity, from political counselto the need to practisetemperance and master the

passions in matters ofromance and dynasticalliances. Edmund Spenserwas a political administrator,like both Ariosto andCamões,buthisepiccreationcelebratedanempire thatdidnotevenexist.SpenserwroteThe FaerieQueene (1590–6)while enthusiasticallycolonizing Ireland on behalfof his English sovereign,Queen Elizabeth I, the‘Goddesse heuenly bright, /

MirrourofgraceandMaiestiediuine, / Great Lady of thegreatestIsle’.

In deliberately archaicEnglish Spenser follows theadventures of a series ofindividuals personifyingspecificallyProtestantvalues,suchasfaithandtemperance.He turns Elizabeth into aglorious ‘Faerie Queen’, andreclaims St George from his

eastern origins as the patronsaintofEngland.Butthiswasanothergloriousmyth.Bythetime Spenser completed hispoem, Elizabeth waspolitically isolated in Europeand her only lasting coloniallegacy was to have set thescene for subsequentcenturies of sectarianviolence in Ireland.Nevertheless, in creating aninternational epic in thevernacularonthebirthof the

Protestant English nation,Spenserturnedawayfromthemore mainstream Europeantradition, and heavilyinfluencedMilton’sParadiseLost.

Theatre

Shakespeare’s drama is afitting place to conclude this

survey of the Renaissancebecause his career marks adecisive shift from theclassical, humanist tradition,that drew its strength fromsouthern European andMediterranean influences, tothe more local and nationalpreoccupations that signalledtheendoftheRenaissance.InhisearliestplaysShakespeareremained deeply indebted tothisclassicaltradition.InTheComedy of Errors (1594),

Shakespeare rewrote theRoman playwright Plautus’comedy Manaechmi, settingit in classical Ephesus. Hisfirst foray into historicaltragedy, Titus Andronicus,was similarly indebted toRomanhistory.Theplaytellsthestoryofthestruggleoftheempire in its declining yearsthroughthecharacterofTitusAndronicus,whowatchesthe‘barbaric’ Goths graduallyinfiltrate and overwhelm the

‘civilized’valuesofRome.

Although both these earlyplays show Shakespeare’sdebttotheclassicalpast,theyalso reflect specificElizabethan concerns andpreoccupations. The comedyof mistaken identity andfinancial confusion inComedyofErrorsperformsagrowing English uneasewiththeliquidityofmoneyandthe

complexities of long-distancecommercial transactions at atime when England wasenteringinternationalmarketsin the Muslim-controlledMediterranean. TitusAndronicus also showsShakespearewritingahistoryof the pastness of the past,and trying to come to termswithEnglish encounterswithdifferentcultures,personifiedin the attractive but sinisterfigure of Aaron the Moor, a

precursorofOthello.

Shakespeare’s growingconfidence with historicalsources led to an increasedinterest in more local,specifically Elizabethanissues in his subsequentcomedies and histories. Hiscycle of history plays fromRichardII toHenry V beganto move from religiouslyinspiredchroniclehistorytoamore ambiguous and

contingent understanding ofEngland’s recent past and itsrelationship to the present.Although these plays havebeentraditionallyregardedasproviding the Tudor statewith an ideologicaljustification of its politicallegitimacy, they alsodisclosed thecycleofbloodyviolence and usurpationundertaken by QueenElizabeth’s forebears. Thereis evidence that Richard II

was performed in support ofan unsuccessful coup againstElizabeth, and that Henry Vwascensoredforitssensitivereferences to politicaldifficulties in Ireland andScotland.

The comedies reflect thegrowinglinguisticconfidenceexpressed in Shakespeare’ssonnets. In Twelfth Night,Feste the clown tells the

cross-dressed, Viola ‘Asentence is but a cheverilglove to a good wit: howquickly the wrong side maybe turned outward!’ (TwelfthNight, 3. 1). The ability toturn language insideout, andargue for and against aparticular position was aninheritance of humanistrhetoric, but in thecommercial theatre ofElizabethan London, suchtechniques were used to

perform and enact issues ofdirect relevance to the play’saudience, be they rich orpoor.ThefirstShakespeareanplay at the new GlobeTheatre, Julius Caesar,returned to the classical pastinitsdramatizationofthefallof the Roman republic withthe assassination of JuliusCaesar. But it also exploredhow rhetoric shaped politicalaction. The legacy ofrepublicanism, discussed in

the contrasting funeralorations of Brutus and MarkAntony, was a potentiallydangerous subject to discusswithin the context ofElizabethan absolutism.However,aswithmanyofthecomedies, Shakespeare ismore interested in howrhetoricshapesandpersuadesan audience, rather thanendorsing a particularpolitical ideology.The hopesand fears of an agrarian

society struggling toadapt toa credit economy, theconcerns of the status ofwomenandchangingfamilialrelations,andtheever-presentreligiousconcernsofpoliticalauthority and personalsalvation were all recurrentissues that shapedShakespeare’s dramaticcareer.

