Encyclopedia of the Renaissance and the Reformation

(Bozica Vekic) #1

Denmark he was imprisoned for spreading heretical ideas,
but, undeterred, he soon afterwards established the first
Danish Lutheran congregation at Viborg. He was ap-
pointed royal chaplain (1526) and his preaching at
Copenhagen won support from the Danish national as-
sembly (1529); he then drew up a radical confession of
faith for the Danish Church, but this was later rejected in
favor of the more conciliatory Confession of AUGSBURG. A
firm believer in the use of the vernacular for ecclesiastical
purposes. Tausen wrote sermons and hymns and trans-
lated sections of the Old Testament. In 1542 he was ap-
pointed bishop of Ribe.


Taverner, John (c. 1490–1545) English composer
Taverner served as a lay clerk at the collegiate church of
Tattershall in Lincolnshire in the early 1520s, and in 1525
was invited by the bishop of Lincoln to become the first
choirmaster at Cardinal College (now Christ Church),
Oxford. He took up the post in 1526, but left four years
later when the college began to be run down after
WOLSEY’s fall from favor. He returned to Lincolnshire and
became master of the choristers at the parish church of St.
Botolph, Boston. By 1537 he had left the post but re-
mained in Boston, where he died as a highly respected,
wealthy local dignitary. Generally regarded as the greatest
English composer of the early 16th century, he wrote eight
Masses, 28 motets, and three secular pieces. The motets
include antiphons, Magnificat settings, and responds; in
the last, plainsong cantus firmi with equal note values are
treated polyphonically. There are three six-voice festal
Masses written in an archaic style based on a plainsong
material with long melismas and constructional devices;
these are the last examples from almost a century of the
English festal Mass. Taverner’s famous Western Wynde
Mass is on a smaller scale. It is for four voices and consists
of a series of variations on a popular melody.


Tè, Palazzo del The palace on the outskirts of Mantua
constructed (c. 1525–35) by GIULIO ROMANOfor Federico
II Gonzaga. Challenging classical principles and combin-
ing the elegance and sophistication of Raphael and
Michelangelo, Giulio created the structure in brick and
terracotta (local stone being unavailable) as one of the ear-
liest masterpieces of mannerist architecture. The most
dramatic of the palace’s decorative features is the Sala dei
Giganti, painted by Giulio from floor to ceiling with fres-
coes of the fall of the Titans with over-lifesize bodies of
tumbling giants and hurtling rocks.


Teatro Farnese See THEATERS


Teatro Olimpico See THEATERS


technology The Renaissance saw a number of major
technological innovations, four of which (PRINTING, GUN-


POWDER, mechanical CLOCKS, and the mastery of ocean
NAVIGATION) brought about fundamental changes in the
nature of society and transformed the course of world his-
tory. The first of these, printing, dates from the invention
of movable type in the period 1440–50. This in turn was
only made possible by the introduction of paper, via China
and Islam, into early 14th-century Italy. Before 1500 some
20 million INCUNABULA were published, an operation
scarcely conceivable without the benefit of printing and
paper. Gunpowder, an earlier invention attributed to
Roger Bacon in the 13th century, was first seen in its full
significance in Europe in the early 14th century. At the
same time mechanical clocks began to spread across Eu-
rope. A century later improvements in ship design, the de-
velopment of more efficient sails, and the introduction of
CANNONon the main deck gave the merchants of Europe
the basic equipment with which to dominate world trade.
Within Renaissance Europe itself, the main sources of
power remained wind and water. The windmill first ar-
rived in Europe in the late 12th century in the form of the
post-mill, in which a change in wind direction required
the whole of the mill’s superstructure to be realigned. The
less cumbersome tower-mill first appeared in the late 14th
century. Although initially used for grinding corn they
later came to be used mainly for raising water. More ver-
satile and more ancient were the water wheels that spread
extensively throughout Europe; by the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution some 600,000 had been con-
structed. With their aid a range of new industries became
possible. Used to drive tilt hammers, mechanical saws,
bellows, pumps, and beaters they were partly responsible
for the growth of, among others, the paper, iron, tanning,
and fulling industries. Before power could be conveniently
deployed, however, it was first necessary to convert the ro-
tary motion of the mill into the reciprocating motion of
the hammer or saw. It was also necessary to provide effi-
cient and adaptable systems of gears. To this end the Re-
naissance engineer displayed his ingenuity with the
deployment of cranks, compound cranks, flywheels, and
cam shafts (see illustration p. 404).
The Renaissance also saw the development of a num-
ber of smaller if more specialized industries. In CERAMICS,
for example, a growing confidence in the use of glazes al-
lowed 14th-century Italian potters to produce MAJOLICA
ware. At about the same time colored GLASSbegan to be
produced in Venice. Both these, and such other industries
as distilling, dyeing, and tanning, depended at least partly
on the skills of the chemist who began to figure more
prominently in the technology of his age. Less successful
were the attempts of Renaissance engineers to improve
means of inland transport (see COMMUNICATIONS). The
means and speeds suffered by the 14th-century traveler
were precisely those endured by a comparable 18th-
century figure. Goods could, thus, take longer to travel a
few miles by road than to be shipped scores of miles by

tteecchhnnoollooggyy 4 45599
Free download pdf