1. Classical Humanism in the Age of the Renaissance
Chapter 16
Classical Humanism in the Age of the Renaissance

2. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, The Effects of Good and Bad Government in the Town, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

3. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the City, from the Allegory of Good Government, Sala della Pace, Palazzo, Siena

4. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Effects of Good Government in the Country, from the Allegory of Good Government, Sala della Pace, Palazzo, Siena

5. Bad Government by Ambrogio Lorenzetti
Fresco, Palazzo Publico, Sienahttp://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Religion402/Architecture/BadGovernment.htm

6. Renaissance
1300~1600
= revival of classicism
= rebirth

7. Myths 1. “Death” of classical learning in the Middle Ages.
2. A medieval “age of faith” vs. “Renaissance paganism”
3. There exists one single Renaissance position.

8. Classical Humanism
An elitist educational and cultural program based on the study of ancient Greek and Latin classics.

9. Food for thought
Where were Greco-Roman texts preserved during the Middle Ages?
How many times did classical revival take place during the Middle Ages?
How did the Renaissance revival of humanism differ from that of its medieval counterparts?

10. “Renaissance humanists discovered in the Greek and Latin classics a rational guide to the fulfillment of human potential” (Fiero 369).

11. Renaissance Classicism
1. A greater quantity and variety of classical texts were available.
2. Classical models were adopted in art, not to glorify God, but for their own sake—for its clear and graceful style and for its insight into human nature.
3. The culture was more worldly and overtly materialistic.

12. Individualism
In contrast to medieval thinker, who emphasized the Christian belief in human sinfulness, Renaissance figures revived the classical confidence in human capacities to achieve excellence.

13. Influences The ideal of the “universal man,” or the “Renaissance man.”
Emphasis on the pragmatic use of knowledge: rhetoric, science, and art
A revolutionary view of history: the belief in progress

14. Food for thought
Why Italy?

16. Italy South: Kingdom of Naples Middle: the Papal States North:
Venice: merchant oligarchy
Milan: dynastic despotism
Florence: a republic in name only, actually ruled by the Medici

17. Florence

18. Europe's First Euro The Florin of Florence

19. Cosimo de’ Medici
pater patriae

20. Lorenzo de’ Medici
The Magnificent

21. Petrarch 1304-1374 Father of Humanism
poet laureate
Petrarch
Father of Humanism
“When it comes to thinking or speaking of religion, that is, of the highest truth I certainly am not a Ciceronian or a Platonist but a Christian.”
Famous as a forerunner of Christian humanists and for his sonnets

22. Petrarchan Sonnet An octave (8 lines) followed by a sestet (6 lines).
Subject matter: the hopes and pains of an adoring male lover
Conceit: a figure of speech which establishes a striking parallel, usually ingeniously elaborate, between two very dissimilar things or situations.

23. Ficino
Translated the entire corpus of Plato’s writings from Greek into Latin
Cosimo de’ Medici established the Platonic Academy in Florence.
Renaissance Neoplatonism
Platonic love: a major theme in art

24. Two Theories of Art
Da Vinci believed that "the most praiseworthy painting [was that] which has the most conformity with the object imitated.“
Michelangelo believed that: "the greatest artist has no conception which a single block of marble does not potentially contain within its mass, but only a hand which obeys the intelleto [i.e. the deep knowing of reality] can accomplish that."

25. Pico
Translated a lot of ancient literary works in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Greek
The manifesto of humanism: Oration on the Dignity of Man

26. “What a great miracle is man” (Pico, Oration)

27. Alberti 1404-1474 On the Family “Man can do anything he wants.”
Virtù: “power,” describes the self-confident vitality of the self-made Renaissance individual

28. Alberti
“Only my books and records and those of my ancestors did I determine to keep well sealed These my wife not only could not read, she could not even lay hands on them. I kept my records at all times Locked up and arranged in order in my study I never gave my wife permission to enter that place, with me or alone ”

29. Alberti
“[Husbands] who take counsel with their wives are madmen if they think true prudence or good counsel lies in the female brain ”
“I made it a rule never to speak with [my wife] of anything but household matters or questions of conduct, or of the children.

30. Castiglione 1478-1529 The Book of the Courtier
L’uomo universale: the Renaissance man; the well-rounded person

31. Female Humanists Laura Cereta (1468-1499)
Defense of Liberal Instruction of Women
Lucretia Marinella ( )
The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects of Vices of Men

32. Female Humanists "Did Women Have a Renaissance?"

33. Machiavelli The Prince 1469-1527 politics divorced from ethics
The pragmatic use of power for state management
The end justifies the means.

34. The End