‘Hewasnotofanage,butfor

all time.’ This was BenJonson’sepitaphonthedeathof his great rival,Shakespeare. Today, manywould agree thatShakespeare’s great tragicheroes – Hamlet, Macbeth,Lear, and Othello – areindeedenduringcreationsthattranscend the time and placeof their creation. But weshould remember that adefining feature of theRenaissance is the ability of

its greatest artists to self-fashion a belief in thetimelessnessoftheirwork.Asmuch as Hamlet is thequintessential Renaissanceman,acomplex,multifacetedharbinger of modernity whoprefigures the insights ofMarx and Freud, he wascreated amidst the particularpressures and anxieties ofShakespeare’stime.Itiseasyto see his introspectivespeeches on death, and his

puzzling inability to avengethe murder of his father, asreflectingthehopesandfearsof every modern, alienatedmaleteenager.However, it isimportant to understand thathis actions were also shapedby England’s reformedProtestant sensibilities, andthe consonant fearsconcerning salvation and theafterlife, ‘the undiscover’dcountry from whose bourn /No traveller returns’.

Similarly, whilst Othello’smurder of Desdemonaappears to be a timelessreflection on the corrosive,and potentially fatalconsequences of jealousy, itis also an exploration ofOthello as an outsider, ‘anextravagant and wheelingstranger / Of here and everywhere’, aMuslim convert toChristianity familiar to thoseEnglishmen openly tradingwithMoroccoandtheIslamic

OttomanEmpire.

The Tempest provides afitting conclusion toShakespeare’s career, and tothisstudyoftheRenaissance.Traditionally the play hasbeenregardedasameditationon the power of art, andrepresents Shakespeare’sfarewelltothestage.Itisalsoone of Shakespeare’s mostclassical plays. The action

takesplaceinonedayontheisland, and its action drawson Virgil’s Aeneid; AlonsotheKing ofNaples is sailinghome from Tunis, where hehas married off his daughterClaribel. Shipwrecked onProspero’s island somewherein the Mediterranean, thevoyage draws on Aeneas’journey from Troy to Romevia Carthage. However, theplay also contains powerfulassociations with European

colonization of the NewWorld of America. The playlooks both ways, to theeasternMediterraneanandtheclassical world that providedsuch a rich source ofinspiration for Renaissancethinkers and artists, andwestwards to the Atlanticworldthatwouldincreasinglyshape later 17th- and 18th-century Enlightenmentthinking. If this shift in theliterary, intellectual, and

international outlooksignalled the end of whatdefined the Renaissance, italso offered the beginning ofadifferent,definablymodernunderstanding of culture andsociety.

Timeline

1333 PetrarchdiscoversCicero’sProArchia

1348 PlaguethroughoutEurope

1378 BeginningofPapalSchism

1397MediciBankestablishedinFlorence

1400 Bruni,PanegyrictotheCityofFlorence

1414 CouncilofConstance

EndofPapalSchism;

1417 MartinVelectedpope

1420PortuguesecolonizeMadeira;MartinVreturnstoRome

1438 CouncilofFerrara-Florence

1440

FrederickIIelectedHolyRomanEmperor;Valla

exposesDonationofConstantineasaforgery

1444 Alberti,OntheFamily

c.1450 Gutenberginventsmovabletype

1453

FallofConstantinople;endoftheHundredYears

War

1459

Gozzoli,AdorationoftheMagi;buildingbeginsonTopkapiSarayPalace

1474 Ficino,PlatonicTheology

1488BartolomeuDiazroundstheCapeofGoodHope

1492

Columbus’sfirstvoyage;conquestofGranada;Behaim’sglobe;BellinisbeginStMarkPreachinginAlexandria(completed1504–7)

1494

TreatyofTordesillas;ItalianWars;LucaPacioli,EverythingaboutArithmetic,Geometryand

Proportion

1497–8

DaGamareachesIndia

1500 CabrallandsinBrazil

1505 Leonardo,MonaLisa;DürerinItaly

1506BramantebeginsworkonStPeter’s,Rome

1509

AccessionofKingHenryVIIIinEngland(rulesuntil1553)

1511 Erasmus,PraiseofFolly

1512

MichelangelocompletesSistineChapelceiling;Erasmus,DeCopia.

