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read and translate the works. This
led to the emergence of Renaissance
Humanism in Italy, which involved
studying the humanities—grammar,
rhetoric, history, philosophy, and
poetry—and, more broadly, a high
regard for the dignity and potential
of the human race.
At the time of the Renaissance,
life, business, and politics in Italy
were dominated by a number ofBRUNELLESCHI DESIGNS THE DOME OF FLORENCE CATHEDRAL
Michelangelo’s painted ceiling
at the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
combines the Renaissance interest
in physical beauty and realism with
religious subject matter.powerful city-states—mainly
Florence, Milan, Ferrara, and
Venice—together with Rome,
from where the pope could exercise
great secular (“temporal”) power
as well as being the spiritual head
of the Catholic Church. The city-
states generated a lot of wealth
from trade and—as in the case of
Florence—banking. Their ruling
families, such as the Gonzaga inRenaissance painters and sculptors
sought to represent the physical
world in a more realistic way than
their Medieval predecessors: they
valued anatomical accuracy and
developed scientific methods of
illustrating perspective. As in
classical art, there was more focus
on human beauty and the nude.
There was also a revival of
interest in classical learning, which
was influenced by Greek scholars
from the Byzantine Empire, who
settled in Italy when Constantinople
(the empire’s capital) fell in 1453.
The émigrés brought with them
ancient Greek literary, historical,
and philosophical texts, which had
been lost to the West, and taught
the Italians Greek so they couldThe idea of the Renaissance Man, whose expertise
and curiosity extends to a range of diverse subjects,
reflects the great thinkers of the era: polymaths such
as Leonardo da Vinci, who mastered disciplines from
art to science.Humanism placed
mankind at the center
of the universe. It gave
the credit for human
accomplishments to
people instead of God.The rediscovery
of classical texts
inspired thinkers to
emulate and even
surpass the work of
philosophers such
as Aristotle.Renaissance artists
made several great
achievements, which
were inspired by the
discovery of lifelike
Greek and Roman
sculpture, and aided
by a new understanding
of perspective.Science and a growing
knowledge of how the
world works contributed
to fields as diverse as
architecture and medicine.US_152-155_Brunelleschi_Duomo_Florence.indd 154 16/02/2016 16:38
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Mantua, the d’Este in Ferrara, the
Sforza in Milan, and the Medici in
Florence, spent lavishly on palaces,
churches, and works of art, and
became patrons of many great
Renaissance artists. These wealthy
families also encouraged the revival
of classical learning by employing
scholars as tutors for their children.
In addition, several members of the
Medici family became popes.Spread of the Renaissance
From the end of the 15th century,
the Renaissance spread from Italy
to other parts of Europe and a
Northern Renaissance emerged.
Northern countries, particularly
the Netherlands and Germany,
produced their own great artists,
such as Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528)
and Hans Holbein the Younger
(1497–1543)—both gifted realists.
Renaissance Humanism also spread
northward, but northern writers
and philosophers, most notably
Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536),
tended to place more emphasis on
Christianity, education, and reform
than their Italian counterparts.
The invention of printing
using movable type by Johannes
Gutenberg in Germany in the
1430s enabled Renaissance ideas
to spread even more quickly. Before
Gutenberg, the only way printedtext was possible was for each page
to be carved by hand into a block of
wood, but as this was so laborious
books were invariably written out by
hand. Gutenberg’s method involved
arranging individual metal letters
and punctuation symbols in lines
and pages; when many copies of
a page had been printed, the type
could be taken apart and reused.
He combined this new idea with
the existing technology of paper-
making and the kind of press used
in wine production, and the result
was the printing of multiple copies
of books for the first time.
Gutenberg’s invention had a
major impact. It meant that books,
which had previously been costly
and took months to produce, were
now easily available and much
more affordable, so ideas and
information could circulate quickly
and reach more people. While the
church had used mostly Latin as
its universal language, writers now
wrote in their local tongues, and as
a result literature in French, English,
German, and other languages
flourished. In addition, copies of the
ancient classics were reproduced
in quantity, thus helping to spread
ideas that were central to both the
Renaissance and Humanism.The Renaissance’s impact
By the mid-16th century, the
influence of the Renaissance was
waning in southern Europe, but it
lasted slightly longer in the north.
However, many great Renaissance
works endured and they continued
to inspire future generations of
painters and architects. Indeed, the
longstanding popularity of oil
paintings and classical style of
architecture, and the rise of
Humanism, would all have been
impossible without the movement
that began with Brunelleschi in
Florence in the 15th century. ■THE EARLY MODERN ERA
Filippo Brunelleschi
Born in Florence, Filippo
Brunelleschi (1377–1446) was
the son of a civil servant, who
educated Filippo in the hope
that he would follow in his
footsteps. However, Filippo
was artistically talented and
instead trained as a goldsmith
and a clockmaker before
becoming an architect. When
he was around 25, he traveled
to Rome with his friend, the
sculptor Donatello, where he
studied the remains of ancient
Roman buildings and read the
treatise On Architecture by
the Roman writer Vitruvius.
In 1419, he won his first major
commission—the design of an
orphanage, the Ospedale degli
Innocenti in Florence, which,
with its arched loggia, is one
of the first great Renaissance
buildings. A number of other
fine works, including chapels
in Florentine churches and
fortifications for the city,
cemented his reputation, but
the stunning dome of Il Duomo
is his masterpiece. In addition
to his buildings, Brunelleschi
did important work on the
theory of linear perspective,
and designed machinery to
produce special effects in
theatrical productions.For the wise man
there is nothing
invisible.
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