(^62) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
French aggression. From the late 1490s through most of the sixteenth century, Italy became
a battleground in a war for supremacy between European monarchs.
Once the isolation of the Italian peninsula was shattered, the ideals and values of the
Renaissance spread from Italy through a variety of agents:
• Artisans, teachers, theatrical troupes, and musicians migrating out of Italy
• Students who came to study in Italy and then returned home
• European merchants whose interests now penetrated the peninsula
• Various lay groups seeking to spread their message of piety
• The use of the vernacular, as opposed to Latin, for religious, economic, and socio-
cultural writings
However, the major cause of the spread of Renaissance ideals and values was the print-
ing press. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the German city of Mainz in about 1445 in
response to increased demand for books from an increasingly literate public, the moveable-
type printing press allowed for faster, cheaper, mass-produced books to be created and
distributed throughout Europe. By 1500, between fifteen and twenty million books were in
circulation. Among the ideas that spread with the books were the thoughts and philosophies
of the Renaissance humanists, which were both adopted and transformed in northern Europe.
The most important and influential of the northern humanists was Desiderius Erasmus,
sometimes referred to as “the prince of the humanists.” Spreading the Renaissance belief
in the value of education, Erasmus made his living as an educator. He taught his students
both the Latin language and lessons on how to live a good life from Latin dialogues that he
wrote himself. Published under the title of Colloquies, Erasmus’s dialogues also displayed the
humanist’s faith in both the power of learning and the ability of man by satirizing the old
scholastic notions that the truth about God and nature could be discerned only by priests.
Erasmus argued instead that, by mastering ancient languages, any man could teach himself
to read both the Bible and the works of an array of ancient philosophers, thereby learning
the truth about God and nature for himself.
In France, England, and Spain, the existence of strong monarchies meant that the
Renaissance was centered in the royal courts. In the smaller, independent German prov-
inces, the characteristics of the Renaissance were absorbed into a tradition of lay piety,
where organized groups, such as the Brethren of Common Life, promoted pious behavior
and learning outside the bureaucracy of the church. In that context, German scholars, such
as Martin Luther, who were educated in a context that combined the humanistic and lay
piety traditions, would be prominent in the creation of the Reformation.
Review Questions
Multiple Choice
Questions 1 through 3 refer to the following passage:[Considering the origin of ] grace, I find one universal rule concerning it, which seems to me
worth more in this matter than any other in all things human that are done or said: and that
is to avoid affectation to the uttermost and as it were a very sharp and dangerous rock; and,
to use possibly a new word, to practice in everything a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura] that
shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost
without thought. From this I believe grace is in large measure derived, because everyone knows
the difficulty of those things that are rare and done well, and therefore facility in them excites
the highest admiration.PRACTICE10_Bartolini_Ch10_057_064.indd 62 27/04/18 1:54 PM