1513 CortesinMexico;PortuguesecaptureHormuz;Machiavelli,ThePrince

1515AccessionofKingFrancisIinFrance(rulesuntil1547)

1516

CharlesVkingofSpain;Erasmus’sGreekNewTestament;More,

Utopia

1517 Luther’s95theses

1520AccessionofSultanSüleymantheMagnificent

1521

DietofWorms;Magellan’sexpeditionreachesthePacific

1524Peasant’sRevoltinGermany;Raphael,DonationofConstantine

1525

BattleofPavia;Dürer,ACourseintheArtofMeasurement

1527 SackofRome

TreatyofSaragossa;

1529 DiogoRibeiroworldmap

1533

HenryVIIIsplitswithRome;Holbein,TheAmbassadors,Regiomontanus,OnTriangles

1543

Copernicus,DeRevolutionibus;Vesalius,Fabrica;Portuguesereach

Japan

1545 CouncilofTrentbegins(ends1563)

1554 Bandello,Novelle

1555

PeaceofAugsburg;PopePaulIV’santi-Jewishpapalbull;Labé,Euvres

AbdicationofCharles

1556

V;PhilipIIbecomeskingofSpain;Tartaglia,AGeneralTreatiseonNumbersandMeasurement;Agricola,DeReMetallica

1558AccessionofQueenElizabethIinEngland

1567 Whitney,TheCopyof

aLetter

1569Mercator’sworldmap

1570

ElizabethIexcommunicated;Ortelius,TheatrumOrbisTerrarum

1571DefeatofOttomannavalforcesattheBattleofLepanto

1572StBartholomew’sDayMassacre;Camões,TheLusiads

1580 Montaigne,Essays

1590 Spenser,TheFaerieQueene

1603Shakespeare,Othello;deathofElizabethI;accessionofJamesI

1604 Cervantes,DonQuixote

1605 Bacon,AdvancementofLearning

Furtherreading

Introduction

Hans Baron, The Crisisof the Early Italian

Renaissance(Princeton,1955)

Warren Boutcher, ‘TheMaking of theHumane Philosopher:Paul Oscar Kristellerand Twentieth-Century IntellectualHistory’, in JohnMonfasani (ed.),KristellerReconsidered (New

York, 2005), pp. 37–67

Jacob Burckhardt, TheCivilisation of theRenaissance in Italy,tr. S. G. C.Middlemore (London,1990)

W. K. Ferguson, TheRenaissance in

Historical Thought:Five Centuries ofInterpretation (NewYork,1970)

Mary S. Hervey,Holbein’sAmbassadors, thePicture and the Men:An Historical Study(London,1900)

Paul Oscar Kristeller,The Philosophy ofMarsilio Ficino (NewYork,1943)

Walter Mignolo, TheDarker Side of theRenaissance (AnnArbor,1995)

ErwinPanofsky,Studiesin Iconology:

Humanist Themes inthe Art of theRenaissance (Oxford,1939)

Chapter1

Ezio Bassani andWilliam Fagg, Africaand the Renaissance

(NewYork,1988)

Jerry Brotton and LisaJardine, GlobalInterests:RenaissanceArt between East andWest(London,2000)

Charles Burnett andAnna Contadini(eds.), Islam and theItalian Renaissance

(London,1999)

Deborah Howard,Venice and the East(NewHaven,2000)

Halil Inalcik, TheOttoman Empire: TheClassical Age 1300–1600, tr. Colin ImberandNormanItzkowitz(NewYork,1973)

Gülru Necipoglu,‘Süleyman theMagnificent and theRepresentation ofPower in the Contextof Ottoman–Hapsburg–Papalrivalry’, Art Bulletin,71(1989),401–27

Julian Raby, Venice,

Dürer and theOriental Mode(London,1982)

Chapter2

Elizabeth Eisenstein,ThePrintingPress asanAgentofChange,2vols. (Cambridge,

1979)

Lucian Febvre, TheComing of the Book,tr. David Gerard(London,1976)

Anthony Grafton andLisa Jardine, FromHumanism to theHumanities:Education and the

Liberal Arts inFifteenth- andSixteenth-CenturyEurope (London,1986)

William Ivins, Printsand VisualCommunications(Cambridge, Mass.,1953)

Lisa Jardine, Erasmus,Man of Letters(Princeton,1993)

Jill Kraye (ed.), TheCambridgeCompanion toRenaissanceHumanism(Cambridge,1996)

Chapter3

JohnBossy,Christianityin the West, 1400–1700(Oxford,1985)

Thomas Brady et al.(eds.), Handbook ofEuropean History,1400–1600, vol. 1(Leiden,1994)

Euan Cameron, TheEuropeanReformation (Oxford,1991)

David M. Luebke (ed.),The Counter-Reformation (Oxford,1999)

StevenOzment,TheAgeofReform,1250–1550(NewHaven,1980)

Eugene Rice, TheFoundations of EarlyModern Europe, rev.edn. (New York,1993)

Chapter4

Jerry Brotton, TradingTerritories: Mappingthe Early ModernWorld(London,1997)

Mary Baines Campbell,Wonder and Science(NewYork,1999)

Tony Grafton, New

Worlds, Ancient Texts(NewYork,1995)

Jay Levenson (ed.),Circa1492:ArtintheAge of Exploration(Washington,1992)J.H. Parry, The Age ofReconnaissance(London,1963)

Joan-PauRubies, Travel

and Ethnology in theRenaissance (London,2000)

Chapter5

Marie Boas, TheScientificRenaissance1450–1630 (London,1962)

Brian Copenhaver andCharles B. Schmitt,RenaissancePhilosophy (Oxford,1992)

Nancy Siraisi,Medievaland EarlyRenaissanceMedicine(Chicago,1990)

Quentin Skinner, TheFoundations ofModern PoliticalThought (Cambridge,1978)

Pamela H. Smith, TheBody of the Artisan(Chicago,2004)

Chapter6

Terence Cave, TheCornucopian Text(Oxford,1979)

WalterCohen,Dramaofa Nation (New York,1985)

MargaretFergusonetal.(eds.), Rewriting the

Renaissance(Chicago,1986)

Stephen Greenblatt,Renaissance Self-Fashioning: FromMore to Shakespeare(Chicago,1980)

AnnRosalindJones,TheCurrency of Eros:Women’s Love Lyric

inEurope,1540–1620(Bloomington,1990)

David Quint, Epic andEmpire (Princeton,1993)

Index

A

absolutism54–5,125accounting27Acre24Adorno,Theodor17

Africa and Africans 21, 37,61,62,73,74,79,104,122craftsmen36,37explorationof81,83–4slavetrade96trade34–7,83Agricola’s De Re Metallica104Alberti,LeonBattista11,45–6,47–8,67Aleppo23,24AlexandertheGreat29,87Alexandria,Egypt21,23,30,34,79,81

Alfonso,KingofAragon58,59algebra26,101Alpago,Andrea106alum104amber90Amirutzes,Georgius106,107anamorphosis8anatomy 99, 101, 102, 103,108–9anthropology15,17anti-Semitism16,17,27,74Antwerp72Arabs7,83,87,89,126

astronomy99businesspractice25–7manuscripts62navigators81,86 science 105, see alsoIslamarchitecture62Alexandria21 east-west influences24,31,33inIstanbul29Portuguese83inRome67Aristo,Ludovico122,123

Aristotle 38, 62, 105, 110,112,113–14arithmetic3,26,46,101Armenians61,62art9 Bellini’s Saint MarkPreaching in Alexandria 19–21dyes23east-westinfluences30–2historians9,14,24 Holbein’s TheAmbassadors1–8,16Islamic22

realism13–14religious65–6,74–5,76andscience108self-fashioning16‘vulgarization’66WalterPater12artillery103Asia33,84,92,104astronomy3,7,51,83,86–7,99,100,101,106–7,108Austria72Averroës110Avicenna105,110Azores83,84

AztecEmpire93

B

Bacon, Sir Francis 114–15,116Baghdad81,87,105Bahamas85Balkans78ballistics103Bandello,Matteo120,122banking27–8,62baptism64,65

barbarism and civilization96–7Baron,Hans14–15,46bartering26,37,83,89BayezidII,Sultan110Behaim,Martin35,37Bellay,Joachimdu117Bellini,Gentile30Bellini,GentileandGiovanni,Saint Mark Preaching inAlexandria19–24,30Bembo,Cardinal117Bible48,51,62,71,72Bihzâd(Persianartist)30,32

billsofexchange26–7,28BlackDeath24bloodcirculation101,106bodysnatching101Boleyn,Ann6Bolivia95books3,4–5banned77,99,121CouncilofFlorence62massproductionof47–51 Mehmed II’s collection29politicaltheory54–6scientific99–101

womenand46,seealsoprintingbotany51,101,104,106Botticelli,Sandro12,67Bracciolini,Poggio28Bramante,Donato33,67Brazil90bridge-building110Brunelleschi62Brunfels,Otto106Bruni,Leonardo14,46,112‘Budomel’(chieftain)34Burckhardt,Jacob11–12,15,18,19

bureaucracy40–1,45ByzantineEmpire28,31,61,63

C

Cadamosto,Alvise34Cairo,Egypt24,34Calicut87,89Calvin,John70,77Camões,Luisde122–3Campeggio,Cardinal73–4camphor90

cannabis90CapeofGoodHope83–4,85,86,91,92CapeVerdeIslands83,85capitalism5,25,96Caradosso67,68caravels25Cardano,Geronimo101carpets23Casola,CanonPietro22–3Castile 84, 85, 90, 91, 92–3,96celestialglobes3,7Cervantes,Miguelde121

Charlemagne,Emperor122CharlesV,Emperor 7, 53–4,72–4,91,92,96charts 81, 82, 87, see alsomapschemistry104Chevrot, Jean, bishop ofTournai65China33,87,90chivalry122Christianity15,21,59–60churchattendance65conversions95culturalexchange62,63,

87mappaemundi79,87Platonism112–13usuryforbiddenby27Cicero41,42,44,55–6Ciceronianhumanists51Cimabue9cinnamon89Cinthio (GiambattistaGiraldi)120,122circumnavigation91–2,103civilengineering109–10,112classics 21–2, 62, 64, 86–7,99

epicpoetry122humanismand38,39–40,41–2,51,55 natural philosophy 110,112–14philology3revival9,11,28–9science105theatre124clergy64–5,69,70,77cloves89,91,92Colet,John52colonization 16, 93, 95–7,127,seealsoNewWorld

Columbus,Christopher5,10,34,84–5,90commerce 5, 22, 25–7, 28,103, 104–5, 124, see alsotradeconfirmation64,65Constance,Councilof(1414)61Constantine,Emperor58,67,75Constantinople (laterIstanbul) 21, 61, 62, 63, 67,81ConstanzodaMoysis,Seated

Scribe30–1Copernicus,Nicolaus 10, 99,100,101,106,108copper23,83Cortes,Hernando93cotton23,90courtlyculture117,122credit25,26,27Crusades23Cuba85cultural exchange62,64, 87,88,105currency5,26,27,103,124

D

da Gama, Vasco 86, 87, 89,122Damascus23,24,87,106DanteAlighieri11,117Davis,NatalieZemon17Defoe,Daniel121Descartes,René101dialectics39,70d’Este,Isabella48Diaz,Bartolomeu83–4,86Dinteville,Jeande3,6–7

disease24,95,104–5divinepredestination70divorce56,57Donatello62drugs89,90,104Dürer, Albrecht 37, 52, 53,91,108–9dyes23,90

E

ebony83,90education3,40–1,43–5, 46–

7,52egalitarianism11Egypt and Egyptians 21, 24,34,61,62,83,89ElizabethI,Queen70,123–4,125encomiendasystem95England6–7,48English literature9,16,117–18,119,120,121,124–7engraving50–1,52,108epicpoetry122–4Epicureanism112Erasmus, Desiderius 51–2,

55,71,77,113,121estatemanagement112EsteofFerrara122Ethiopians21,61,62,83Eucharist64,65,66Euclid62EugeniusIV,Pope58,61,62Europe5,7,19,79east-westtrade23economyof24,95globaldominance13internaltrade28nationstates78,seealsoimperialism

everydaylife17,119discoveriesimproving90 householdmanagement112humanistviewof45–6livingcosts95–6exchangerates27exoticanimals90,91exploration 5, 7, 10, 11, 34,81–97extremeunction64,65

F

fascism14feminism15Ferdinand,KingofCastile96Ferrara60,122Fibonacci,Leonardo25–6Ficino,Marsilio15,112–13Fiocco,Guiseppe24fish25,83Florence8,14,15,23clergynumbers64Councilof(1437)61–4 exploration sponsorship34Medicifamily27–8,54

republicanism60tradingmethods26Foucault,Michel17FraAngelico62,67France6–7,9,10,11,60,72,73,117,120–1FrancisI,King6,7,72,73Franco,Veronica119FrenchRevolution9,11frescos 62, 63, 64, 68, 74–5,76Freud,Sigmund126fruit90Fuchs,Leonhard101

Fuggers (merchant house)104,105Fust,Johann48

G

Galen105Galileo10,114Genoa23,26,34Genoese-Venetianwars24–5geography 51, 79–81, 106,seealsoexplorationgeometry3,26,46,101,103,

108GeorgeofTrebizond38,40–1GerardofCremona105Germany14Lutheranism70,71–3merchants34,35miningtechniques104 printing47–8,71–2,75,79ginger89,92Giotto9Giraldi, Giambattista seeCinthio

glass23,104globes3,5,35,37,84,91–3,103,seealsomapsgold23,33–4,37,83,84,85,90,93,95,104goldsmiths30Gozzoli,Benozzo62,63,64grain25grammar3,43,44,45Greeks3,61,62Greenblatt, Stephen 15–16,17guaiacum104Guarino Guarini of Verona

44–5Guillet,Pernettedu119gunpowder89,103Gutenberg,Johann48

H

Habsburg Empire 7, 53, 60,72,73,91,92,94,96,123Hagia Sophia, Istanbul 21,29,31,67Haiti85Harvey,William101

HenryVIII,King3,6,7,53,55,57,70,72,103heresy72,77,113Herodotus28Hindus87,89history3,9,15,16–17,43Hitler,Adolf14Holbein, Hans, TheAmbassadors1–8,16Holocaust17Homer29,122Hormuz90horses23,83,110,111HugoofSantalla105

Huizinga,Johan13–14humanism 3, 7, 14, 38–40,58,71,96,121civic15,46education40–1,43–5politicsof54–7printingand47–54womenand45–7humoraltheory104–5Hundred Years War (1336–1453)25,28,33,60Hutton,Ulrichvon104

I

Ibnal-Nafis106IbnSarabiyun106identity16,17idolatry70,73,77imperialism 6–7, 13, 16, 60,122–3,see also colonization;NewWorldIncaEmpire95India84,86,87,89,90,122indigenous populations 5–6,95,96

individualism1,9,10,11–12,49,113Indonesianarchipelago7,91indulgences68–9,77Inquisition77Ireland78,124iron25,105Islam60,73–4,78science86–7,105,106–8,110 usury forbidden by 27,seealsoArabsIsmail,Shah89Istanbul (formerly

Constantinople)21,28–9,31,38,67,87Italy10,14,15architecture31,33,67courtlyculture117 exploration sponsorship34 andtheOttomanEmpire28perpective108poetry122politicalauthority60,72Renaissancein11–12warfare14.24–5,seealso

individualcity–statesIvins,William50ivory36,37,83,90

J

Japan84,85,90Jesuits77Jews7,16,17,27,60,73,74,81,83JohnIII,KingofPortugal72John VIII Paleologus,Emperor61,62

Jonson,Ben126JosephII62JudaismseeJewsJuliusII,Pope31–2,75

K

Khowârizmî, Abu Ja’farMohammedibnMûsâal-26knowledge50–1,105Kristeller,PaulOscar14,15Kyd,Thomas120

L

Labé,Louise119Laertius28LasCasas,Bartoloméde96Latin43,51,52,55,58,72lead104Leonardo da Vinci 12, 109,111letter-writing40,43linguistics40–2,43Lisbon,Portugal83,86,90literacy39,49–50

literature 3, 9, 16, 17, 98–9,116–27Livy28,41logic3LowCountries30,60,72Loyola,Ignatius77Lucian55Ludovico Sforza,Duke 109–10,111Luther,Martin 4, 59, 68–74,75,77luxury goods 22, 23, 24, 25,90–1lyricpoetry117–18

M

Macau122Machiavelli, Niccolò 54–5,57,77,116Madeira83Magellan,Ferdinand5,91–2,93Maghreb chart (c. 1330) 81,82magic65,110Malacca90MamluksofEgypt21,22,89

Manutius,Aldus50maps86–7,91,93,94mappaemundi79,87Mercatorprojection101PiriReis87,88Ptolemy’s,Geography29,79–82,83,84,86,92refinements106,107 trigonometry 103, seealsocharts;globesMarlowe,Christopher16,98–9marriage64,65MartinV,Pope59,61,67

Marx,Karl126Massaccio62mathematics3,5,26,51,101,103,108Medicifamily27,37,54,62,63,64,113medicine104–6Mehmed II, Sultan 28–30,38–9,41,48,63,106,107Mercator,Gerard101merchants5,26–7,34–5, 81,87,89,96,104–5mercury95,104,105metaphysics113

Mexico93,95Michelangelo 9, 33, 67, 68,74,113Michelet,Jules9–11,12,19MiddleAges9,10,11,13Milan14,19–21,60Milton,John9,124mining95,96,104modernity 1, 10, 11–12, 15–16,126Moluccas7,91,92–3,94monarchism 45, 52–3, 54–5,60,125Montaigne, Michel de 10,

96–7,113–14Montezuma,Emperor93Moors21,37,73,74moralphilosophy3,40,43More,Thomas54,55–7,116,121Morocco81Motolinia,Fray96musicalinstruments3,4mythology122–3

N

Naples58,59,60,72Napoleon,EmperorofFrance14Nashe,Thomas121,122nationalism78naturalphilosophy110–15nature8navigation 3, 7, 81, 83, 86,91–2,103–4Nazism17Neoplatonism112–13,119Netherlands72NewWorld5,16,72,85,90,93,95–7,104,113,127

NicholasofCusa112NicholasV,Pope38,67Nigeria37Nogarola,Isotta46–7NorthAfrica21,24Nuremberg103nutmeg89,92

O

opium23,90optics108oratory42,43,56

ordination64OrthodoxChurch60,61–4OttomanEmpire6–7,21,22,60,89,110,122,126architecture31captureofConstantinople62,63cartography87,88expansionism72,73Mehmed28–30,38–9,41,48,63,106,107tradetariffs33–4

P

Pacioli,Luca101,109Panofsky,Erwin14papacy28,58–9,60–1,63–4,68–9, 74–5, 77, see alsoRomanCatholicChurchOrthodoxChurchpaper23Paracelsus104–5Paré,Ambroise103parody120–1Pater,Walter12,13,110,113

patronage 39, 41, 52, 109,117ofhumanisteducation45Medici113MehmedII30,87,106printedbooks48PaulII,Pope38,41PaulIII,Pope75,77PaulIV,Pope74penance64,68–9pepper34,83,89,92perfumes90Persia and Persians 21, 22,30,32,33,89,106–7

Peru95Petrarch 11, 41–2, 116, 117,119PhilipII,KingofSpain123Philippines92philology58,71philosophy3,8,58,96–7humanism39individualism10late20th-century17natural110–15andoratory42philosophiaChristia51–2political14–15,54–7

physics101physiology104Pico della Mirandola,Giovanni112,113PiriReis87,88Pizan,Christinede46Pizarro,Francisco93,95Plato38,62,110Platonism112–13Plautus124Plutarch62poetry43,55,117–24politics 3–4, 43, 45, 60, 72,78,125

explorationand89,91–2international6–7,28–9philosophyand54–7religionand58–64,70–4,126Polo,Marco84porcelain23,90portolans(charts)81,82Portugal7, 34–7, 36, 37, 60,72,84 African exploration 81,83–4 and ChristopherColumbus84,85

declineofempire122–3India86,87,89Moluccas91slavetrade96spicetrade90,93post-structuralism17postmodernism17preciousstones23,89printing4,7,39,77,79,116explorationanddiscovery90humanismand47–54literature120–1Lutheranismand71–2,75

science 108, see alsobooksprivateproperty56,74Protestantism 4, 49, 59, 69–74,77,78,123–4,126Psalms48Psalters62psychoanalysis15Ptolemy38,62,84Geography29,79–81,83,84,86,92motionofthespheres108translations106purgatory77

Q

quadrivium3,5QuintusCurtius28

R

Rabelais,François10,120–1Raphael67,74,75,76al-Razi106realism14Reformation59–60,67–74

Regiomontanus103relics65,77religion3–4,7,11,49,56intolerance6,74forthemasses64–6 politics and 12, 58–64,70–4,126printedimages51usuryforbidden27Renaissance:dating/namingdifferences9–1219thcenturyviewof12–13

19th-centuryviewof1920th-centuryviewof13–18republicanism10,12,14,45,60,125rhetoric 3, 38, 39, 40–6, 51,54,56,57,58–9,71,125Ribeiro,Diogo93,94RomanCatholicChurch4,6,49,61Councils61–4,75,77–8Counter-Reformation59,75–8 DonationofConstantine

58–9,75,76indexofforbiddenbooks77,99Reformation’seffectupon70,74–8restorationofRome67–9,see also clergy; OrthodoxChurch;papacyRome33,61,67Ronsard,Pierrede117Russia61

S

sacraments64–6,70,77StMark19–21St Peter’s basilica,Rome 33,67–8saintveneration65,69,77salt23,25,104saltcellars36,37,91Samarkand87SamorinofCalicut87SanMarco,Venice21sandalwood23,90,92Saracens122satin23satire120–1

Scepticism112Schöffer,Peter48science3,8, 10, 22, 98–110,114–15scribes30,31,32,48sculpture62Selvé,Georges de, bishop ofLavaur3,6–7Seneca120Senegal34September 11th terroristattacks(2001)18Shakespeare, William 9, 10,16,101,117–18,120,124–7

ships 25, 27, 103, see alsonavigationSidney,SirPhilip123SierraLeone37,83silk23,90silver23,33,90,93,95,104Sinan,MimarKoca31SistineChapel68,74slavetrade34,90,96slavery6,37,93,95SocietyofJesusseeJesuitssonnets117–18,119,125South America 90, 92, seealsoNewWorld

Spain 7, 24, 60, 72, 73, 74,84,90,123medicine105 NewWorldcolonies93,95–7poetry117Spenser,Edmund9,16, 113,123spices7,23,37,84,89,90–2,93Stalinism17statues110,111Stoicism112studia humanitatis 3, 38, 39,

40,42Sudan34sugar83Süleyman the Magnificent,Sultan6,30,72,73sulphur104,105surgery103surveying103Switzerland11–12,70,104syllogisms114syphilis104,105Syria23,24,87,106

T

Tabriz24tapestries30Tartaglia,Niccolò101,103Tartars21taxation33,34terrestrial globes 3, 5, 7, 35,37,92–3,103terrorism18textiles7,23,30,34,83,90theatre120,124–7theology112

timber23,25,83,89Titian9tobacco90Toledo,Spain105TopkapiSaray,Istanbul29Tordesillas, Treaty of (1494)85,91,92,93totalitarianism14trade7,25Africa34–7Christian-Muslim81Constantinople29east-west22–3explorationand83

NewWorld90north-southEurope28slave34,90,96tariffs33–4,81,seealsospicestranslations40–1,55,71, 72,79biblical51medicaltexts105–6naturalphilosophy112scientifictexts106transubstantiation theory 64,77Trebizond61

Trent, Council of (1545) 75,77–8trigonometry103trivium3tulips23,90Tunis34Tusicoupletheorem106,108

U

UnitedStates15–16,17Urbino60usury27

utopianism 56–7, 114–15,121

V

Valla,Lorenzo58–9,75vanderWeyden,Roger65–6vanEyck,Jan13vanitasimages8Vega,Garcilasodela117vegetables90velvet23,90Venice9,89

architectureof24east-westtrade22–3,25 exploration sponsorship34goldsmiths30medicalscience106patronsaintof21republicangovernment60tradingmethods26warwithGenoa24–5womenwriters119vernacular languages 9, 49,55,72,116,117–18Vesalius, Andreas 99, 101,

102,106,109Vespucci,Amerigo90Vienna, siege of (1529–32)30,72Virgil41–2,122,126–7Visconti, Duke Giangaleazzo14

W

wages95warfare14,24–5,28,33,60,103

wealth accumulation 24–8,90–1, 95, see alsocolonization;tradeweaponry103,109Webster,John120weightsandmeasures26WestAfrica83,96wheat83Whitney,Isabella119women:andhumanism45–7andscience109statusof6writers118–20

Wyatt,SirThomas117

Z

zoology101,104Zuazo,Alonso96Zwingli,Huldreich77